Season 9 of Perceived Value, CONNECTOR, began with a trip to Colombia.
In early 2025, Sarah Rachel Brown traveled to Colombia, meeting artists, visiting studios, and learning more about the creative communities there. Those conversations became the starting point for a new season of Perceived Value, continuing the podcast’s focus on the financial, professional, and logistical realities of making a living as an artist. Across the season, Colombian artists shared how they built their careers, supported their practices, and navigated the realities of working in the arts.
But the project quickly became more than a podcast. The connections Sarah made in Colombia led to an exhibition at Gallery Loupe, co-curated with Colombian artist Ana María Jiménez, featuring the work of 16 Colombian jewelry artists. The exhibition and podcast came together under the name CONNECTOR.
It was the beginning of what would become the CONNECTOR platform: an evolving project built around the simple idea that bringing people together can create opportunities, conversations, and relationships that would not otherwise happen.
The first CONNECTOR Gatherings took place during New York City Jewelry Week in 2025, alongside the exhibition opening and the release of the podcast series. From there, the idea grew into gatherings, travel, and other ways to create connections across the jewelry and craft communities.
What started with a trip to Colombia became the beginning of something much bigger.
Host Sarah Rachel Brown records from the family home and studio of jeweler and author Nicolás Estrada just outside Medellín, Colombia. The two discuss Nicolás’s path from growing up in Colombia during the height of violence to studying business abroad, discovering contemporary jewelry in Barcelona, and returning home after more than two decades away.
In this episode of Perceived Value, host Sarah Rachel Brown sits down with Bogotá-based artist and designer Marcela Rozo, founder of the textile brand Please Rain. Together they discuss Marcela’s journey from economics and public policy to handmade textiles, her role at Materia Prima Escuela de Joyería, and how she’s redefining what it means to build a creative life rooted in craft and community.
In this episode of Perceived Value, host Sarah Rachel Brown sits down with Bogotá-based jeweler and educator Simón Mazuera to discuss his evolution from industrial design to contemporary jewelry, his experiences studying in Barcelona and Belgium, and the realities of sustaining a creative practice in Colombia.
From Bogotá, Colombia, Sarah speaks with artists Linda Margarita Sánchez Méndez and Tatiana Apráez, co-founders of Materia Prima Escuela de Joyería, about building a jewelry school from scratch, sustaining creative community, and reimagining what it means to make and teach in Colombia.
Season 9 of Perceived Value launches October 7 with CONNECTOR, a series of interviews with Colombian jewelry artists recorded during host Sarah Rachel Brown’s first visit to Colombia. Inspired by Malcolm Gladwell’s idea of a Connector, this season also parallels an international exhibition co-curated with Medellín-based artist Ana María Jiménez, opening November 15 at Gallery Loupe in Montclair, NJ.
