Son Madrinas: Tatiana Apráez & Linda Margarita Sánchez Méndez of Materia Prima Escuela de Joyería
In the 84th episode of Perceived Value, host Sarah Rachel Brown records from Bogotá, Colombia, where she visits Materia Prima Escuela de Joyería, a jewelry school founded in 2015 by Linda Margarita Sánchez Méndez and Tatiana Apráez. What began as two friends sharing tools and rent has grown into a vibrant creative hub for jewelers, ceramicists, and artists across Latin America.
In this conversation, Linda and Tatiana reflect on the origins of their school, the challenges of sustaining an independent art space, and the lessons learned through a decade of growth—surviving the pandemic, moving into Tatiana’s historic home, and building a community rooted in generosity and collaboration.
Looking ahead, they share their hopes for Materia Prima’s next chapter: artist residencies, international exchanges, and new ways to celebrate Colombia’s rich jewelry traditions.
📍 CONNECTOR: Jewelry as a Language of Connection opens November 15, 2025, at Gallery Loupe in Montclair, New Jersey—just ahead of New York City Jewelry Week.
🎓 To U.S.-based listeners: Ana María will be a visiting artist at The Bench Jewelry Studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on November 7–8, teaching her workshop Exploring Alternative Casting and Forging, where participants will learn pre-Hispanic metalsmithing techniques.
🎧 This episode is sponsored by SNAG Metalsmith, the publication of the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG). Subscribe and save 25% with code VALUE25 at snagmetalsmith.org.
Linda Margarita Sánchez Méndez
Linda Margarita Sánchez Méndez is a Colombian artist who enjoys exploring different materials. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Escola Massana (Barcelona, Spain), where she studied artistic jewelry, and a Master’s degree in Applied Arts with an emphasis in metals from Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills, MI, USA). Although jewelry is her primary language, Linda is dedicated to listening to and learning the dialects of diverse materials.
Linda co-founded and continues to co-manage Materia Prima Escuela-Taller in Bogotá, expanding learning opportunities for jewelers in the field and for anyone interested in studying jewelry. Her professional experience has developed across multiple settings: she began as a studio assistant for jewelers Claudia Vallejo and Mariana Shuck, later taught basic jewelry at Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano and Fundación San José in Bogotá, and has also worked as a consultant in collection development for the Guacamayas community through Artesanías de Colombia, in artisanal process consulting for the Wayuu community in La Guajira (through ACDI/VOCA), and in brand development for NAM (Fabian Hirose Consulting).
She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, the Netherlands, Mexico, the United States, and Colombia. She was part of the traveling group exhibition “THINK TWICE: New Latin American Jewelry,” shown at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in New York, the Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design in Tallinn, the Franz Mayer Museum in Mexico City, and the Centro de las Artes in Monterrey. She also took part in the 10th Crisol Salon at the Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá (MAMBO). Her work was featured simultaneously in two group exhibitions—Proliferation and Still Processing—at SNAG in the Steuben Gallery, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, USA.
Her piece “Corazón de Alcachofa” received an honorable mention in the Traza Artesanal Award (2011). She also received the Director’s MFA Scholarship from Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, USA) and a Cranbrook Fellowship to study textile techniques at Haystack Mountain School of Craft in Deer Isle, Maine, USA.
TATIANA APRÁEZ
Tatiana Apráez is a Colombian jeweler, designer, and educator known for integrating traditional techniques into contemporary jewelry. Founder and director of Tatiana Apráez Joyas and co-founder of Materia Prima, she has received numerous national and international awards, with her work now part of the permanent collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Through her jewelry, teaching, and curatorial work, Tatiana bridges Colombia’s ancestral craft heritage with contemporary design.
