One of the losses of Spring 2020 were plans to present a student marketplace at Craft Contemporary, here in Los Angeles. By Summer, eight resilient Jewelry students were meeting for weekly Zoom calls to establish Straw Factory. The motivator for our collective was to build opportunities to show our work despite the lack of in-person exhibitions. The name is derived from our fairie tale jewelry club, where students ‘spin straw into gold’.

The Straw Factory created an online platform where new and upcoming jewelry students can show and sell work while jumpstarting their careers, thestrawfactory.com

What is the moment in doing this that you will remember 10 years from now?

LL - The moment I will remember was the first time I opened our first draft of the Straw Factory web page. It became very real and lit a fire under me - “hey finish those pieces you are going to list...this is it!”

AM - What I will remember most is more than a moment, it was finding friendship and camaraderie during very difficult and heartbreaking times. The support of this group, and our professor has been life saving. Hopefully ten years from now this collective is still running and supporting more talented students.

What kept you sane putting this together?

AM - What kept me sane was the other members of the collective. Having goals and dates to meet kept me going. Trying to accomplish something like this on my own would have been an insurmountable task. I now feel far more prepared to manage my own website.

AR - The group kept me sane. I told them this so much. I have been through a BFA metals program and while I cherish my time there, the Straw Factory is the community I was really looking for. They are amazing. Finding the right group of people, the right community is half the battle. No one does any of this alone.

What is important about the pieces you are making right now?

AM - The pieces I am making right now are my response to the crisis of our natural world. The Pangolin Earrings reflect the need for nature to have a shield to survive human interference. The damage done will be insurmountable unless we address it.

AS - In a culture that often tries to erase my Queer, latinx community, I aim to make jewelry that uplifts us. I make these pieces so that we can continue to unapologetically embrace our boldness and our braveness.

What does success look like to you?

LL - Success to me is actually selling jewelry to someone who appreciates the design, the intent, wants to talk about it, wants to touch it.

CA - When my workflow creates pieces that reflect my inner life and simultaneously allows enough salary to live simply yet comfortably, if I can create pieces that tell stories about myself and how I translate the environment around me, then I can say I am a success.

What advice can you give to another group that might want to do this?

AM - We began this process by establishing: ground rules for discussions, decision making methods, note taking and most importantly what our main objective was. It is vital that the whole group is on the same page. Also, you must be committed to make concessions, listen to every voice and step up for tasks.

Did this end up being what you imagined?

LL - I wasn’t fully prepared for keeping the SF web page a living, breathing tool for all of the students that come after us. It’s humbling and scary and exciting at the same time. This makes me want to do right by my colleagues.

AR - It is not what I imagined in the very beginning, it grew so much. We met every week for months to work on this and it kind of morphed, in a totally amazing way, from a Holiday Sale idea to the first iteration of a whole platform for students to learn to launch a career from. It’s so much better than I imagined, I think it’s better than we all imagined.