Fire is an invitation to reclaim ancient techniques hat spark energy inside and out.
Hidden behind a serene and open smile, the melodic voice that is almost a whisper, the elegant bearing, built over twenty years of a career in classical dance, Rachel conceals a restless nature. It gradually reveals itself as she tells her life story, filled with radical choices and deep reflections on the artistic meaning of her work.
Dance admits no half-measures. A career as a professional dancer entails complete dedication, grueling training, a pared-down personal life, and a body constantly subjected to painful injuries. It's a finite choice that allows no second thoughts. Rachel had decided she would hang up her ballet shoes around the age of 28, when she wouldn't be too old to start something new. In 1998, she mingled with freshmen and enrolled at the Pratt School of Architecture in New York, embarking on a path that revealed intriguing synergies with her past as a dancer.
For fourteen years, Rachel designs luxurious residences and imaginative commercial spaces, first working for exclusive New York firms and then opening her own studio in Brooklyn. (red.).
But Rachel is receptive, ambitious, constantly active, and almost restless, against a daily routine that appears to her year after year as too sedentary and far from her continuously moving nature.
At the moment when she happens to inherit the incredible collection of Victorian jewelry from her family, Rachel is already prepared for a new artistic and entrepreneurial challenge.
Art jewelry is an entirely new field that Rachel approaches with a continuous state of learning. It's a unique opportunity to return to the physical process of creating objects, to a deep connection with materials, and to an art form closely tied to the body in its most emotional expression.
Just a few years after its launch in 2017, the jewelry line bearing her name (http://www.rachelweld.com) received significant recognition from the Women's Jewelry Association.
In her pieces, Rachel applies the architectural language on a more intimate scale, recreating the same harmony in volumes and the same grace in details. However, the creative process is completely different.
Fire is no longer confined solely to beautifully computer-designed fireplaces for luxurious residences; it has become a central element of the project itself, a companion at the workbench. In jewelry, the true essence of fire is used. Its power is necessary to bend, shape, and weld a hard and primitive material like metal. And it is precisely this that captivates Rachel every day.
In creative professions, the presence of fire aids concentration, encourages inventiveness, and promotes the flow of ideas.
Would you like a fire, but a fireplace seems too demanding? There are pellet stoves, practical and beautiful.
