Creatives

A LIFE HOBBY

Creating is a practice in healing. For JR Barela, woodworking and silversmithing has become a way to embrace life after recovering from open heart surgery nine years ago.

“I realized that life is a miracle,” he says.

“I can see God move in different ways.”

Some of that miraculous movement happens through his hands as he continues to push himself to create new designs and learn new silversmithing techniques.

Recently his son, Chad Barela, whom he mentored in jewelry making, reversed roles and taught his father how to tufa cast. The result was two sterling crosses and a naja that JR says turned out on the first try, which, for anyone who knows the labor-intensive art of tufa casting will agree is a miracle in itself.

“I get most of my creativity from him although we are different,” says Chad. “I see him as a free thinker and he doesn’t have boundaries, whereas I’m stricter about how I work. He has a sense of freedom when he creates that is difficult for other artists to maintain. He doesn’t have rules, and for him that’s fun and makes it more valuable.”

JR, who primarily sells his work at the ABQ Collective, also maintains an Instagram account – @jrbarela1. He says a visual diary is helpful for him to remember his most popular designs, because he is always growing and struggles to reproduce a design over and over again. Therefore, even though designs such as his sterling and turquoise Zia pendants and antler designs reappear regularly, no two are ever the same.

“I want to keep moving forward and I’ll forget what was hot before,” he says.

Part of the individuality of each piece of JR Barela jewelry is in his techniques, which include inlay, overlay, stamping and hand-sawing. A theme he enjoys working with is a silver overlay Dia de los Muertos skull pendants and rings. Each one is like a fingerprint, unique and full of personality.

“People tell me that my work is so diverse and that I don’t have one style,” he says. “To me, one style is boring. I like to see these babies come about, and I find beauty in everything.”

Much of his work is influenced by his faith and New Mexico roots which manifest in designs like his sacred hearts and cross jewelry, as well as wooden crosses with silver accents. He shares a studio in his backyard with his wife Josie, who is a candle and soap maker. It’s there that he often sits at his bench and just sees what comes together.

“If you have a little bit of an idea where you want to go, just take the first step,” says JR. “I like to see what comes about, and I don’t like throwing things away.”

Using a collection of branch coral that he had been saving for years, he recently created a unique pendant. First, he hand cut a heart-shaped bezel and stamped the edges. Next, he used his stash of branch coral to inlay the center to create a oneof-a-kind pendant that almost looks like it belongs in the inside of a body.

JR is comfortable working with many techniques because he’s been at it a while. Growing up in the Albuquerque North Valley, he lived across the street from famed artist Ralph Serna. As a kid, Serna would hire him to look after his livestock while he was on the road doing jewelry and art shows. JR says this might have been his first introduction to the possibilities of art.

His jewelry journey began 40 years ago when he started working with his then brother-in-law, Ernie Montoya, the present day owner of Southwest Silver. At the time, Montoya had a small shop called Firebird Trading on 4th Street. It was the 1970s, and Southwestern jewelry was in style.

“Ernie saw that I was good with my hands,” he says. “He had me hand cut turquoise and tortoise shell beads and string them on musical wire. I had to put tape on my fingers to keep them from grinding off.”

After this introduction into jewelry making, JR says he became the “roach clip king,” designing and creating sterling roach clips with turquoise accents that sold like hotcakes. Next in his education from Montoya was learning to do handcut molds for lost wax casts. Eventually he set his jewelry work aside to focus on a different career, and in 2021 he retired from the Rail Runner.

However, it was around 2010 that he says he sat down at the bench again, coming home every day after work to pick up the hammer and torch and get back into silversmithing. Today it’s a retirement hobby that has become a business, though he says he never wants it to feel like work.