Shoes in the seventies; and master Jorge Ramírez’s workshop (Dilson), located in the district Las Cañitas in Santo Domingo. Example taken: Standard model. Artist: Claudio Emilio Herrera. Work: Men’s Footwear. Production process. This is a five-step process. First, the model is cut from leather or paper, and then the pieces are cut: First the body of the shoe and then the insole. This cut is defined by the vamp (front part of the shoe that includes the sides and the top), the heel (back part that is joined to the vamp to form the shoe) and the toe cap (the piece that covers the point of the shoe). The preparation consists of assembling the different parts of the shoe to give it shape (this is the structure shoemakers call the cut). The fourth step is the assembly proper, which completes the shoe around the shoetree, the body of the shoe, the insole, the arch, (a metal sheet placed between the insole and the sole, under the arch of the foot), the sole, and the heel. Lastly, finishing touches are given to the shoe. Once the shoe tree has been taken out, the following steps are taken finishing (consisting of placing cushioning to protect and bring comfort to the foot), polishing, shining and packing of the shoe.
–Artisanal Jewelry Artisanal jewelry is the activity that allows for the manufacturing of jewelry in different metals such as silver, platinum and copper, as well as precious and semiprecious stones. In the case of the Dominican Republic, artisanal jewelry uses only semiprecious stones such as amber and larimar, although malaquite, jade and turquoise have been used. The use of amber and larimar makes this technique particularly Dominican, since both possess characteristics that are unique to the island. Dominican amber is considered to be among the best in the world if not the best. In the case of larimar, it is considered the only turquoise colored pectolite in the world. Authentic Dominican jewelry was established more than 60 years ago, the best known being that manufactured by the Perez brothers, and subsequently by artisans that graduated from institutions that taught the technique, as well as by self- taught artisans. Jewelers know this process by the name of lapidary. At the beginning lapidaries were formed by joining the stones with synthetic material such as yellow and white silk thread.
The work that resulted from the process of cutting and threading the stones does not correspond to what is known today as artisanal jewelry. However, expert artisans such as Jorge Caridad, Evangelio Sierra and Franklin R. Kelly, believe that artisanal jewelry is the combination of the stone cutting or lapidary with metal, or silversmithing. Dominican artisanal jewelry is a result of the lapidation of semi -precious stone with silver and silversmithing. The combination of stones with metal is very similar to the universal concept of jewelry. Manufacturing process: This process is related to the two phases that are the components of artisanal jewelry, lapidation and silversmithing. –Lapidation. The process starts with the extraction of materials either from mines or the informal market. Materials are classified by category: for mounting on silver or gold, for manufacturing of necklace beads, and for manufacturing of small necklace. The next step the carving of the stone, which is the initial form given to the cut pieces. This step is performed with the cutting machine. This stone is then polished into its final shape and form. Finishing is accomplished with water sanding, with coarse abrasive material (100, 150, 180) and fine abrasives (320, 360, 600). The stones are then polished and an AT6 paste or powder used. The next step is a perforation or grooving, depending on the grouping of the stones. Grooving is performed with a disk mounted on an
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