Meet Sienna Dellepiane and Kia Bridges of Casa Brujaja

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sienna Dellepiane and Kia Bridges.

Sienna and Kia, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We’re two friends who met while living at a DIY housing collective in Colorado. In 2016 we moved to New Mexico to start another collective, this time a rural project centered around homesteading. Taken by the beauty of New Mexico’s natural spaces, we often would collect pieces of nature which called to us: snake shed from our yard, bits of bones on a trail, mountain flowers we would press and dry, changing fall foliage, and leaf skeletons decomposing on the banks of the Rio Grande. Inspired by our Latinidad, our superstitions, and our connection to wilderness, we began to consider how to preserve our precious findings in a way that would allow us to keep them close at all times. We began experimenting with sealing the treasures in glass, taught ourselves to work silver, developed a design practice to compliment the natural elements of our process, and things have grown from there.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Since we are completely self taught, the road has been a challenging one. However, we are lucky to have the support of each other as well as the incredible community of makers who have had our back all the way. Looking back on our earliest works is inspiring and humbling: it’s such a testament to how far we have come and how much our skills have improved. We have slowly tweaked our designs and process over time to create the polished pieces we create today. Still, though, we are always looking for ways to improve not only our products but our behind-the-scenes as well. We are constantly pushing ourselves to be more creative, learn more complex techniques, and attempt to keep up the good fight with maintaining a clean and organized studio space! We’re both full time student and have second jobs, so balancing everything can be challenging at times, but everything is worth it because we love creating these special talismans and seeing how people connect to them.

Please tell us about Casa Brujaja.
We create handcrafted silver and glass talismans inspired by life in death the desert. We begin by going out into nature and collecting all of our natural elements ourselves, from leaves and leaf skeletons, to snake shed, bones, various insect wings and flowers. We then use stained glass techniques to encase these treasures in between two panes of recycled glass and add hand fabricated sterling silver accents. We pride ourselves in creating pieces that highlight the natural beauty of the world around us.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Sienna- One of my favorite memories was playing out in the small creek behing my house. I would take photos of things that caught my eye, walk in the mud with my bare feet, search for turtles, catch snakes, and fish for crawdads with bits of hot dog and string. Even back then, I was always a collector of rocks, bones, and other pieces of nature which felt special to me. I even still have some of these items to this day!

Kia- I was lucky enough to grow up in a place with really amazing access to nature and my best childhood memories all involve enjoying the wilderness areas near my home. Early on, I learned to value solitude and spent a lot of time hiking in the Wasatch Mountains with my shelter mutt dog, Tigger. We’d go fishing, rockhounding and foraging for wild strawberries. The raven-like tendency to gather small treasures has stuck with me into adulthood.

Pricing:

• Our prices range from $15-$160, but mostly stick within the range of $35-85

Contact Info:

• Phone: https://www.casabrujaja.com/
• Email: casabrujaja@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/casabrujaja/?hl=en

Image Credit:
Casa Brujaja

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