Artisan An artisan Contact mariaperezazabache@hotmail.es Author iain Email The email address of the museum. mariaperezazabache@hotmail.es Phone The phone number 605 01 27 70 Prim Media 682 Biographical Text Maria has been a master jet artisan for 30 years. She started as a jeweler, but nowadays, working with jet is more important. External ID LAPONTE_PR_03 Knowledge Acquisition Jet came into the artisan’s life by chance. She was starting out in jewelry making, and after settling in the village, Néstor Costales (the last master artisan of Argüeru) gave her a small raw jet stone. From that moment on, she began to get her hands dirty with it, and jewelry took a back seat. She taught herself how to work with the mineral, and after many years of practice, she has ended up teaching others Knowledge Transfer Yes, she conducts jet carving workshops in her museum-shop in Villanueva Field Worker Carmen Pérez Maestro Gender female Area Relation incomer Area Reason She was born in the city of Gijón, but since 1997, she has been living in a small village with 15 inhabitants called La Madrera Occupation fibre and textile crafts Involvment full-time paid job knowledge1 It is essential to recognize that the raw material is authentic Jurassic jet, understand its characteristics, and be familiar with the carving techniques. material1 She works with jet and silver.Sometimes she uses other gemstones to create her pieces. material2 The jet is local, and the silver is foreign material3 The stone is fully utilized production1 She applies jewelry techniques to work with jet. Cutting, carving, and polishing are the processes followed to work the stone production2 She works with dental prosthetic tools, which operate with a micromotor, such as diamond discs and tungsten carbide burs production3 There is no special relationship with the tools. Although her favorite tools are the diamond disc and the thickest carbide bur. production4 Electricity production5 During the jet carving process, a very fine brown dust is generated. This is absorbed by small electric vacuum cleaners while working workshop Maria has a workshop in her house in the village, but she also has an educational space (in the form of a small museum), a learning area, and a shop in Villaviciosa products1 Unique jewelry pieces with precious metals, jet from Asturias, and other gemstones. Rings, pendants, necklaces, earrings, rosettes, bracelets, etc products2 For sale products3 In person at the store in Villaviciosa products4 Educational classroom-museum, workshops and jewelry for sale products5 It's not something that happens regularly, but there have been people who have brought her objects to repair products6 The people who attend the regular workshops are usually locals, while those who visit the educational classroom-museum are typically outsiders. People of all kinds purchase her jewelry products7 All the pieces that leave her shop come with a certificate stating that they are made with authentic Asturian Jurassic jet, handmade, and are unique pieces. However, it is not an official label, but rather one issued by the artisan herself. tourism1 The relationship she has with tourism is educational, as the place she has in the village houses an educational classroom-museum that is visited by both domestic and foreign tourists tourism2 "El azabache esta relacionado con el turismo por que es un bien cultural y es de la zona y la conjunción que hay en el local de Villaviciosa con tienda exposición y talleres de la asociación es lo que utilizamos para difundir y dar a conocer el azabache" partnership She is the president of the association 'Jurassic Jet of Villaviciosa,' which was founded in 2017 after serious disagreements with the jet artisan guild and in response to the uncontrolled invasion of foreign materials replacing genuine jet. The association is made up of artisans, geologists, gemologists, botanists, biologists, archaeologists, researchers, and others... in short, defenders of authentic jet and its cultural heritage. Their interest is investigative, educational, and informative. She collaborates with the University of Oviedo in their university extension courses challenges1 The challenges faced by this sector, from the lack of raw materials to the urgent need for training and greater institutional support.The high-quality Asturian jet, originating from Jurassic protopine trees and unique for its physical properties, is in a critical situation due to the scarcity of raw material. It has reached the point where artisans are forced to search through rubble piles since its extraction is not permitted. Another challenge facing the industry is the unfair competition from materials sold as jet, which in reality, are not. María Pérez insists that it is vital to differentiate authentic Asturian jet from lignite coming from Bulgaria or Argentina, which dominates the market. Lastly, there is the challenge of the continuity of the craft, as without raw material, it cannot continue challenges2 "La declaratoria de Bien de Interes Cultural (BIC) del azabache no es suficiente, hay que dar más pasos, determinar verdaderamente lo que es y no que no es (el verdadero azabache)". references http://www.azabachejurasico.com/ https://www.lne.es/villaviciosa/2025/01/15/cultura-azabache-joya-asturiana-lucha-113396508.html https://pegadosalatierra.elcomercio.es/maria-perez-maestra-azabachera-villaviciosa/ Social Media The social media links. facebook,https://www.facebook.com/Azabache.maria.perez;instagram,https://www.instagram.com/maria.perez.azabache/; Wiki A link to a wiki entry about this item. https://culturality.museum/wiki/index.php/María_Pérez Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource María Pérez Type The nature or genre of the resource Artisan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 70´s Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource iain Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 399 Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. current,43.480178,-5.43423190753304; Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived artisans Europeana Specific elements of the Europeana Semantic Elements. Europeana Type The Europeana material type of the resource. TEXT Country The name of the country of the data provider or “Europe” in the case of Europe-wide projects. Spain Europeana Data Provider The name or identifier of the organisation that contributes data to Europeana. María Pérez