About the Artist
Hiya! My name is Anya Chang-DePuy and THIS is where I started my silversmithing journey. Let me set the scene...it’s 2015 and I’m traveling around Asia solo for 13 months and I find myself in a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas in India. (By this point, I’ve fallen in love with goats and picked them up whenever I could- which is EVERYWHERE in India). I stumble upon an opportunity to take a silver smithing class. I take the 4 hour class, create a beautiful ring and immediately sign up for another class the next day. The "studio" is a tiny open space crammed with 3 students all sitting on the floor. My teacher is a kind, patient and silly man, named Golak and I decide to extend my few days in town to a few weeks so that I can take more classes with him. And there, my craft was born…
Golak and I on my last day of class with him!
But that was way, way back, and really it wasn't until February 2020 that I grounded into place and community and dove more deeply into the craft. For many years my studio was the reject spaces of homes: unheated garages, damp basements, crammed sheds....any space that I could squeeze in a bench and my tools. In 2022 I took a major leap and built my own studio on the 640 acres in SW Colorado that I call home. It has strawbale walls, earthen plasters, a mud floor and a simple solar system as it is off-grid. It looks out over the mesa and is right next to our creek. It was a huge learning process and more work than I could have imagined, but it was worth it!
Creating wearable pieces of art from silver and stone and such an honor. It is a never-ending learning process but luckily I love being a student and continue to explore new techniques and all the time. I am so grateful to be on this creative journey and can't thank you enough for joining me along the way!
