Taxco, Mexico

If ever a town was held together by a single purpose, it is Taxco.  That purpose is silver, getting it on the next galleon to Spain or selling enough earrings in today's Taxco to feed the kids.  But it is still the silver that enriched and feeds.  Taxco has its silver.  Time was, it had much more.

For four hundred years, the mines, those monster lodes of silver ore, were slowly spent and for a time during the early 20th century, Taxco was languishing in poverty and disappointment.

Then one day in 1931 a young, Tulane architectural professor from New Orleans came into town. His name was William Spratling.  He had a single purpose.  It too was silver.

Spratling began to create silver jewelry pieces,  some with Aztec motifs,  some with simple lines, or with undulating repousee.  The world was hungry for his designs and orders came from Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus.  He was hot.

His gift to Taxco was to open workshops  and establish an apprentice system to teach, train, and inspire his workers, as many as 500 at one time. He encouraged each of his artists to open his own taller, his own workshop, and in effect to become the competition.   Ultimately, Spratling made silversmiths. ~ Carolyn in Mexico