Two friends, One Shared Passion… equals Corzo & Wood

They asked us to write a blog for our new website and the only problem is, we’ve never written a blog before. (We’re not millennials, so get ready for a bumpy road of discovery!) So, with much head scratching and frantic googling of different styles, we found a piece of simple advice and a place to begin: “start a conversation”.
Well, we love to chat, we a have a new business and now a shiny new website, and here’s our first blog… the beginnings of our journey to Corzo & Wood.

Let Us Introduce Ourselves

Let’s start at the beginning. Corzo & Wood is the passion project of us, Violeta Corzo and Sarah Wood.

Violeta:

My love for silver and jewellery started with my Aunt, who is also my godmother. On every single birthday, she would gift me with a piece of silver jewellery, so my love for it started from a young age.

The catalyst for creating my own jewellery was because of a chance conversation with a friend! I was on holiday in Australia and happened to be browsing the Sydney market. I got talking to a lady selling beautiful silver jewellery and ended up buying a piece which combined silver and abalone shell. Afterwards, I turned to my friend and said, “I would love to have a job like that, where I could feel passionate about what I do every day.” and she said to me, “Well why don’t you go on a course? You would love it.” The idea had never ever occurred to me before that, and when I was home, I booked myself into a course to do just that! The rest is history, so really, it’s all my Aunt’s fault, but my friend nudged me in the right direction.

Sarah:

My passion for all things artistic also started very young. I had always loved jewellery from the word go, and I particularly love earrings.

I remember doing a metalwork class in secondary school, and really enjoying it. The problem was, the class itself was not a very nice environment to be in; the teacher was a miserable guy and at that time metalwork was pushed as “for boys only”. That same teacher used to try and scare us girls, saying our hair would catch on fire! I also studied art at O-level and was really, really, passionate about it. But again, it was at a time that artistic choices were not considered viable careers.

After my three children were born, I wanted to go back to college and was going to study history. Luckily, my husband turned around and said, “What are you going to use that for? Do something you love, like art.” I realised he was right, and that’s where my passion was, even after all those years.

We learned about our passion in designing and making silver jewellery, in the same class and became firm friends. After that, we worked alongside each other in exhibiting and selling our jewellery at local artists/makers fairs for a few years. In 2017 we suddenly had the opportunity to have our own shop. No more loading and unloading our jewellery at different events. It was a yes from us!

Finding Our Voice

A new business needs a new name. A simple task, we thought! It turns out it wasn’t that easy. We are now Corzo & Wood but that took us a while to come up with after discarding name after name. Everything we came up with just didn’t feel quite right. We kept thinking that we were compromising, that something better suited would come up in the end. It seems we were right to wait now. After weeks of back and forth it finally came to us. It had been staring us right in the face! Sometimes the simplest of ideas really are the best. It was a ‘eureka’ moment: Violeta Corzo and Sarah Wood; two friends, one shared passion. And so Corzo & Wood was born!

Opening Our Doors

It’s not often you get the opportunity to live the dream and do something you truly love. We opened our shop door on Saturday 14th October 2017. We would be lying if we told you that we weren’t a little bit scared on that first day! All we had was a glass jewellery cabinet, our combined tools and the desire to make it work. We had so many ideas and that’s something we are not short of even a year later. Corzo & Wood is an independent gift shop, a small workshop to make our silver jewellery and a space to teach others how to make their own jewellery too!

There is a saying “Do something you love, and never work a day in your life.” It has never been more true for the two of us.

If you feel inspired by our blog, we would love to hear from you email us