Before the Workbench
Hi, I'm Marina Berdila, architect turned jewelry artist, mother of three, and the heart behind Naturalesa.
In 7th grade, an art teacher helped me realize I had something to say through my hands. I followed that thread into architecture, coming from a modest family where dreams like that felt far away.
I designed. I built. And I kept colliding with walls: bureaucracy, a world driven by profit, green facades with very little care behind them. Becoming a mother showed me how spaces can nurture or hurt, so I turned to interior design. After more than 100 projects, I was tired of the weight of consumerism.
Then came the pandemic, and with it, twins. Three small daughters, and a move from Romania to Valencia: a new country, a new life. Far from everything I knew, I lost touch with myself for a while.
A Language I’d Forgotten I Spoke
It was in Valencia, at a birthday gift workshop in a small jewelry studio, that I found my way back. Wax in my fingers, fire and metal, emotion translated into form. It felt like a language I'd forgotten I spoke. And once again, people heard my voice, even when I was only whispering.
I began to listen to myself too. My own rhythm, my sensitivity, my intensity: what once felt like "too much" became the root of my art.
So I started again, sculpting wax late at night on my kitchen table. That is how Naturalesa was born. Just months later, my pieces were exhibited in two museums in Madrid, proof that truthfully made work resonates.
Today I make quiet symbols: sculptures in recycled silver, cast in the lost-wax tradition and shaped by hand. The architect in me hasn't gone anywhere. I still look for structure, proportion and texture, only now in Mediterranean forms like barnacles clinging to rocks. Wearable reminders to hold on to your values, to grow like a shell shaped by time and storms, and still whole.
Naturalesa is my way of building again. Not walls, but symbols. Not spaces, but stories. And this time, not for approval, but from the heart.
