My Journey to Becoming a Filipinx Goldsmith
This video recounts parts of my healing journey from a serious spinal injury in 2010, to the artist I am today; from breaking my neck & being bed ridden, to becoming a Filipinx goldsmith. Living through such a traumatic accident & the pain that followed, has taught me how to surrender to the present moment; how to receive when I could give nothing in return & the importance intentionally cultivating of joy.
I turned to creativity as a way to reclaim some of my life from the severe, unrelenting, chronic pain I experience everyday. Doing things that bring me joy, like making art, is a way for chronic pain to take up less space in my life. This strategy of pursuing creativity, eventually led me to retraining as a goldsmith & opening my own business making custom jewelry, Samonte Cruz Studios. And I couldn’t be happier!
Gold is my Filipinx ancestral inheritance & working with it as a goldsmith is my life’s calling. I’ve never felt so deeply connected to a material, art form, or profession in my entire life! Finding it is truly an answer to prayers.
My art is now my work and my life, although it still shares that space with the chronic pain I experience. The art I create through Samonte Cruz Studios feeds my spirit by giving me opportunities to reconnect to my culture, through the ancient traditions my ancestors mastered; goldsmithing & metalwork.
Thanks to Producer Amy Mahardy and the Creative Services team at CW11 in Seattle for helping to tell my story.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Samonte Cruz is a mixed-gender, mixed-race, Filipinx goldsmith, performer and educator, currently living on unceded Sinixt Territory (Nelson, BC). Born the youngest child of a Filipino immigrant and Virginian farm girl, Samonte spent the first six years of their life living in a racially charged, southern US, before relocating to a small town just outside of Seattle, Washington. Even from a young age, Samonte was drawn to the creative arts; spending any spare moment singing, drawing, writing, or making crafts. Thankfully, creativity is a common thread that runs through every chapter of their life.
In 2003, Samonte graduated with a Bachelor of the Arts from Western Washington University. Samonte’s interdisciplinary degree combined music, audio engineering, psychology and minority studies; exploring the importance of creative expression as a tool for survival and resistance, particularly for members of marginalized communities. This laid the foundation for Samonte to continue their creative work as a community educator & organizer, through organizations in the Greater Vancouver Area like, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Access to Media Education Society, and the Filipino Canadian Youth Alliance, at the Kalayaan Centre. In 2006, Samonte was hired as the permanent coordinator for Simon Fraser University’s LGBTQ+ Centre, where they served the queer and trans/gender non-conforming community for nearly a decade.
After a serious spinal injury in 2010, Samonte’s abilities suddenly and drastically changed. In response to living with chronic pain, Samonte began to seek out more accommodating opportunities for creative expression, and in 2015, enrolled in the Kootenay Studio Arts Jewelry program where a culture of adaptation and innovation allowed Samonte to develop as a metalsmith, despite physical limitations.
After graduating with honours in 2017, Samonte founded their own business, Samonte Cruz Studios, and is excited to be offering custom, one-of-a-kind jewelry and accessories to clients, while running their own online shop. In 2018, Samonte was hired as an apprentice to award-winning, master goldsmith, Paul Durkin, co-owner of Lauener Brother Jewellery, in Trail, BC, where they continue to hone their craft repairing & restoring mostly heirloom gold jewelry. In order to share their passion for metalsmithing with others, Samonte teaches community education courses in the jewelry studio at Kootenay Studio Arts, Selkirk College.
In addition to their own artistic practice, Samonte is the founder, director & curator of Bent On Art: Kootenay Queer & Trans Art Festival, promoting LGBTQ+ artists in the Kootenays while creating educational opportunities, fostering community connection and promoting resilience through the arts. In 2021, Samonte became a board member for Oxygen Arts Centre in Nelson, BC, where they continue to serve.
In October 2022, Samonte was awarded a grant from Canada Council of the Arts to develop a narrative body of work that explores their Filipino heritage. The project titled, Filipinx Survivance: Contemporary Cultural Artifacts & Adornment, weaves together threads of their ancestral history with their own personal story, in an attempt to tell the story of Filipinx survivance (survival & resistance) from colonization.
In their spare time, Samonte writes, records, and performs music; most recently featured as the lead artist, composer & performer in, “Purple Pain,” a virtual performance for Nelson & District Arts Council’s, “Outside the Box,” online showcase released in January 2022. When they aren’t creating in their studio, you can find Samonte at home washing dishes to podcasts, playing pop covers on their acoustic guitar, or at the dog park, hanging with their furry dog-kid, Bruno.