A small Guadalajara business will soon be heading into its third year designing and selling creatively reworked industrial castoffs.
From a tiny store located near Chapultepec and Niños Heroes and a large workshop elsewhere in the city, Elery Ramirez Van Dyck and Charlie Bradley say they are lucky to be able to live off other businesses (water bottling and printing) while they “grow” their brainchild, which they named Ecotriques.
Triques, Ramirez explained, might be translated as “odds and ends” and has a positive connotation.
An essential piece of the business plan is that the two partners invite developing artists to add a creative touch to tables, chairs and other furnishings, much of it made from the wood of disassembled pallettes.
“We don’t make any profit from their art,” said Ramirez, going on to explain that if, for example, a plain bench is produced for 1,900 pesos and the artist who decorates it asks 8,000 pesos for their work, the piece will sell for 9,900.
“The artists we work with sign their pieces. They’re happy with us because they see that we’re doing what we say we will do,” Ramirez said.
One artist in the store at the moment, Alonso Bolivar, whose artistic name is DMS32, seems to agree, as he energetically sketches a decorative design for a new piece.
“We have a commitment to the artists to promote them,” Ramirez emphasized, “so that they can use us as a showcase. Sometimes you buy art, but nobody can touch it. This is art that is made to touch. It is made for traffic and wear.
The innovative, English-speaking duo not only teams up with artists but also with designers, carpenters and artisans, including women who are raising children alone and who, instructed and supplied by Ramirez and Bradley, make colorful rugs and other fabric items from t-shirt fabric cuttings under the brand name KIA Tejido.
Ecotriques and KIA Tejido will exhibit a wide variety of wares this Saturday and Sunday, September 20 and 21, at the Expo Vida Ecológica at Expo Guadalajara.
Some clients are individuals who may order specific things or design them, and some are businesses such as restaurants, Andares mall, Gandhi bookstores, a clothing business named Antifashion and The Sushi and Salads Company.
“We’re getting more of this type of client because they’ve seen our work. They feel it’s not a rip off and that we’re sincere,” Ramirez said.
Bradley noted that even though the wood they use is from pallettes, which are used in industry to transport materials, it is good quality.
“Depending on the final product, we sand, stain or finish the wood and if we use paint and lacquer it is water based, so solvents aren’t necessary — it’s better for the environment. We also treat the wood for termites and other insects.”
“We’re already properly set up as a business and besides that we’re planning to get certification as a socially responsible business.
“We call what we do ‘upcycling’ as opposed to recycling,” he pointed out. “It means that we don’t simply re-use things; we give them a new use. I don’t think that word has a Spanish translation.”
Ecotriques, Marsella 510, one block west of Chapultepec, between Niños Heroes and Vidrio, Colonia Deitz, Guadalajara. Office: (33) 3077-3084; cel 044-333-362-9356. Monday to Friday 11–6, Saturday 10 a.m.–3 p.m. For this weekend’s expo, check www.expo-guadalajara.com/calendario.