Five Questions With ... Azua Echevarria

Five Questions With…Azua Echevarria, an outspoken artist, maker, and healer in Connecticut who wants to raise everyone’s energy.

Azua Echevarria is an outspoken artists, maker, healer, and owner at Age Into Beauty. Working in close collaboration with her partner Toni Johnson of Rework Creative, they each use their “divine gifts and wisdom to create cool stuff that raises vibrations, elevates energy, and is something that can be used in everyday life.” Considering Echevarria’s position as an emphatic practitioner and vital voice in Hartford’s arts and culture scene, we figured she’d be perfect for our “5 Questions With” series.

Take: Were you born in New England or are you a transplant? If born here, who was your rival town growing up?
Azua Echevarria: I was born in Boston but growing up, I went to Hartford High School. I was on the swim team and if I experienced any town competition or rivalry it was in that world. It sounds really weird but rural towns like Stonington or Farmington, and other towns that had kids who were fast swimmers.

T: One (or a few) words to described New Englanders?
AE: I would say easily adaptable and transformative. What is very common about this region is our constant need to adapt to the seasons, political seasons, social seasons, racial seasons. I think what really helps aid in that is this constant connection we have to nature. Even in our cities we have the ability to view the seasons changing. We have different garments, accouterments, and paraphernalia that go along with each change. I think that’s how and why [New Englanders] are so easily adaptable to the many complex layers of change.

T: Who is/are your favorite New England-based artist(s)?
AE: Carlos Hernandez Chavez, Ricky Silverspoon and, of course, Mina Echevarria, Arien Wilkerson, and Toni Johnson.

T: What’s pissing you off today?
AE: It’s not really pissing me off; it’s just an area of contention. It has to do with the situation that happened recently at the University of Hartford. My daughter and her partner just graduated from there, so, in large part, my viewpoint is skewed by their experience. Seeing all this unfold and being upset about it, how it was handled, and the fact that it went on for so long and that it affected a person of color, there’s some kind of deep level of anger to the situation.

Someone who’s a close relative of mine posed the question on Facebook asking if we are vying for this level of equality and social justice, then why are we asking for this 18-year-old to be imprisoned? And it just sat with me and had me feeling a lot of different things. The question of age, compassion, understanding, and patience for this white person. In my opinion, if the tables were turned, we would not be asking that question, Why are we putting this person behind bars? It would already be the case. Today, that’s what’s sitting with me. I wouldn’t say it’s pissing me off, but it’s in that vein.

T: What is your most recent google search.
AE: Ayurveda, ways to balance my dosha.

Bonus Questions!

T: Favorite place to cry?
AE: My bathtub! It’s not really somewhere to go in New England but I guess it kind of is? Because I live here? (laughs)

T: Dogs or Cats
AE: Dogs. I love them [both], but dogs resonate more for me.