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.

Top photo: Azua Echevarria at People’s State Forest in Barkhamsted, Connecticut | Photo by George Lee

The post Five Questions With … Azua Echevarria appeared first on Take Magazine.

Toni Johnson’s radiant energy cannot be missed. Adorned in bright colors and multiple pieces of jewelry, she emits warmth with a glance and a joyous laugh. Now residing in Hartford, Connecticut, with her “twin-flame” and love, Azua Echevarria (owner of Age Into Beauty), Johnson’s healing creativity is seen in her unique jewelry, Rework Creative, and several projects with her partner including the Wild Women’s Collective.

Johnson has lived many lives: as a hairdresser post high school, a singer with a record deal at Capitol Records, a photography stylist, and now as a jewelry designer who uses the power of stones for both aesthetic beauty and healing. “You know I have always been a healer. Whether through singing or counseling friends, it has always flowed naturally from me,” Johnson says. “I have always held a lot of healing joy for the world around me.”

Johnson’s journey into metalsmithing and jewelry design began as part of her own self healing after experiencing a lull in her music career and leaving California to become a photo studio stylist in New York City in the early 2000s. “I moved to New York to take a break from music and found a career that I felt I could do full-time until I found another path in music,” she says. “But then I realized that my music path had just come to an end and I turned to making jewelry to help with my own grief—the grief of losing my music career, the grief of losing a lover—and it became something of my own.”

Toni Johnson, Rework Creative, photo by Roy Photography

Channeling her creativity to heal isn’t that surprising. After all, Johnson has been creative since early childhood. “My grandmother would always say, ‘There is nothing new under the sun,’ and it’s true. Everything we do is just a reworking and reinterpretation of the things we experience around us,” Johnson says. The concept of “reworking” is at the heart of Rework Creative, where Johnson incorporates the healing powers of earthbound metals, minerals, and stones to reimagine and reinvent their beauty through jewelry.

Toni Johnson, Rework Creative, photo by Steve Ben-Shalom

After experiencing a life-changing car accident, Johnson says her body began to undergo physical and psychic changes. At that time, her jewelry shifted from beadwork to increased use of crystals and copper metals, both conduits for energetic healing. As friends and strangers expressed interest in her work, she decided to begin selling her work in 2008. “Crystals are very reactive to mental energy, so as I create, it is all about implementing love vibrations,” she says. “And I get responses from clients and customers that they can feel this in their pieces, so it reinstates and validates the work that I am doing.”

Toni Johnson, Rework Creative, photo by Roy Photography

Although Johnson has been offered a chance to mass produce her designs and sell in larger retail stores, she has decided to stay grassroots with her work. “I have turned down the opportunity to sell my work to larger vendors because I want my jewelry to always be from my hands. It is my baby,” she says. “I charge all of the pieces myself through song and touch, and that is what makes the work so special, because I am energetically connected to those who wear my jewelry, and I try to bring joy directly to them.”

Johnson has sold her work to artists and musicians all over the world, including pieces commissioned for Lily Tomlin for her role in the Netflix series, Grace and Frankie. She is currently a part of Brunch of Art, put on by the Wild Women’s Collective, as well as collaborating with Echevarria and Hartford-based dancer Arien Wilkerson on a play called Universal Womb that is still in process. Besides creating jewelry, Johnson also works as a healer doing mineral prescriptions and collaborating on artwork with her partner.

Toni Johnson–jewelry designer, Rework Creative
New Haven, Connecticut
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Top image by Roy Photography

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