Who is Julz?

JULZ by Julio Roach

JULZ started a few years ago with curiosity.
Before silver, casting, wax carving, or the bench, there were trips to craft stores—buying inexpensive materials and experimenting with whatever I could turn into something wearable.
But JULZ was being shaped long before I started making jewelry.
I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, surrounded by a traditional Mexican family whose roots extend across the Rio Grande into Mexico. Growing up along the border meant experiencing cultures, identities and influences that rarely existed separately. They became part of how I understood style, community and self-expression.
Music entered that world early. From listening to icons that my family grew up with,  electronic music became part of the soundtrack of my childhood. This was an influence that followed me into the nightlife and music communities I connect with today.
Fashion and design were just as present. I grew up around people who understood clothing, spaces and presentation as forms of expression. Eventually, those influences led me into my own career working across retail, fashion and luxury brands.
Then came jewelry.
What began with inexpensive materials and chainmaille eventually became a desire to understand how an object could actually be made from the beginning.
That curiosity brought me to metalsmithing.
Today, JULZ explores fabrication, wax carving, casting, sterling silver and traditional jewelry techniques while intentionally leaving room for experimentation and imperfection.
The materials have changed.
The techniques have changed.
The curiosity hasn't.
JULZ is the documentation of that evolution—one creation at a time.

approach

PROCESS OVER PERFECTION.

JULZ treats jewelry as an evolving study of form, material and wearability.
Each OBJECT begins differently. Some are carved from wax and cast. Others are fabricated directly in metal. Scrap can be melted and given another form. Traditional techniques can meet decisions made entirely in the moment.
Rather than forcing every surface into mechanical perfection, traces of process are allowed to remain when they belong there.
A mark can document a tool.
An irregular edge can document the hand.
A variation can make an OBJECT singular.
Imperfection isn't added for effect. It's accepted when it's part of the making.

  • The hand matters.

  • A mark from the process isn't automatically a flaw.

  • Silver. Stone. Wax. Steel. Form.

  • Objects belong to whoever finds themselves in them.

  • JULZ is allowed to change.

values

The creator

Raised in the Rio Grande Valley. Based in Austin, Texas.
I  found my language somewhere between the things that I wore, and the things that I learned to make. 
JULZ became a place where the two could exist together. This continues to translate through years of influence, experimentation, and self-expression into physical form with every OBJECT being created.
Working with metal changed the way I understood making. It taught me to slow down, work through resistance, accept unpredictability, and allow the process to influence the final object.
I am still learning.
That matters.
JULZ isn't the result of mastering a craft and then deciding to start a brand. It is the documentation of becoming better at one.
The early chainmaille.
The freshwater pearls.
The first solder joint.
The first bezel.
The first wax carving. 
The first casting.
They all belong to the same story.
There will be better objects.
There should be.
JULZ is not a finished idea.
Neither am I.

— Julio