Adriana Unarreal lives in Jamaica Plain with her husband, Steven, their cat, Gigi, and buckets and buckets of smooth, oval, golf-ball sized seeds called lagrimas de San Pedro-the tears of Saint Peter, for the slight, tear-shaped point in the corner of each seed. Richly colored and wooden textured, the seeds form the basis for her enchanting jewelry, jewelry almost as enchanting as Adriana herself.

The black-haired stunner moved to JP from New York and a year and a half ago began crafting jewelry out of the same material used by the indigenous people of her native Venezuela. Found in the Amazon rain forest, the seeds come in a variety of shapes and colors, and are also dyed in a rainbow of hues. She mixes and matches them with precious stones, mounts them on chains and strings for necklaces, which she sells for about $380, and bracelets that go for $200. She also makes less expensive wooden bracelets, and this summer she’ll be coming out with a line of earrings. And she’s already developing a following: Number Nine Park owner Barbara Lynch owns some of her work, and Adriana has a big display at the South End’s Looc Boutique.
   
Adriana grew up in Venezuela’s capitol, Caracas, surrounded by a strong sense of style. Her mom, Cecilia, was quite fashionable, Adriana says. And Adriana’s sister Andreina designed and created handbags and other pieces that are popular in her homeland. Adriana worked with her sister before moving to the states, and she still collaborates with her, fashioning jewelry to compliment the accessories her sister designs. Her other sister Alexandra and her brother, Gustavo, all have helped out in the handbag business—Gustavo is in charge of the company’s belt collection—but, like Adriana, they’re also citizens of the world. Alexandra has lived in Malaysia, and all the siblings seem to get around a lot. Adriana returns to Venezuela each year to visit and to go out with her mom and buy seeds.
   
Each piece she crafts, she says, is an individual project, and that’s what makes her art so enjoyable: starting from scratch each time, coming up with something new and different, and seeing the response she gets from customers and admirers. She wants to grow her business, though. She envisions a studio of young, creative people working with her in her adopted city. Boston has become her home, not just a place to live; she says it’s a cosmopolitan, happening place, and she’s happy to be part of the process. She says that while having a big, mass-produced business night have its merits, it’s even more special for her to put her soul into each piece.
   
In English, the seeds are called “Job’s tears,” and they’re tears in Spanish as well. They’re tears of joy for Adriana, happy tears, those big, wet tears that come when you’re doing something you truly love and overflowing with the emotion of it. And the jewelry they inhabit is beautiful, just like the woman who makes it.


To see Adriana’s jewelry:

www.loocboutique.com