Growing up in El Salvador, Gloria was surrounded by the magnificent colors of nature. The beaches, the mountains, the flora and the fauna all became fundamental components of her world view. Her current home in Boca Raton, Florida also fuels her creativity, its natural elements mimicking that of her native country. This intimate connection with nature provided Gloria with an ease and confidence in working with color in her jewelry. An eclectic mix of colored gemstones, enamel and diamonds establishes a sense of whimsy and joie de vivre, coupled with a quiet elegance that gives her work wide appeal.

Throughout her childhood, Gloria never considered herself a creative. Her mom drew and painted, and while Gloria expressed herself creatively through dance, she wouldn’t dare to grab a paper to sketch for fear of the outcome. And yet, she was always intensely drawn to jewelry and knew from a young age that her calling lay in the artform. She associated the powerful women in her life with jewelry, and it was what she always wanted to receive as birthday or Christmas presents; it felt important and full of sentiment.

When she graduated college, she proclaimed to her family that she was going to study jewelry, but she was dissuaded and encouraged to follow a different path. Enmeshed in another career, she continued to feel this urge, so she finally left to study jewelry design at Le Arti Orafe in Florence, Italy. Midway through her studies, she took a trip back home where she met and fell in love with her now husband. The two quickly started their family and studying jewelry design was put on pause.

After Gloria’s second child was born, she once again felt the inevitable call to jewelry. She went to New York City to study at the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and in 2012 she launched Onirikka. Onirikka comes from Oneiric, which means From Dreams, a philosophy that is reflected in the aesthetic of her work and the meaning behind the designs. In her ongoing effort to convey emotions in her work, she challenges herself to explore the depth of her own life experiences and the paradigm under which she lives her life. “Take the frogs in particular, from our Leap collection. In the beginning, I wanted to create emotion through my pieces, I just didn’t know how to do that,” she explains. “I don’t like frogs, I fear frogs, I do not like frogs, and that was the inspiration for the collection. In retrospect, it’s about embracing your fears, taking something you don’t like and converting it into something that you love.”