Hi, my name is Sal Silva and I'm the founder of the craft project named Salphy.
This Post is destined to share with you how Salphy came about and how important this craft project was to my self-esteem as an artist and person.
In January 2019 I found myself unemployed for the first time. I was 23 years old and until then I always worked on many different things but this time I wasn't able to appreciate myself or my work. Making the search for a job even more painful and difficult.
On January 29 of 2019 I joined a program that changed my life and where I was able to found my value, the Surf for employability Program of the Surf Social Wave Association.
Here I was Completely challeged with a simple question "What do you want to do?"
Well... I had some difficulties answering that at first. I wanted to work with art but had lost the ability to self-criticism and to say "I'm good at this" or "This is good" when I looked at my works.
I spent the first few weeks of this program not knowing what I wanted and feeling I had nothing good to give. This combined with the pressure of being out of work was very demotivating.I felt like a fraud for being in a program where I saw my colleagues developing projects when I felt totally lost.
Until one lunch break my coach, who also became my mentor, made a simple observation that stirred my confidence in myself and my art. I had asked him how I was going to build a presentation and a project if I didn't even know what I had to give, I couldn't look at myself and see what I had that could be of value. He looked at the sketchbook I always carried around with me and said "I can see it from here".
These were the words I didn't know I needed to hear. Not because they were the epitome of motivation but because they were so natural and saw something so obvious that I desperately needed to internalize. I have value.
We can be encouraged by family members many times but deep down we always think they're being nice because they're family. It's different to hear it from someone you've just met, isn't it?
I realized that to me create was already so natural that, unconsciously, I had lost the ability to look at my artwork and recognize skill and value (and in reality I had always had great difficulty in monetarily valuing my work because I thought it was weak or basic).
After some reflection I could finally see myself outlining a project and some enthusiasm started to grow.
An idea was finally born!
I admit that it didn't happen overnight but there I was starting to idealize something.
To combine my taste for photography and video with my most recent passion, Surfing, and also art related to the sea and its sports. These were the first structural lines of my project and the name came right away. Sal + Photography = Salphy
A very short time later, and as if everything was coming together on purpose, we held a workshop during the program to build a wooden surfboard and I decided to take advantage of the excess wood to make some keyrings in the shape of surfboards. Just as a gift to offer my family.
Without realizing it I had just made the first Salphy key rings!!
I offered one to my mother, she showed it to her work colleagues and when sharing on social media several requests were generated among family and friends. Everyone wanted my mini-boards and I realized that without a doubt there was a market for them, I was close to the right path.
However, at the time, the main thing on my project was the photography and video services, crafts were secondary.
I did some photography and video work for surf schools and photographed the 2019 National Bodysurf Championship, but I quickly realized that this was not the way to go. I decided to give up these services in early 2020 and to dedicate myself to crafts instead.
I was still very enthusiastic about the positive reception of the keyrings and the possibilities of working with wood. There I discovered a passion that I suspect I've always had but didn't want to acknowledge.
The past few years hadn't been easy and for the first time in a long time I was excited to keep creating.
Then came the pandemic and, for me, having Salphy allowed me to create and share a lot of the work that was doing. It was an escape from the whole situation.
I realized that this was what I really wanted to do, sustainable crafts, creating pieces customized by the customers, creating pieces that would reach a more familiar audience.
I Thought about what Salphy and its message would be.
I decided to think for a moment and go back to the question "what do you want to do?".
I wanted to create but I also wanted to convey a message of sustainability with my products. I was more and more sensitive to the problem of microplastics and I didn't want to contribute to it so I established partnerships with Bzalo and 4Garden to make the most of their wood waste, establishing Salphy based on a circular economy and a personal commitment to reusing all the wood I purchased to them.
Now I had a purpose, a target audience, more and more desire to create and some long-term goals.
Today there is a greater diversity of pieces, but we still don't have 100% of the products made from waste wood. However that is one of the goals. We have a "natura" product line where all the components of the products are sustainable and natural, and can be biodegradable or recyclable at the end of their life but I would like to be able to say that about 100% of the products.
I don't know if I will achieve this goal I set myself to but without a doubt I will continue to try. Today I proudly speak of Salphy and I value my work and my talent thanks to the continuous receptiveness that the products have had with the public, family and friends included.
For me this project is something that motivates me on a daily basis to continue to be creative and believe that it is possible to work to do what we like and combine it with causes we believe in. We will soon start a campaign to support animal rescues by purchasing our products.
Thanks for reading,
Sal Silva