John Atencio’s jewelry-making story began 56 years ago with a couple of friends, a night class at Colorado State University, and a little arm-twisting. It was 1970, and John was an art student with no particular interest in jewelry when two friends convinced him to tag along to a class on how to make it. He learned the basics of metal, heat, and torches. Then he kept going.
“I really liked working with my hands,” John says. “One step led to the next step, led to the next step.” Soon, he was slipping into the university at night to use its tools and make pieces for friends. He fashioned a simple ring for a woman he loved and discovered something else in the process: Jewelry could carry meaning far beyond its materials. “Making something for somebody by hand and also giving a girl a piece of jewelry are two very formidable things that you can do if you want to win somebody’s heart,” he says.
By 1976, John was ready to turn his craft into a business. His family thought he was crazy. His friends thought he was, in his words, “a nutcase.” He kept drawing anyway. This year, John Atencio celebrates 50 years in business.
Five decades into the business, that remains where nearly every John Atencio design begins. Despite the technology available to modern jewelers, John’s creative process is stubbornly analog: pencil, paper, hand.
Drawing came naturally. He was the kid who doodled in school and grew up around artistic family members. Turning that instinct into a discipline took time. Today, he generally begins with a ring and the shape of a stone, often a diamond, building outward from there. Decades of repetition have given the process a rhythm, but not a shortcut. “The hand grew and the head grew simultaneously,” John says. “I was doing things based on what I felt in my heart and what I could produce with my hands and what my head could dream up.”
“There is a guy that’s competing with Tiffany’s in the same mall that’s from Colorado. I’m very happy that we’ve been able to have that as part of our story.”—John Atencio
Those three things have taken him a long way from his first Fort Collins store, where rent was around $200 a month. A major turning point came when he was selected as one of a small number of artists to show at Jewelers of America in New York. Suddenly, the Colorado designer was sharing a stage with some of the biggest names in the industry. Competitions required sketches before finished pieces, further sharpening the drawing skills that would become integral to his work. “I started saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got to get really serious about this thing,’” he recalls.
The business grew, as did the complexity of what John could make. Collections developed a recognizable visual language, and customers began returning for the earrings that matched a ring or the pendant that completed a set. “People collect John Atencio,” he says. Yet ask him whether he considers himself a businessman or an artist, and the answer comes quickly. “I would say I’m an artist,” he says. “Business fits the art.”
Colorado fits it, too. John was born at Rose Medical Center and has spent his life in the state, building a homegrown jewelry company in a market that has transformed around him. Today, his Cherry Creek store sits among global luxury names, something he doesn’t take lightly. “There is a guy that’s competing with Tiffany’s in the same mall that’s from Colorado,” he says. “I’m very happy that we’ve been able to have that as part of our story.”
But as John Atencio celebrates 50 years in business, the more compelling legacy may be scattered across jewelry boxes far beyond Colorado. John’s pieces have become engagement rings, anniversary gifts, heirlooms, and objects passed from one generation to another.
He’s still adding to that legacy. John rides his bike to work, exercises every day, and, most importantly, creates nearly every day. Retirement holds less appeal when the work itself remains the thing that fills him up.
Ask his favorite piece after all these years, and John always gives the same answer: “The last piece.” Then he adds the reason. “Because you’ve got to fall in love again.” And somewhere nearby, there’s another blank sheet of paper waiting.
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