Gabi Torres remembersthe moment as if it just happened—the life-changing experience on a business trip when she saw a watermelon tourmaline that seemed to call to her.
That amazinggemstone, combined with the birth of daughter Gaia in 2022, led Torres to start
her own jewelry company, Sanamama, in 2024. She calls hertransition into jewelry “an organic unraveling,” as she gradually shifted from
art therapist to yoga teacher to designer.
Her brand’s namecomes from Spanish for healing mother, a phrase that guides Torresin her life as a mom and working with her clients. She hopes her jewelry and itsspiritual meanings allow people to feel beautiful, attract abundance, and
understand their worth.
A raw pink tourmaline hangs from theSanamama That Was Then This IsNow pendant ($7,000),which has seafoam green tourmaline stones and a salt-and-pepper diamond set in
18k rose gold.
“I believe the earthmother has provided us with these gems to uplift our vibrations in distinct
ways. Every stone has a purpose,” says Torres. “Whether you are reaching toward
green tourmaline for tranquility or a pink tourmaline to connect to the energy
of love, each piece is unique and has a spiritual significance.”
Torres was born andraised in Miami, to a Panamanian mother and Puerto Rican father. “I have so many cultures in me,” she says. “We are a melting pot of all kinds of cultures,
from Native American to German to Lebanese Italian.”
She recalls achildhood where jewelry was associated with travel—family members would bring back special pieces from their trips and share them as gifts with her and
others.
“The women on mymother’s side of the family had designed pieces of jewelry since my mother’s great-grandmother. Not for selling, but for creating personal treasures…many
times abroad on their travels.”
During high school,Torres worked in retail and then as a model, a job she describes as empowering.
“It was a great way to learn to love and accept myself for exactly how I was
and own my uniqueness,” she says.
The Inner-Spaceship ring ($7,000) is made with 4.53 cts.t.w. pink tourmaline, amethyst, and green tourmaline.
When she got tocollege, Torres debated what to major in: Science followed her family
tradition, but art felt like a calling. Ultimately she majored in psychology
and double minored in studio art and micro and molecular biology, graduating
with honors from the University of Central Florida in 2011.
“My favorite mediumwas painting, and I engaged in some exhibitions later in graduate school,” says Torres, who received a dual master’s in art therapy and marriage and family
therapy from Loyola Marymount in 2013.
“It was all about thehealing properties of artistic mediums, and it opened for me the insight to the
soul connection I was looking for within art making and the motivation I had to
help people heal through making art,” Torres says.
After graduateschool, Torres was seeing art therapy clients while training as a yoga
instructor. When she began teaching yoga, her students told her the classes
felt therapeutic for them, so she started thinking of her practice as a way to
heal people.
Sanamama’s Saint Germain earjacket ($1,600)and earrings ($2,400) feature pear-shape amethystand emerald-cut Santa Maria aquamarine.
“The most importantlessons of those years was to hone in and master one thing while integrating different aspects that were also me, such as the therapy and the yoga
teaching,” says Torres.
She became interestedin crystals and would work with clients to add these stones to their homes. It was on a trip with a friend to source crystals that the watermelon tourmaline
caught Torres’ attention. She commissioned a necklace with that gemstone, and
the future began to reveal itself—her focus turned to jewelry.
“I create and designwith intention and spirit so that choosing your jewelry becomes a ritual of working with energy in a personal way through this medium,” Torres says. “It is
an art, an enhancer of beauty.
“Sanamama is for theseeker, for the goddesses of our time. It usually calls a woman that is on the brink of a transformation, someone open-minded and someone who has a unique
sense of style.”
Top: Gabi Torresfounded Sanamama as part of her motherhood and spiritual journey through jewelry design. (Photos courtesy of Sanamama)