SAN ANTONIO — In the heart of La Villita, stands Sifuentes Metalsmith and Equinox Jewelry Gallery. That's where you'll meet Alejandro Sifuentes, and Sarah Sifuentes.
They look alike and as you hear Sarah Sifuentes call Alejandro Sifuentes 'father', you'd never guess that the father-daughter duo didn't meet until four years ago.
Alejandro Sifuentes has been working with metal to produce high quality pieces of jewelry for the majority of his life.
"Every day of my career, I’ve been in this business 50 years, I get up in the morning and this is what I want to do," Sifuentes said. "And it’s a new day no matter what’s going on."
In the world of evolving technology, Sifuentes is trying to preserve a centuries-old process.
"The most important part of our process is the connection of your mind, of your heart and your hand, together," he said. "There’s nothing like it, and the end result is the proof of that."
Beyond his employees, Sifuentes has been working on his craft by himself, for himself.
"This is when I’m closest to God and this is ground zero," he said. "This is where it all happens, and I work out my problems."
Despite being one of the best at his craft, for years, Sifuentes has counted the days until he could be in touch with his daughter.
" I found out I had. I had a daughter, when I got served adoption papers," Sifuentes explained. "There was one side that I said, well, how could that be? And there was another side, well, what do I do? I mean, I have to be responsible. And I felt the most responsible thing to do was to sign the papers. I didn't have very much money."
There was also one crucial piece of information missing -- her name.
"When she was 18, and I knew, okay, well, maybe that [talking to her] would be a possibility," he explained. "And I had hopes of that. Up until then, I was just sort of counting the days and the years. So I had searched through the Internet and I always ended up short because I knew her mother's name, but I didn't know her name."
The search led him to ancestry.com, where he submitted a test. Sarah Keller, had submitted a test, two years prior, in 2018.
"I always knew I was adopted and it never felt like something was lacking because of it, truly," Keller said. "It wasn’t until I was older that they started asking myself those questions about where did I come from? I, in spite of like my upbringing, I’ve always been fairly different from the rest of my family."
Despite some very distant matches, Keller had forgot about her test, until one day, in 2020, at the age of 29, she received a notification on her phone.
"It said parent child match...phew...and I remember like sitting on the couch with my husband, and I was just frozen," she explained. " Then I noticed I had a message and I opened up the message and it was this beautiful message from father, Alejandro. I responded and I was really honest. ‘I don’t know what to feel, so I’ll start with hello,’ and we started messaging each other."
After several weeks, their first meeting was on FaceTime.
"I think the biggest leap of faith, more than even moving here, more than picking up a torch was actually getting on that FaceTime call the first time because that was what made it real," Keller said.
They didn't meet in person, until the end of that year.
"We were in studio, and we were just talking saying, let’s see what this DNA is about," Sifuentes said. "She began to solder like she’d always soldered with the torch. I said have you ever soldered? She says no. You know you’re a natural. And that was the same experience I had when I went to art school and picked up the torch."
Soon after that, Sifuentes made the decision to ask Keller to be his apprentice, in a decision he calls, the 'best' he ever made.
Keller, who was a project manager in Utah at the time, agreed to take on the position and move across the country to San Antonio.
"Even my initial reaction was kind of like huh, but, I mean, honestly, within about a minute and a half, it makes sense to me," she said. "It felt really right. There’s something intrinsically valuable about getting to know your roots and getting to know your DNA and getting to know your family and getting to know yourself by doing that.”
Today, Sarah Sifuentes (as she goes by professionally) is carrying on a name she didn't even know was hers, for generations to come.
She hopes, that by hearing their family's story, others are also inspired.
"Not everyone needs to move across the country, open up a store, and find like a new art form, but there’s maybe something for somebody in their own personal journey as they walk in and hear about who we are, and what we’ve done and why,” she said.
You can visit Sifuentes Metalsmith in La Villita at 418 La Villita St, Building 4, or to learn more about Sifuentes Metalsmith, click HERE.