His talent was discovered by an art teacher who taught him when he was a child. For this reason, when he was unable to stay in school in his hometown after reaching the ninth grade, Eligio was offered the chance to enroll at the goldsmithing-specialized Tomasa Najera school. Although nobody had a vocation towards jewelry at home —his father was a farmer and his mother died when he was 14—, he decided to give it a try. He is proud to know that he started a new tradition in his family.

He remembers that the daily journey he had to go through to get to school was harsh. It was next to the airport, so he had to wake up at three in the morning and cross Pueblo Nuevo, Guataca, Guaymaral, and Mompox to get there in time. It was worth the effort, however, because, even though he did not study at the Tomasa school for a long time, the people there noticed he had astonishing skills. Hence, he was pleasantly surprised to see that, when his father decided to leave him alone and move to Magdalena, he had plenty of sponsors in Mompox who were more than glad to take him under their wing.

He became an assistant to several of his teachers. He worked on his craft on the weekends —often until early in the morning— after completing his chores. He wanted to learn everything he could about metals and, thus, had a clear goal: to study in Escuela Taller. He knew getting in was difficult: there were more than a hundred applicants and only 15 got accepted as apprentice jewelers. He arrived at his admission exam late and soaking wet. He felt these things were bad omens, but he sat in the hallway anyways and answered the test’s 50 questions. He waited anxiously for the results, which were to be released eight days after the exam. When they came out, his name was not on the list of accepted students. He was left heartbroken. Yet, suddenly, someone came up to him and asked if he was Eligio Rojas. He had attained the best score among his fellow applicants.

Since then, his career has never stopped growing. He has been able to teach his craft, learn even more, exchange ideas with jewelers from other countries, and even travel on account of his talent. In Spain, he was able to deepen his knowledge of the trade and enter the world of gemology. In this transatlantic journey, he discovered Madrid, Galicia, Salamanca, Toledo, Santiago de Compostela, and Portugal.

He is profoundly grateful for his life, which allowed him to reach the incredible milestone of becoming a professor in Mompox Escuela Taller. He worked there until 2017 and knows he is incredibly fortunate. He fondly remembers Fernando Vaquero: the man who helped his career with “thousands of grains of sand” when he took him to Expoartesanías for the first time. There, he was able to show off his talent to a wide audience. He knows that unique pieces are emblematic of his work, even more so if they are difficult to make. For this reason, when a customer asked him to make a fly, a whole new world of possibilities opened up for him.

Today, he has mastered the art of making ornamental insects, which include grasshoppers, dragonflies, tarantulas, cockroaches, and flies. Thanks to his assembly master, Armando Acuña, he learned the mechanics of jewelry-making. From that moment on, both movement and volume came to be trademarks of his. Crabs and scorpions are his latest experiments, and —vanity aside— he knows that they are a beauty to behold. They are an inspiration for his daughter, who has already shown that she will be part of the second generation of Rojas jewelers. They have already chosen a name: Mariana del Carmen.