The Martínez brothers have taken opposite paths: Julián studied Fine Arts and ended up becoming a craftsman, while Diego began his working life as a craftsman and eventually went on to study art. In the end, the order doesn’t matter—both of them dedicated their talents to the rigorous study of a raw material that has been practically unexplored in Colombia: the cauline leaves. Working together, joined by the skilled hands of their brother Wilmar and the rest of the family, they have managed to create a new technique in the country: veneering with cauline leaves sheets of guadua bamboo.

But let’s take a step back. For Julián, his graduation project as an artist became a challenge. He didn’t want to create something that resembled anyone else’s work. In his search, a childhood memory resurfaced: those coffee-region outings when cousins would play in the woods and slide down the hills on giant leaves from the bamboo groves. His research led him to discover that those leaves are called cauline leaves. They are the protective sheaths of guadua branches as they grow, covered in a fuzzy texture—technically called pubescence—that shields them. Once the branches are safe and ready to keep climbing skyward, the cauline leaves naturally fall, covering the ground in a blanket of color, especially under sun and wind. It was then that he decided to dedicate his studies to this material, rich with happy memories. His thesis received top honors.

However, there came a moment when the art world blocked his path. At an exhibition he was invited to, someone remarked, with a hint of disdain, that what he was showing wasn’t art but craft. Rather than offend him, that comment gave him the direction he had been seeking. He looked to his brothers, who had been working with wood for years as part of the family tradition. He realized that together they could find new uses for the leaf he loved but hadn’t been fully convinced by in his art pieces. For them, too, it was a revelation to discover the material their brother was so passionate about. The leaf, after all, was a shared memory, part of the landscape of their lives growing up in this coffee region so full of bamboo groves. In the end, it became the signature of their family workshop.

Diego, for his part, as an instructor at SENA and a technician in guadua bamboo construction, brought to the craft a dimension Julián could not have achieved through art alone. By carefully manipulating the leaf and transforming it into a thin, glossy sheet through a painstaking preparation process, they obtained a beautiful raw material with which to veneer Wilmar’s wooden chests and tables. The three brothers never stop experimenting with new uses for cauline leaves. In their tireless search, they’ve inspired the entire family to get involved in every step of the process: some prepare the leaves, others laminate, dye, cut, glue, and assemble them into notebooks, bookmarks, and anything else they can imagine. Julián and Diego have also begun pyrography on the laminated leaves, engraving the birds and landscapes that define their Coffee Cultural Landscape. It is no wonder that their work earned them a place in the book on the artisanal heritage of the Coffee Region—for the Martínez brothers are, without question, master craftsmen.