A jewelry designer is not born with an inherent essence of being a designer. Rather, they become a designer, and exist as a designer, through the act of designing. The essence with which each jewelry designer conveys when existing as a jewelry designer is some blend of artistic expression, craftsmanship, emotional resonance, and functional ability, and, in some cases, business acumen.
The question we get asked over and over again, and we ask ourselves over and over again, is: Who Are You? / Who Am I?
The obvious answer is You are who you are. Or, You are what you do. You exist.
But, how do you become?
You weren’t born into jewelry design. Jewelry designing may or may not have been on your horizon as you grew up, began some kind of work, and lived your life. At some point, you became a jewelry designer.
Was there a point in time where you felt in your gut that you not only were making jewelry, but you had become a jewelry designer?
Perhaps not. In this case, you might have felt that anyone might make jewelry at any point in time. You made it, you sold it, you gave it away. If we merely exist to make jewelry, then we are a technician. An automaton. Interchangeable with a machine. Easily replaceable and duplicated. The results of our work are repeatable. Universal. Mass appeal. Same ole, same ole. We haven’t become a jewelry designer. We merely implement designs.
Yet, perhaps there is a point in time where we, not only be and do, but become. After all, in this case, not just anyone can design jewelry. A machine can be given instructions on how to design jewelry. But it cannot be inspired. It cannot, on its own, inspire others. It cannot build in meaning and content and power and edginess. It cannot evoke emotions. It cannot, on its own, find that point of conversation between designer and client where both believe the jewelry is finished and successful. It cannot, on its own, understand desire and its driving forces for both designer and client. Nor, where their desires overlap and where they conflict. All these cannots suggest that one more likely becomes a jewelry designer. At some point.
So, how do you become? How do you become a jewelry designer?
And once you become, how do you know you are one?
And, finally, what does it mean to exist as one?
Existence
The idea of existence can sound so pejorative in some ways. A sense of nothingness, an as “is”. Something mechanical that may or may not be self-perpetuating. A tree holding up the sky for no particular reason, but that it does.
I can prefix the idea of existence with one of essence. This sounds a little sexier. The jewelry designer cannot exist as a jewelry designer without some sense of exuding some essence. It is not a smell or perfume. It is not some particular set of tools or techniques. It is more than an idea or fantasy or wish fulfillment.
The essence with which each jewelry designer conveys when existing as a jewelry designer is some blend of artistic expression, craftsmanship, emotional resonance, and functional ability, and, in some cases, business acumen. It is not beauty or functionality, but beauty and functionality. It is not object or intent, but object and intent. It is not mechanically constructed or symbolically constructed, but mechanically constructed and symbolically constructed. It is not the assumptions, expectations, perceptions, values and desires of the designer or the client, but both of designer and client in a shared dialogue about understandings.
The existence of the jewelry designer is one of telling stories. Stories evoke meanings. Meanings lead to emotional and resonant responses. Emotional and resonant responses often lead to public expression. Public expression might lead to contagion or rejection.
To exist as a jewelry designer means encapsulating all these things. Together. At once. But piecemeal, too. Integrated, but contradictory, too. Coherent, yet incoherent concurrently, too. Existence as a jewelry designer takes on multi-faceted meanings. Existence is shaped by creativity, influenced by materials and techniques, affected by someone’s relationship to beauty, oftentimes jarred by architectural issues of functionality, stresses and strains, softened by the impact their pieces have on the client and the situations the client, wearing their works, finds themselves in.
Jewelry design is a process, and the cycle repeats with each new piece. But the essence is the same. The existence has, indeed requires, the same essential parameters.
You Know It When You Know It
I do some coaching from time to time with students who want to exist as jewelry designers, but not sure if they do, if they do yet, and how to know when it happens. It could result from difficulty with a technique. Or the application of art and design principles of composition, construction and manipulation. Or how to make some success in business.
A lot of the coaching boils down to the same thing: the essence of existence.
I have set up a space for our community of jewelry designers — Warren Feld Jewelry’s PATREON HUB — to learn, to interact, and to provide and/or get feedback on what they are working on. Please join here.
Be part of a community of jewelry designers who recognize that we have a different way of thinking and doing than other types of crafters or artists. Access more articles and other resources not included in my medium.com site.
I have set up a space for our community of jewelry designers — Warren Feld Jewelry’s PATREON HUB — to learn, to interact, and to provide and/or get feedback on what they are working on. Please join here.
Be part of a community of jewelry designers who recognize that we have a different way of thinking and doing than other types of crafters or artists.
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How to navigate the tensions between other people’s expectations and your own sense of personal authenticity. This is what Criticality is all about.
KIT AFTER KIT
I designed kit after kit with some highlighted core design or architectural principle, or technique variation in mind, hoping that in the process of making each particular piece of jewelry, the maker would also learn a lot of new insights they hadn’t been exposed to before. I wrote the instructions in sections — inspirations, design considerations, material and technique selection, points of vulnerability, workspace, step-by-step, dealing with contingencies. For each section, I approached it as a ‘think-aloud.’ That is, I wanted to explain the critical why’s and wherefore’s of each and every design choice I made, and in the order I made them, so the kit-maker could gain insight into how I made my each of my choices. And subsequently, be able to critically evaluate my choices with respect to their own sense of authenticity as a jewelry designer.
My efforts were in response to how virtually everyone learned jewelry making. [Which I consider mis-learning.] They learned to follow a set of steps. After the very last step, they completed something. It didn’t matter if that something was appealing. Or durable. Or wearable. Or comfortable. Or context appropriate. It didn’t matter if the steps were written out correctly. It didn’t matter whether you could apply those steps to any other situation, let alone situations which were unfamiliar or otherwise problematic. What mattered was the ”Look, Ma” feeling you got when you finished doing all the steps.
This isn’t learning. This is basic mechanics. I wanted to create a set of instructions and procedures which were insightful. Were tools which could be used to resolve other jewelry making goals and situations. Were a set of coherent ideas which could be built upon and expanded. Which empowered people with fix-it strategies for them to resort to whenever they needed. But most people saw my efforts as forcing them to review lots of text, images and diagrams, when they just wanted quickly to get to the point — something they could show and tell.
The sales were so-so. I adapted somewhat. I added summaries of steps so people could skip the explanations. I condensed things by creating 3-column layouts, where directions, images, diagrams and annotations sat side-by-side. Sales remained so-so. I was unwilling to make any more compromises.
Criticality
People fear getting criticized. So they avoid it. At all costs. Yet, at costs to themselves.
Criticism is not something you want to avoid. It is not meant to be harmful. And though I recognize, at times, you have probably experienced others using criticism to hurt you in some way, this isn’t what it is meant to be for. Criticism is there to bring clarity to what is working and what is not. What other possibilities might offer. What things you are doing that suggest you are on the right track … keep following it.
Criticality is something you want to build into your Practice. It is not something to avoid or minimize. It is one of your most useful tools as you begin to move your piece of jewelry from your workbench into the public sphere of sales, collectors, exhibitors, students, colleagues, you get the point.
Criticality is about making choices. It is about separating and confronting and going beyond your piece in order to build in that relevance jewelry needs as it gets exposed to the public.
Criticality helps you close the distance between the jewelry you create and the person it has been created for.
Criticality aids you in revealing the implications and consequences of all your choices. About materials. About techniques. About colors and patterns and textures and forms. About construction. About architectural and mechanical considerations. Each form of jewelry requires endless and constant adjustments, and you should be very critically aware of what, why and how. Preferably not waiting until you have finished your piece, but rather all along the way of your design process — inspiration to aspiration to implementation.
Criticality is necessary for you to continue to grow and develop as a professional jewelry designer.
Criticality is not a put-down of the jewelry designer. Rather it is a way of reflecting, evaluating and being very metacognitive of all the choices made in design and construction, and a lot of what-if envisioning and analysis of possible alternative choices. It is an exploratory thing. It adds understanding and comprehension.
Criticality assists in creating a dialog between designer and all the various audiences with whom the designer interacts. Towards that end, it is helpful to actively bring others into that criticality discussion, where we now have the prospects of many voices merging into a form. It can be difficult to be objective about your own work. It is equally as hard to anticipate its reception. And you may not be aware of how the quality of your work stacks up with others, and where it needs to be.
For the jewelry designer, criticality enters into the design process in several ways. These include,
(1) Cultural and Social Critique: Jewelry can serve as a means of socio-cultural commentary. Jewelry can challenge norms. It can highlight tensions related to gender, identity and inequality. It can provoke thinking, dialog and response.
(2) Material Exploration: Materials can be selected for different reasons. Their strengths can be leveraged and weaknesses minimized. They can be experimented with. They can be repurposed, such as with found objects. Their associated traditional uses can be challenged. Contradictions about ideas about value can be brought to the fore.
(3) Taking Design Beyond Ornamentation And Embellishment: Jewelry tells stories, holds meanings, reveals content, triggers dialog. As such, it is more than ornamentation and embellishment. Jewelry is expressive. It can be political. It forces reflection.
(4) Interdisciplinary Collaborations: Criticality in jewelry design often involves collaboration with other disciplines, such as fashion, art, or technology. As such, boundaries between disciplines become blurred or redefined. New ideas, materials, techniques and technologies emerge.
(5) Challenges Standards Of Beauty, Fashion, Style, Taste and Art: Jewelry imposes questions on traditions, refocuses discussions about cultures and cultural appropriation, and points out alternative ways to appreciate different body types and forms of beauty.
(6) Shared Understandings: Jewelry is a vehicle for understanding how the desires and values of the designer must interact / coordinate / be cohesive with the desires, values, assumptions, expectations and perceptions of the various audiences which interact with the jewelry once introduced publicly. All their interactions during (and after) the design process is a veritable volleyball game of back and forth criticality.
(7) Appeal and Functionality: Jewelry is something to be worn, else it is merely sculpture. There are critical elements underlying any piece which relate in successful (or not) tradeoffs between appeal and functionality, art and architecture, object and intent.
By adopting a persistent, ever-present critical approach, jewelry designers can push the boundaries of design, explore new concepts, and create innovative pieces that go beyond mere adornment.
The Social Movement Gallery
When I was director of the Tennessee Primary Care Association, I had the opportunity, when moving our offices to a new location, to design a series of multi-use spaces. I put in a conference room which could double as a focus-group room for marketing studies. I put in a row of small spaces which could double as office spaces for temporary interns and display or storage spaces. And I organized the center of our space into a large, open space, with our staff offices bordering it on all four sides, and opening up into this space. This space was designed as an art gallery, with special lighting, furnishings, wall treatments. The space itself doubled for meetings, press conferences, gallery visitors, small work desks throughout.
Why an art gallery in the Primary Care Association offices?
The goals were part marketing, part meeting state and federal expectations of our health clinic members, and part forming or improving relationships with various power players throughout Tennessee.
The full conceptual powers and understandings underlying the idea of criticality were, pardon the repetition, critical to what we were trying to accomplish as an association — expanding access to health care services. These services were broadly defined to include basic primary care, prenatal and postnatal care, elderly care, homeless (now referred to as unhoused) care, veterans care, prisoners care, among other categories. Our member clinics were responsible for demonstrating that they were working in all these areas. And that was impossible. These clinics definitely did not have enough staff and not enough money and not enough time in the day.
The Gallery had national calls for submissions. I organized a nonprofit board of influential members, in one way or another, associated with the arts or the use of arts in program and economic development. The first exhibit was from Amnesty International. They had a traveling curated exhibit of works by Picasso, Pollock, Chagall, and others. This set the tone for the Gallery and got us a lot of free press and TV coverage.
Subsequent exhibits were organized by my new board. For each exhibit, we coordinated with one or two social service agencies directly responsible for providing services in line with the them. We formed a partnership. We used each exhibit to garner visibility, and allowed our partner agencies to take the lead in introducing the exhibit to the public.
For example, the homeless exhibit resulted in an oversized book, including images from the exhibit and articles by key people in the field. Tipper Gore (former Vice President Al Gore’s wife) held a press conference in the Gallery, introducing a new bill to expand mental health services across the nation. The two nonprofit organizations we worked with raised considerable funds for new grants and services. And all our member clinics were able to indicate to the state and to the federal government that they had met the requirement for providing expanded access to the homeless.
An exhibit on the elderly showcased two artists, one a painter and one a photographer. Both of them focused considerable attention on the hands of their elderly subjects. We introduced the world to the cover art for the book When I Am An Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple. Again, we partnered with two nonprofit organizations, coordinating marketing and promotion. We triggered the development of two trial programs. And all our member clinics were able to indicate to the state and to the federal government that they had met the requirement for providing expanded access to the elderly.
Access to Prenatal Care was the focus of another exhibit. We displayed the incredible and powerful photographic works of two California artists. We coordinated several different programs with both nonprofit and state agencies in Tennessee. We held a reception for the artists in our Gallery. This resulted in over 6 weeks of TV exposure — news casts, repeated over and over every day, TV program coverage, newspaper articles. Everyone wanted to use these powerfully presented images highlighting the issues of access to prenatal care. We provided the opportunity for them to do so. And all our member clinics were able to indicate to the state and to the federal government that they had met the requirement for providing expanded access to women who needed prenatal care.
We had an exhibit of art works done by Vietnam vets. Some were artistic, but most were crude, haunting, perhaps mostly meaningful only to other Vietnam vets. Every day over 6 weeks, three or four or ten veterans would come into the Gallery. Most homeless. Many had walked 10–20 miles to come. They were kind of scary to look at, and definitely not the types of people who would normally frequent our offices. They would stare at the works of art and sit in our Gallery for hours. Otherwise, it was the usual routine for us. Coordinate with other agencies with their marketing and development needs. And indicate to the state and the feds that our clinics were expanding access to services for this underserved population.
My Gallery was not without its detractors. They sat on the Association’s board of directors. In spite of all this positive activity, they did not see the benefit of a Gallery within their mists. To them, art meant buying a blue painting to hang over a blue couch. Social and political art was something uncomfortable for them, no matter how much they benefited from it. They did not comprehend arts relationship to health care. And, predictably, we had very few sales. In crass money terms, the Gallery was a cost center for the Association. The benefits, while extremely large, were primarily intangibles. Luckily for me, my Association board stalemated on this issue.
I defended the Gallery until I left the Association. I believed it was critical to our operations and those of our member clinics. It triggered partnerships and visibility and awareness. It increased the accessibility of services throughout the state without burdening the limited resources of our member clinics. Major foundations in Tennessee, which had had the Association on their Do-Not-Deal-With Lists, took us off those lists.
But, when I left the Association, I closed the Gallery down at that point. There was no one at the Association to take over the reins. It was not self-sufficient financially.
My next career move was to sell jewelry and eventually design it.
And ventured into new worlds of criticality. Or, if I think about it, perhaps the same worlds, but different words, different scale.
Legitimacy
Coping with criticality goes hand in hand with developing a sense of legitimacy as a designer. Criticality gives you insights on how to become legitimate. Legitimacy gives you the fortitude for listening to, understanding, and responding to criticality.
Your legitimacy as a jewelry designer, your reputation, your visibility, your opportunities, to some degree, flow from this process of criticality. Legitimacy comes from both local and more general validation. Validation results from these processes of critical observation and analyses of your work and of how you conduct yourself within your practice.
Your legitimacy encompasses several aspects which are determinative of it, including:
(2) Experience: projects you’ve worked on, skills you possess, your portfolio
(3) Reputation: reviews, client recommendations, industry recognition
(4) Ethics: how you professionally interact to meet your client needs
(5) Authenticity: how your original work differentiates you from other jewelry designers, given your values and desires, your craftsmanship, your creativity
Your various audiences that view your work critically, in turn, bring your work in contact with the external world, what is referred to as contagion. They look for a high level of coherence within the design and its execution. They describe it critically as to its qualifications for matching desire, establishing appeal, having personal or general value and meaning. For successful jewelry designers, this contagion continues, diffuses, and grows.
Legitimacy engenders a deeper level of confidence among designer, wearer and viewer. The relationships are stimulated, enriched, given more and more value. Jewelry is more than a simple object; it is a catalyst for interaction, for relationships, for engagement, for emotion. Legitimacy results in trust and validation.
With globalization and rapid technological changes, the jewelry designer is confronted with additional burdens, making the effort to achieve legitimacy ever more difficult. That is because these larger forces bring about more and more standardization of jewelry, and with it, a diminished need for criticality. These forces rapidly bring fashions and styles to the fore, only to scrap them, in the seemingly blink of an eye, for the next hot thing. They channel images of jewelry pieces around and around the world taking on a sameness, and lowering people’s expectations to what jewelry could be about.
If the products around the world are essentially the same, then the only thing the customer will care about is price. They won’t care who made it. They won’t care about quality. There will be no critical evaluation or assessment of designer legitimacy. Jewelry design and the jewelry designer would, in effect, become meaningless — merely a tool of production.
Innovation begins to disappear. With its disappearance, the role of the jewelry designer diminishes. The jewelry designer becomes more a technician with no professional identity or concerns. No need for authenticity or design fluency or originality. The jewelry simply becomes the sum of its parts — the market value of the beads, metals and other components. There are few, if any, pathways to legitimacy.
That’s not what we want. And that makes it ever more important that jewelry designers see themselves as professionals, and develop their disciplinary literacy — fluency, flexibility and originality in design. Aspects of design which cannot be globalized. Or standardized. Or accomplished without the work, knowledge, skills, understandings and insights of a professional jewelry designer.
You can’t achieve this without a framework for criticality in the jewelry design process.
Questioning and analyzing.
Challenging assumptions and values.
Finding contradictions or weaknesses in perspectives.
Going beyond norms.
Exploring alternatives.
The fluent designer.
The legitimate one.
Criticism can be used to suppress legitimacy in design. It can be used to force the designer into a particular incompatible or undesirable framework or system. This kind of criticism needs to be challenged.
However, criticism can also be used to overcome suppression, allowing for a more professional, purposeful, innovative, responsible and authentic jewelry designer to emerge.
A designer who has ownership over his or her own designs.
I have set up a space for our community of jewelry designers — Warren Feld Jewelry’s PATREON HUB — to learn, to interact, and to provide and/or get feedback on what they are working on. Please join here.
Be part of a community of jewelry designers who recognize that we have a different way of thinking and doing than other types of crafters or artists. Access more articles and other resources not included in my medium.com site.
I have set up a space for our community of jewelry designers — Warren Feld Jewelry’s PATREON HUB— to learn, to interact, and to provide and/or get feedback on what they are working on. Please join here.
Be part of a community of jewelry designers who recognize that we have a different way of thinking and doing than other types of crafters or artists. Access more articles and other resources not included in my medium.com site.
THE INSTAGRAM SERIES (14 parts)
Instagram is perhaps the best place to attract and find customers for your jewelry design work. In this INSTAGRAM SERIES, I cover some of the most frequent concerns and insights jewelry designers have about marketing on Instagram.
I have found, from personal experience as well as the experience of literally hundreds of my jewelry design students and customers, that Instagram is perhaps the best place to attract and find customers for your work. Social media marketing is not difficult, but it takes an inordinate amount of time. This marketing time takes a lot of time away from your creative time.
I have written this series of articles to provide insight and encouragement with your marketing on Instagram. I cover some of the most frequent concerns jewelry designers have about marketing on Instagram. I’m always cognizant of the tensions between business and creativity, and I hope this information will save you a lot of time to spend on your creativity side.
I suggest concentrating on only two social media sites, and that Instagram be your primary one. You want to set up a professional/business account on each. If you want to post personal things, then set up a separate personal account on each. Don’t mix the two things.
Marketing on Instagram can be both exciting and challenging for artists. Here are the 20 most frequently asked questions artists have about marketing on the platform. Continue reading here…
The most useful way to be found on Instagram is to use hashtags. Think of hashtags as like books in a library — how will someone find them? Continue reading here…
Picking the best and right hashtags for your jewelry design business requires some research, understanding your audience, and analyzing your data. Continue reading here…
Using the right hashtags can significantly boost your reach and engagement on Instagram. Here are 50 popular hashtags for jewelry designing and making. Continue reading here…
Using banned hashtags on Instagram can lead to reduced visibility of your posts or even account suspension. Some are obvious, others not so. Continue reading here…
Create your brand-specific hashtag to make it easy for people to find you, your business, things you have made, workshops and shows your are involved with. Continue reading here…
To get a feel for what an excellent jewelry design post looks like on Instagram, check out what others are doing. Here are some renowned postings. Continue reading here…
Each post is your chance to get recognized by Instagram so that they more widely distribute it. Yes, it must be a great image. But posting also requires more strategizing. Continue reading here…
Balancing self-care with social media marketing is crucial for jewelry designs in maintaining their creativity, well-being and motivation, while effectively promoting their work. Continue reading here…
Connecting with other jewelry designers is invaluable and very easy. Important to nurture relationships. Opportunities will follow. Continue reading here…
Getting the attention of galleries and boutiques is important. This means, getting your posts in front of them, having a profile/bio that resonates with them, and writing meaningful comments on things they themselves post. Continue reading here…
Instagram is a very easy way for people to check you and your work out, and seeing you as a professional designer. Your Profile/Bio should anticipate this. Continue reading here…
Cleaning up your posts on a professional or business Instagram account is essential for maintaining a polished and cohesive brand image. Continue reading here…
Don’t overthink your text for your Instagram posts. The image is 90% of the battle, the text only 10%. Instagram is a visual medium for visual people. Continue reading here…
On Instagram, the Feed and the Stories serve different purposes. Your feed must be very curated, professional, and brand-reconfirming. Your stories are meant to be more casual, like behind the scenes topics or personal things about the designer. Continue reading here…
Instagram used to be like a personal blog. Today it is not. Today it is a professional representation of you as a jewelry designer. Continue reading here…
On Instagram, there are several advantages and opportunities for accruing more followers. But remember, it is their ENGAGEMENT that Instagram measures and likes the most. That is where Instagram Insights comes in. Continue reading here…
If you have some money to budget to use influencers, they can speed up everything for you. Continue reading here…
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I have set up a space for our community of jewelry designers — Warren Feld Jewelry’s PATREON HUB— to learn, to interact, and to provide and/or get feedback on what they are working on. Please join here.
Be part of a community of jewelry designers who recognize that we have a different way of thinking and doing than other types of crafters or artists.
How do you prioritize goals when you have many projects and possibilities competing for your attention?
We’re approaching the busy 4th quarter jewelry-sales season. As you are busily trying to increase your inventory, either for sales or gifts, I think it’s a good time to ask yourself about your goals.
Goals are things that tell you where you want to end up and what you want to achieve. They help you make sense of, make choices about, set priorities for all the overwhelming set of things that have to get done to keep your business or avocation on the right track. That is, on the right track so that you do not get overwhelmed, paralyzed, frustrated, angry or disappointed.
You don’t want to get stuck wondering what the future should be.
You set goals and let them guide you in your decision making simply because you want to maximize your creative time, minimize your non-creative time, and end up with a satisfying degree of accomplishment and profit.
Ask yourself these questions:
How do you prioritize goals when you have many projects and possibilities competing for your attention?
How can you identify the things that really matter in your business or avocation, and stay focused on them?
What is your current mindset around goal-setting, and how can you improve it?
Think of your set of goals as a strategy roadmap of what you want to do, and what is more important to get done. This roadmap needs to cover these topical areas:
Financial things
Customer satisfaction things
Administrative procedure things
Learning and growth things
You can use this strategy roadmap to keep score. At any time. In any part of the process. With whatever you are doing. What is your score, and how does it reflect a balance in everything you need to do and get done?
Where the circles overlap, called a Venn Diagram, these become the primary set of things to focus on, do and accomplish. These become the major things to which you score and balance. These are the options that get a first look and first dibs. As your list of things to think about and do get further and further away from where the circles overlap, the less important they are.
In your Venn Diagram, you will have 4 circles — the four types of things listed above which your strategy roadmap needs to cover — money, customers, procedures, and personal growth.
You want to train yourself to start thinking of your business or avocation in terms of circles and overlaps. Instead of thinking it has to be black or white, or left or right, or one separate thing after another, think of things in grays or middle grounds, or things which gel together or integrate together. The question for you is NOT: How can I do one thing or another? The question should be: How can I do one thing concurrently with another? How can you get the best of both worlds?
Goal Setting (Systems Thinking)
So, for each of the 4 topical areas above, you might list 10 options you want to do in order to accomplish the topical area satisfactorily. The goal here is quantity, not necessarily quality. Get 10 options for each topical area on the table.
Lay these out like a deck of cards into 4 columns.
Now, narrow down these options. Which ones co-occur or are co-dependent or where one can be done instead of another? Which ones are more important than others? You want to begin to define those optimum points between efficiency and effectiveness.
How would the benefits of A look like coupled with the benefits of B, so that I can benefit from both and find that middle path?
As you are narrowing down your options, do you begin to discover new options? Can you add these as more cards to your list, as you are rejecting others? Perhaps there is a more ideal option as you are thinking about the benefits that might result from all your cards.
Train your thinking process to be systems thinking. Your goals (that is, in this exercise, your cards) are destinations. Your process for evaluating, rejecting, creating, converging, diverging options is a process. Systems thinking is this process.
Blend your goals and your process orientation. You want to minimize the times when you feel lost and not sure of what you should do next. Systems thinking helps you here. It helps you identify what things you want to be involved with now. Such involvement gets you to that future without having to overly ponder it.
Set your time frame: Reality always changes. New opportunities arise, others close. It’s useful to think of your goal options in terms of this week, this month, this quarter.
Constantly adjust your process actions to new opportunities as these arise.
Follow through. Adjust as necessary. Think about the next logical steps. Following through and a willingness to adjust as necessary and thinking ahead leads to success.
Last, Step Back and Exercise Your Metacognitive Skills
It is important to be aware of your thinking process at all times. This is called metacognition.
Reflect on what you were thinking, what options you were delineating, how you were choosing some and not others, and why.
Do you find your mind-set more goal-oriented or more process oriented?
Do you need to balance these out?
What strategies can you employ to find that best balance between goal-orientation and process-orientation?
Are you thinking too much in the future, or getting too lost in the day-to-day?
**Be part of a community of jewelry designers who recognize that we have a different way of thinking and doing than other types of crafters or artists.
Engage with a community. Benefit from its collective power — insights, reactions, feedback, foresight, and directing you to opportunities.
Never miss an update. You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new article of interest, and announcements about kits, workshops and webinars, chat group, feedback session, and special promotions, goes directly to your inbox.
You want to influence someone to establish a 1 to 1 relationship with you, when that someone is not familiar with you and your work. Think about what might motivate them. That thing is your lead magnet.
These days, a lot of business marketing and branding activities occurs through and on the computer. One core aspect of your business depends on attracting “eyeballs”. You might be expanding your email contact list. You might be trying to accumulate fans and followers. You might be trying to expand readers, customers, members and subscribers.
Towards these ends, one of the primary things you will do is expand your email contacts list. One of the most productive and successful ways of doing this is to offer a lead magnet. A lead (pronounced ‘leed’) magnet is a tangible thing you promise to deliver to your audience if and when they register their email address with you.
Crafting The Lead Magnet
Your lead magnet should be concrete, focused and actionable. The less abstract it is, the better.
It should be easy to consume. You do not want to overload the target customer with information.
It should have a recognizable value. Do not be cheap here; do not feel you are giving away secrets.
It should trigger and reconfirm a great impression of you and your work.
Again, make it a clear thing. It could be things like:
· Checklist of supplies and tools to have on hand in your studio
· An e-book, such as jewelry silhouettes vis-à-vis body and face shapes, or guide to getting started on Instagram
· A tutorial or project instructions
· A downloadable
· A ticket to access something else, such as getting into a private showing of your work
· A voucher, like a discount coupon for a piece of jewelry you have made
· A short how-to video
A physical lead magnet will work better than something nonphysical.
Give your benefit a name. The name should confirm that the benefit is a physical thing of value that the customer will get, thus rewarding the customer for sharing their email address with you (or registering on your website).
#’s, capital letters, symbols in messages catch attention.
Be A Generous Giver
You want to influence someone to establish a 1 to 1 relationship with you, when that someone is not familiar with you and your work. Think about what might motivate them. That thing is your lead magnet. Think about the best way to leverage your lead magnet in order to asset your influence.
You establish a sense of reciprocity. Be generous and they will trust you.
Keep their work simple. Ask them to make a micro-commitment — simple to get, little work for them, but a big asset for you.
Build In A Contingency
You can set some kinds of limits to heighten the customer’s motivation to follow through. Create a sense of urgency to comply with your call to action. For example,
· Your ‘benefit’ runs out in 30 days
· If you are the first 10 to sign up, you get a 2nd benefit
Examples of lead magnets:
· Free mini-lesson, ebook or guide on a technique or project or how to get started making jewelry
· Discount coupon for classes, supplies, pieces of jewelry
· Tutorial videos
· Jewelry making supply list, curated favorite jewelry making supplies, and how to use them
· Exclusive access to a webinar
· Printable color wheels
· Exclusive piece of jewelry, like a stretchy bracelet
· Live preview of new pieces you have made (before showing them to the public)
· Jewelry appreciation guide — techniques, materials, history
· Behind the scenes content so that they can see your creative process
· Personalize jewelry recommendations
· Survey their tastes so you can match these to your jewelry pieces which are currently available
· Collector’s guide: how to get started, caring for jewelry, how to determine value
· Jewelry-themed desk top wallpaper; mobile wallpaper: perhaps featuring your work
· Virtual jewelry show ticket — showcase your latest work
· Local Art and craft show calendar, particularly if you will be showing at these
· Various checklists
· Article about how to buy gemstones
· Invite to ZOOM or chat session for a Q&A about jewelry making or problem solving
Delivering Your Lead Magnet
As a jewelry designer, you want to convert exposure into prospects. This means you want to deliver your lead magnets everywhere you think you can get exposure to the types of people you want to stay in touch with you.
You might list it as your E-signature on emails, or on your business cards, in your social media profiles, on your website.
Example: In your Instagram bio: DM me “LIST” to get my upcoming materials checklist when it is ready. Then in response to their DM, return with, “Which email address should I sent it to when ready?”
If you are directly someone to a form for collecting email addresses, instead of heading that form: Join My Email List, focus on the lead magnet. For instance, you might write: Get my free guide to …
If you are creating videos and reels, your last slide my be that call to action: Get my free guide to…
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***Be part of a community of jewelry designers who recognize that we have a different way of thinking and doing than other types of crafters or artists.
Engage with a community. Benefit from its collective power — insights, reactions, feedback, foresight, and directing you to opportunities.
Never miss an update. You won’t have to worry about missing anything. Every new article of interest, and announcements about kits, workshops and webinars, chat group, feedback session, and special promotions, goes directly to your inbox.
I have found Instagram the best social media site for promoting your jewelry sales, and their algorithm has changed for the better for us
Before, Instagram would show new posts to 1% of your followers first and, depending on the response, share further.
This favored accounts with a large following, such as influencers or jewelry designers with especially large followings, since their 1% is a lot more than the 1% of a small account.
Now, every new post will be shown to a random group of users, usually ones with a shared interest in the kind of posts you create. Think: followers of your followers who don’t yet follow you will get prioritized. Aggregators accounts, like influencers, will get diminished a bit. In a similar vein, co-occurring is this situation: If you post an image on your own feed as well as with an influencer’s feed, that image will only appear on your own feed, not on the influencer’s. Instagram’s goal is to reward originality and the creator.
This is great news for smaller accounts: it widens the funnel of potential engagement with each post.
Reels are still important, but they’re no longer the only ones.
Focus on posting a mix of Reels, still images, and carousels. Should NOT be all reels all the time. The important factor is that you are giving your followers value. Make them feel like you are giving them something.
Give people something to read (in the post or the caption)
Provide an insider point of view to your jewelry-making process
Choose an eye-catching cover image for all posts (hook them)
Better lighting often solves many issues of gaining and keeping attention. Also bring people in close to the elements in the image. Focus on a a section of the piece. Show them your hands at work. Don’t pull back for that wide shot of everything necessarily.
Bring people in close, show them what you’re doing.
Give viewers a reason to watch your entire Reel.
NO’s: Instead of simply showing your work, using captions such as:
❌ “Here’s my latest piece of jewelry…”
❌ “I have an event coming…”
❌ “My website is now live…”
YES’s: Capture their attention first, and then make your announcement:
✅ “Here’s how I turned this run-of-the-mill necklace into an exciting one..” finishing with “This piece is now available”
✅ “You won’t believe how this piece turned out…” followed by “Come see this piece live at my next show.”
WARNINGs: Less time-lapse of showing each step after it has been completed, and more showing something actionable, like implementing each step.
Come up with something that will make people hang out until the interesting part. Come up with things to make people stick around. Bring them close-in to the action. Be sure they see you sometime in the images. Be sure, at the end or towards the end, they see the outcome, such as the finished piece or section of the piece, or completed step.
End with a CALL TO ACTION. Such as, direct them to your website where they can purchase the finished piece, or to your website where they can sign up for your newletters.
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SO YOU WANT TO BE A JEWELRY DESIGNER Merging Your Voice With Form
So You Want To Be A Jewelry Designer reinterprets how to apply techniques and modify art theories from the Jewelry Designer’s perspective. To go beyond craft, the jewelry designer needs to become literate in this discipline called Jewelry Design. Literacy means understanding how to answer the question: Why do some pieces of jewelry draw your attention, and others do not? How to develop the authentic, creative self, someone who is fluent, flexible and original. How to gain the necessary design skills and be able to apply them, whether the situation is familiar or not.
There are so many different kinds of things you can do business-wise to promote your jewelry designs. Post on every social media site. Conduct several email campaigns. Take out ads. Create websites. However, all these can get overwhelming and begin to impede on your time and energy for creating jewelry. To prevent this, it is important to be organized. It is important to rely on more limited, predictable, easily accessible, repeatable systems of things you need to do to sustain both your jewelry designing and your business.
Some key business-related goals involve:
(1) Impression management
(2) Mentoring
(3) Audience recruitment and retention
(4) Networking and Partnering
(5) Selling
Some caveats:
(a) To create that manageability’ you want to do as much as you can from your computer
(b) In reality, selling actual pieces of jewelry, on average, only covers about 1/3 of your sustainability needs. You may have to take on additional work, and it makes the most sense that the work relate to jewelry designing.
(c) You are in the trust-creating business. You must be able to establish instant trust about the value of your work and the desirability of your work for your core buying audience.
Impression management
What impression does someone get from interacting with you, either online or in-person or through some other point-of-sale? To what degree can you influence and control this impression? Key things to consider:
o Website
o Email Etiquette
o Cold Calling
o Follow Through
Website. You want a professional website. This website will showcase your products. It will be home to lots of well-organized and accessible information, including: your bio, your art statement, your portfolio, testimonials, links to articles you have written, perhaps a creative-focused resume, and images of your work.
It might showcase shorter videos showing you at work, or delving into a particular work.
It will have links to your various social media pages. The layout, design and information presentation across social media sites needs to be very consistent across all your platforms. You should maintain separate pages for each social media for business vs. personal. You do not want anything personal to come up in your business page feed.
It may or may not have a shopping cart system attached. If not, then you need to make clear other alternatives for how people can buy your products from you.
It will have a FAQ page detailing contact information, purchasing and return policies, payment methods, any privacy concerns.
It will have a clear way for people to add their names to your mailing list.
Email Etiquette. It is critical to generate an email list of customers/potential customers. You want them to very formally and visibly opt-in to the list. You can generate sign-up sheets, online forms, and the like towards this end. You can also segment your list into smaller, targeted groups.
Email will be your best, primary and most powerful networking tool.
You can run your own email campaigns, or use an email client like MAILCHIMP (https://mailchimp.com) or CONSTANT CONTACT (https://www.constantcontact.com). I would suggest using an email client. This will prevent your own email address from getting blocked by the internet-powers-that-be as spam.
Each time you get someone’s email address to add to your list, send them a special email, thanking them. Also direct them to your website or online presence, such as on social media, with an active link.
A monthly contact is reasonable.
Caution: many anti-spam programs reject email addresses that begin with Info, Contact, Shop, Store, Help and other very generic terms.
In writing and tone, be professional. Don’t use the kind of quick texts or posts you might use on social media.
You do not want your email to appear that it is wasting anyone’s time. Use a polite greeting and closing. In your first sentence or two be very clear in conveying why you are writing this email specifically to them. Don’t ramble. Get to your points quickly. Don’t use long blocks of texts. Segment/section things and use subheadings throughout. You want the email to be scannable. Don’t use any or many images. None to two images would be more than enough. Wait to share images until after someone requests to see them. Do, however, include an active link to where they might find images of your works online.
To the best you can, personalize things as much as possible. Direct the email to a named person. Make things sound as if you are not sending out the same email to a long list of contacts.
Some examples of personalized phrasing:
o I visited your shop recently, and
o So and so suggested I contact you,
o I visited your website,
o I read about you in such-and-such magazine,
Cold Calling. With cold calling, you have two basic strategies: (a) Shoehorn, or (b) Direct. Whatever approach you use, be sure to have done some research about your target store/gallery, the designers they represent, a sense of preferred style and looks, and the characteristics of their primary customer audience.
With a shoehorn strategy, you begin to ease yourself into the world and universe of a particular store or gallery. You visit as a customer and ask questions. You contact and talk with other artists represented in the store. You participate in open houses and other events. You add your name to their emailing list. You begin to have more and longer conversations with the owner. Gradually you introduce the idea of having your jewelry represented in their venue. Always wear one or more pieces of your jewelry.
With a direct approach, you come into the store unannounced. Hopefully the owner is there then; otherwise, ask the staff when the best time to return is. Always wear one or more pieces of your jewelry. Be prepared with about 20 pieces, nicely organized and displayed in trays, that, if you are making headway, you can bring into the venue with you. It is also OK, if you have the inventory, to have even more pieces in your car that you can bring in, if it seems the owner is interested in purchasing some things.
If you are unable to visit in person, then send a letter. Don’t phone first. It is too easy for the store to ignore you. In your letter, keep it short and to the point. Establish your credibility as a designer, and clearly identify the fit between your work and their customer base. Sound authentic, not sales’y. Write about,
o Who you are
o Your style and design sense
o Why you think your jewelry would be a good fit for their customer base
o The materials and techniques you typically use
o Your previous experience selling your pieces
o Some sheets showing inventory, description, pricing
o End with a phrase like, “I’d like to get together with you to show my work in person. I will call you to set up an appointment, if interested.”
o Add links to your website of places which show your jewelry.
Follow Through. Be very clear about this: You are not an information-sharer. Rather, you are a relationship builder. Sending out emails, posting on line, targeting letters, cold calling are all tools you use to build relationships. Relationships are built up by sharing understandings, not necessarily tid-bits of information. These understandings have to do with values, desires, assumptions, expectations, and perceptions. The more you establish shared understandings — and that does not mean having to have the same opinions — the tighter and more productive these relationships get.
If you are wanting a response to something from someone, and it’s not forthcoming in a reasonable time, follow up with that person.
If you have visited a store/gallery and had some conversation with someone there, follow up with a thank you note or some note that continues something about your conversation.
If someone sends you a comment about you or your work, send them a thank you note.
In your follow-ups, repeat the name of the person you are following up with.
Provide additional valuable information in your follow-up conversations.
Mentoring
Share your art/designer skills for a fee. You can teach classes or one-on-one. You can create instructional projects or tutorials. You can write articles. You can curate shows. You can become a coach. You can conduct online webinars.
Things have synergistic effects — they amplify other things you are doing. Mentoring will result in a larger, more targeted email list. Students will look for all the mentoring activities you do. Students often will buy your pieces. Mentoring will increase the number of topics you can talk about when networking.
Keep your initial goal simple: Aim to attract 5 students, interacting with them 1–4x each month, encouraging them to spend $50–250/student per month on your mentoring activities and product sales.
Audience recruitment and retention
What is most important about recruiting and retaining audience members is not the numbers of contacts, but the quality of your engagement with your contacts. Again, success is a matter of forming and sustaining one-on-one relationships. When you have relationships, it becomes much easier to ask for favors. On a regular basis, you can create content, for free, shared through emails, which helps you connect and form relationships with your core audience.
You don’t necessarily need 1000’s of people in your core audience. More likely, having 30–100 regular buyers of your work would suffice. This allows keeping connected and creating connections with your core audience much more attainable. Know what this limited group of buyers is looking for. Know where they hang out and where to find them. Offer them opportunities to interact with you and your jewelry, such as offering them a first look, or a time to watch you and learn a few design techniques as you work. Turn these buyers into true fans.
Think about:
o What does this core buyer care about?
o What does this buyer read?
o Where do you find this buyer?
o What resonates with this buyer?
Answers to these questions could help you shape your marketing message when explaining how your jewelry could elevate this buyer’s life. Inspiring your buyer. Building trust. Note: you are not creating jewelry for this buyer per se; rather, given the jewelry you are creating and want to create, this assists you in finding that audience who might share your values and understandings as expressed within your designs and by you as an authentic jewelry designer.
Networking and Partnering
When networking and partnering, you uncover more opportunities at less risk and cost to yourself, your creative energy, and your business fundamentals. There’s less effort to find opportunities. Less effort to put plans and projects into effect. Less effort to get visibility. Less effort to make a sale.
It might be useful to set a goal as making 3 networking contacts per week. Use your network to get help in creating these pitches. Make them shared pitches. Use the shared pitches to introduce yourself to their audiences, and conversely their products to your own audience.
Caveat: Always direct people to specific webpages relevant to any pitch. Do not direct them to your home page on your website.
Selling
As a jewelry designer, your self-concept is most likely one as an artist. But when you are in business, you need to expand this a bit and see yourself as both an artist and a salesperson. If this makes you feel a bit uncomfortable, it’s understandable, but you need to get over it. Jewelry doesn’t sell itself.
You want to always have on hand 15–20 coherent pieces available for sale. They need to feel as if they are part of a line of jewelry, with a similar emotional appeal to a defined target audience.
You want to have a list of about 50 places you could approach to carry your jewelry. Then you work the list, perhaps 3 contacts a week. Prioritize your contacts. Begin your process with your lower priority contacts so that you can gain some experience in presenting yourself and your products before approaching your most desired sites.
You do not close a sale. Keeping with a key theme of advice: You create a relationship. You are not selling a product. You are guiding someone, in a caring way, to come to understand how your jewelry might enhance and enrich their lives. You want them to make a buying decision that will be good for themselves. You are not trying to get something from them; rather, you are trying to give them something which will positively impact their lives. Your key skill here when selling is empathy.
Be bold and confident when introducing yourself.
Always ask the person you are talking with what their name is; repeat their name several times while speaking with them.
Ask a lot of questions; show interest in the client or customer. Get them talking about themselves. You should be talking about 25% of the time and your client/customer should be talking about 75% of the time.
A great story about your jewelry will sell it. They are especially interested in your inspiration, as well as your process for creating jewelry.
Don’t let your client/customer get away without at least asking them if they have any interested in purchasing your jewelry. Even if that person says No!, you would be in a better position than if you had not asked.
Final Words
Don’t let the business aspects of succeeding in jewelry design kill your creative spark. Instead, make each broad business goal into a set series of systematic, repeatable activities.
As you can see, much of all this effort can be done from your studio on your computer. This will save you vast amounts of time which you can devote to the creative side of your life. Less time jewelry marketing. More time jewelry making. The end results of these activities should be increased exposure, relationships and engagements.
The most successful designers have
o Step-by-step plans
o Associations with expertise
o Become a part of a peer audience and community
Make your jewelry design journey flourish. Take ownership over it — how you spend your time, energy and the use of resources around you. Put everything to best use to attain your own highest values.
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I was 4th place finalist, Swarovski jewelry competition
I highly recommend entering many art and jewelry design competitions each and every year. This is a good way to
· Raise your visibility
· Practice your self-promotion skills
· Get feedback on your work
· Gain more legitimacy and credibility
· Promote your value
· Keep aware of current trends and expectations in jewelry design
· Further inspire your clients
Competitions can supercharge your jewelry design growth and career.
The First Competition I Entered
In 2004, I submitted an entry (see image above) to the Swarovski Be Naturally Inspired jewelry design competition. I downloaded a copy of the rules and set to work. The project had to be at least 75% Swarovski Austrian crystal beads, stones, or other components. You had to submit an image of your final piece, an image of your inspiration, an artist bio, and an artist statement about your piece and how you translated your inspiration into the finished piece.
This image of the Grand Canyon at sunrise was my inspiration:
Grand Canyon Sunrise
I set out to work. Created the general design, selected the technique I wanted to use, and with determination and a lot of trial and error, created the finished piece. In the process, I discovered that different Austrian crystal colors, when used together, tended to blur boundaries and lose some of that distinct color sense that I wanted. I had to solve that problem, which I did, by using black 1.8mm delica beads between each crystal bead. This helped create sharper boundaries.
Up until that point, I had not written any kind of bio or artist statement. I was uneasy about how to describe the finished piece, such as what to call attention to. I had to do several drafts of each. Was a great exercise.
Submitted the piece. Heard back that I was a finalist. Then I had to send them the original piece. I had trouble letting go and saying goodbye. I found one package to use, then rejected it. Then another package, and rejected that. The fifth packaging idea was finally satisfying. Then I held onto the ready-to-ship package for almost a week before taking it over to the UPS shop. I had to insure it. The value was priceless to me. But I had to pick a number. And I prayed that the package would not get lost or damaging.
Swarovski emailed me that it had arrived safely.
I was invited to the awards ceremony they held in their offices in New York City.
And said goodbye again to my piece which was headed for their museum in Innsbruck Austria.
You Are Always A Winner
Whether you win or lose, you are, in fact, experiencing a rich source of inspiration and learning. There never really is a setback.
At the very least, you most likely will be included in a publicly presented list of submitters. You have already increased your visibility.
If your submission is accepted, you have something to list on your resume or list of achievements. You can use this as talking points when selling to a client, store or gallery. You can add this information to wherever you showcase the submitted work. You can embellish your descriptions with information from the materials you submitted for contest entry.
You can generate press releases, social media posts, special email announcements. You can send out updates as your submission progresses through the competition process, such as should you become a semifinalist.
As you do these kinds of things to increase your visibility, this builds credibility and brand awareness. Many store and gallery owners watch these contests closely, often making note of the better pieces and their designers, often following the designers over their career.
Whether The Feedback Is Positive or Negative — It Always Gives You A Better Understanding of Yourself As a Designer
Feedback provides clues to why your jewelry has VALUE to them. What do they want to know about it? How does the design help them solve a problem? What key attributes of VALUE should you promote to your clients?
Participating in competitions gives you a great opportunity to practice speaking about yourself and your jewelry, and seeing how others react.
Competitions provide many clues about what is relevant in the moment. They force you to figure out how to relate you and your design sense to a set of competition rules and expectations.
All this public visibility will actually inspire some people to spread the message about you. Generating word-of-mouth is often the most successful type of marketing.
Competitions Are Juried
Periodically do online searches for jewelry and art competitions. If the active link is a newsletter or mailing list of some sort, give them your email address. Some art competitions will allow submissions of jewelry; others will not.
Not sure how I got this way. I can remember when I was 10 or 11 years old, my friend Gary and I, and sometimes Ira, who was sometimes a friend, sometimes someone we bullied, used to set fires, and then try to put them out. We would set fire to this field behind the Ford dealership on Rt. 22. We would set fire to homes and businesses under construction. We would set fires, let them burn awhile and then try to put them out by stamping them with our feet, putting blankets over them, pouring water on them.
We set fires until we were caught. By the police. Punished severely by our parents who could not figure out why we were setting fires. The word because was insufficient for them. We did it because we could. The fields and buildings were there waiting to be used. We used them the way we knew how. That gave us some fun. A feeling of power. And that was that.
That was that for Gary and Ira. Actually, not for me. I became mesmerized. The colors. The contrasts. The saturation and vibrancy. The interplay. The movement and rapid color changes. The certainty when it was all over.
My gaze locked in, never wavering, staring as the light tans and beiges of the tall field grasses, very still, began undulating with reds and oranges, some blues, some maroons, the fiery colors taking over, first a small area, then more and more, until the colors were more powerful than the heat generated by the fire. Once the fire was put out, I literally felt the strong juxtaposition between charcoal and beige, at once listless and lifeless, yet exuding a powerful finality.
Color is such a powerful influencer. I never set fires again, but, at the same time, I had no one to share my very personal, very emotional, very primal color experiences with until I was in my late 20’s. In school, I was always tracked with the more intelligent kids. This meant rewards for math and science, and some put downs for art and music. My parents did not want to hear about anything else besides lawyer and doctor.
Soon after Gary and Ira and I were caught, I moved away.
But I doubt color was in their forethoughts as we set fires to things.
The Jewelry Designer Colors Differently Than The Artist
You cannot paint with beads and other jewelry components.
I am going to repeat this: You cannot paint with beads and other jewelry components.
When you take color class after color class rooted in art, they are teaching you how to paint. You can’t do this with jewelry and beads.
I give this warning to all my students. I repeat it frequently in the articles I write. I follow it carefully when designing my own pieces. I have been challenged frequently by people who make jewelry and consider themselves artists. But to create successful jewelry takes you beyond art, its ideas, constructs and precepts. Jewelry has some roots in art, which is true. But it also has roots in craft. It is very comparable to architecture. Its product — the outcome — plays a different role and must conform to different social and physical tensions than paintings and sculptures. I repeat: You cannot paint with beads.
As frustrating as this can be, you cannot ignore the fact that Color is the single most important Design Element. Colors, their selection, use and arrangement, are believed to have universal powers to get people to see things as harmonious and appealing. Color attracts attention. A great use of color within an object, not only makes that object more coherent, it can make it more contagious, as well. Using colors that do not work well together, or using too many colors or not enough colors, or using colors which look good on paper but distort in reality can put people off.
Jewelry Designers can learn the artistic basics of Color concepts and theories. They can reference this visual language of color to influence how they go about making choices, including those about picking and using colors. However, jewelry artists who are fluent in design will be very aware of the limitations this artistic, painterly language imposes on them. They will have to learn how to decode, adjust and leverage their thinking to anticipate how the bead and other related and integrated materials assert their needs for color, and how to strategically compose, construct and manipulate them.
Jewelry, unlike painting or sculpture, has certain characteristics and requirements which rely on the management and control of color, its sensation and its variability with a slightly different emphasis than learned in a traditional art class. Jewelry is a 3-dimensional object, composed of a range of materials. Jewelry situates, moves and adjusts in relation to the human body and what that body is doing at the moment.
To get the attention their jewelry deserves, jewelry artists must become fluent with color selection and application from their own disciplinary perspective. We must understand color in jewelry as the jewelry is worn, and worn in a particular context or situation. Ever-changing directions and intensities of light and shadow, reflection, absorption and refraction. The observation that color may be present, even projected (the color shadow), outside the boundaries of the bead or jewelry component itself.
Beads [here I use ‘beads’ as a stand-in for all the component parts and stringing and canvas materials used in a piece of jewelry] are curved or faceted or otherwise shaped, and the shape and texture and material and dimensionality and even the hole through it affect the color, its variation and its placement and movement on the bead’s surface. They affect how light reflects and refracts, so depending on the angle at which you are standing, and how you are looking at the bead, you get some unexpected, unanticipated, sometimes unwanted colors in your piece of jewelry.
Additionally, you need to anticipate how the bead, when worn, can alter its color, depending on the source and positioning of light, the type and pace of movement of the wearer, and how the eye interacts with the bead at any point of time or positioning. There are many more color tensions that come from the interrelationships between positive and negative spaces. There are many gaps of light between each pair of beads, and you can’t paint these in. The colors don’t blend, don’t merge, don’t spill over, don’t integrate. You can’t create the millions of subtle color variations that you can with paint.
I’m not suggesting that beaders and jewelry makers be afraid of colors. Rather, they should embrace them. They should learn insights into understanding colors. They should be inspired by colors. They should express their artistic and creative selves through color. They should use color palettes to their fullest. They should recognize how their various audiences see and claim and interact with color.
It is most important that jewelry designers understand color, its use and application from their own disciplinary standpoint. In some sense, however, the approaches of most bead artists and jewelry designers too often remain somewhat painterly — too rooted in the Art Model.
The Art Model ignores things about functionality and context. The Art Model does not anticipate all the additional management and control issues which arise with jewelry creation and how /where / when it is worn. The Art Model diminishes how the individuality of the designer, and the subjective responses of the wearer and viewer affect each other. In many respects, these are synergetic, mutually dependent and reciprocal. The Art Model understands the success of jewelry only as if the jewelry were sitting on an easel, not as it is worn. When jewelry is treated as an inanimate object, apart from when it is worn, then traditional art color theories would suffice and apply.
As a result, when the use of color is solely dictated by art theory, then color theories get oversimplified for the jewelry artist. “Value” is barely differentiated from “Intensity”. Color selection focuses too much on harmony and variety, and too little on resonance and edginess. Color training too often steers jewelry designers towards a step-by-step, paint-by-number sort of approach to color selection and application. Color theory seeks to explain the universal, and paintings, given that they are immobile, hung on a wall, give time and space for the viewer to experience these universals.
Jewelry, on the other hand, requires an understanding of how color can be adapted to more subjective experiences. It does not stay in the same place. It is not desired in the same way across individuals who view it and wear it. As such, the co-dependent relationship between Color and other Jewelry Design Elements is downplayed and glossed over. This is a major disservice.
Designers need to think of colors as building blocks, and the process of using colors, as one of Creative Construction. Creative Construction requires focusing on how color (and multiple co-existing colors) is (are) sensed, and sensed by various audiences which include the artist him- or herself, and the wearer and the viewer, and the exhibitor, collector, and the seller, if need be. Creative Construction also requires anticipating how color is sensed within those context(s) and situation(s) the jewelry will be worn. Creative Construction includes an ability to anticipate how the various audiences of the designer use color to assume, perceive, understand, express, value and desire jewelry within any context.
All jewelry designers, including myself, are challenged with tasks like controlling the presentation of color(s) along a jewelry object’s silhouette. Or in blending colors among fixed physical objects awkwardly aligning or misaligning within some positive and negative spaces. Or having two or more colors co-exist within the same space or form which may or may not harmonize, given the reality that beads and other jewelry objects do not come in every possible and desirable color, nor consistently express any particular color over their entire surface.
I have found the use of simultaneity effects especially useful here. The one I use the most is that of grays. Gray takes on the colors around it. If I line up an orange bead, then a gray bead, then a blue bead, the middle gray bead will create the perception of a blended orange to blue form. Any bead with an underlying gray or black tone, strategically placed, will accomplish some color blending otherwise problematic.
I often play with other simultaneity effects. Some colors in combination emphasize warmth, and others cold. A sense of temperature (for example a red square embedded within a white square vs. that same red square embedded within a black square) can sometimes be used to divert the mind’s attention from whether the colors correctly harmonize.
In a similar way, some colors in combination (example a yellow square within a black square vs. within a white square) can create the illusion of either projecting or receding, and this too can be used to divert the mind’s attention from whether the colors correctly harmonize.
In my pieces, you will often find colors which, if not used strategically in combination and placement, would not seem to go together. They don’t fit a color scheme. They do not perfectly conform to a mathematical algorithm. They might even clash. More often, however, they just seem off in some way. But by smartly using simultaneity effects, they feel whole, consistent, coherent, right in some way. But also intriguing as the viewer’s mind tries to make sense of them. The colors resonate and are edgy in some way, yet feel harmonious, and the viewers can never figure out why. I intentionally create an object which lacks inherent meaning in order to trap the viewer into trying to find inherent meaning. Fun stuff. And something which often draws the viewer’s attention to my pieces, and keeps their attention there.
I like to play with color proportions. There are ideal proportions of the presence of any two or more colors. Red should appear in equal proportions to green. There should be one orange for any two blues. In art, we would strive to achieve the perfect proportions. In jewelry design, however, I would want to play with imperfections in proportions to give an edginess to my piece. This edginess, if not gone too far, enhances how the jewelry resonates emotionally for the wearer or buyer. We want our jewelry to have a little bit of edginess, or else it may feel harmonious yet boring and banal.
I believe the jewelry designer needs to be able to apply the careful of consideration of color with the goal of evoking resonance in the viewer. Something beyond harmony. Something represented by the difference of the viewer saying I like it, from the viewer saying I want to wear it, or I want to buy it. The designer is here to perhaps emphasize a little bit of the absurdity in life, some playfulness, some inquisitiveness which result from tensions between order and chaos, meaning and meaninglessness.
The designer is there, in part, to challenge the viewer’s subjective interpretations. This is especially true as the jewelry is worn and the wearer moves from different situations, contexts, and lighting. The use of color in jewelry designer often fails when the designer merely tries to duplicate a perfect color scheme, given perfect lighting and no movement. Jewelry is not a painting or sculpture to be displayed in fixed position. It’s much more. Using color from the designer’s viewpoint, rather than of the artist, is a very useful tool.
All these and similar color tricks I use as a jewelry designer contribute to how my jewelry expresses and reflects my authenticity. They add the cachet to my pieces as contemporary. Uninhibited by social norms encapsulated in art theory rules for the use of color. Creating more of a sense of freedom in my pieces, a sense which affects the feelings of freedom the wearer has. Transcendence. A re-imagining. Revelation, connection, awakening.
That’s what my Rogue Elephant needs, wants, demands. In this chaotic and indifferent universe, that rogue-ness could not have it any other way.
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So what prevents so many jewelry makers and other artist types from living their authentic lives? What prevents so many designers from making choices and taking advantage of opportunities which are not limited by anyone — not limited by friend or family or boss or colleague or perceptions of cultural and social norms?
Aloise was sitting there, fidgeting, only half listening to the discussion in my class about jewelry design, when, suddenly, unusually with a forceful voice and expression, she said, No one likes her stuff. No positive feedback in response to seeing any of her necklaces or bracelets or earrings. She loved her designs, she stated plainly, convincingly. But no one else seemed to. Her designs did not resonate with her friends and the people around her. She loved making jewelry. She loved her style. She loved the pieces and materials she was using. But, because of the nil-to-negative feedback, she never felt authentic as an artist.
If you saw her pieces, you would immediately come to the conclusion that there was no reason for the negative feedback, except, perhaps, that her pieces did not reflect the current fashion. Well conceived. Well-made. Clearly a point of view.
My response to her was simple: They are not the judge, you are. The problem for you is not your design skills. The problem is that you need to either to connect with a different audience, or, much more difficult, you need to learn how better to express what makes sense and has value for you in your own jewelry design work to your current audience. It’s like thinking your design process out loud — how you made choices about materials, techniques and composition.
Design Is A Tool For Expressing Authenticity
Authenticity and design are integral to each other. Design is a tool for expressing your authenticity. You will have difficulty feeling and expressing your authentic self in public without reference to good design. And, ultimately, you can’t have good design without an ability to express your authentic self. Cannot have one without the other.
Authenticity means conveying a sense of your being genuine. Real. True to your values. Consistent and coherent in how you relate your inspiration to your aspiration when creating a piece of jewelry. Then, continuing to be consistent and coherent as you implement your aspiration, understandably making changes and tweaks along the way, into your finished jewelry design. This requires a lot of honesty with yourself. A lot of self-reflection and what is called metacognition. Your jewelry becomes a sincere expression of you and you-the-creator’s vision.
That’s authenticity. The sum of all your choices in the design process. Technical. Artistic. Social. Philosophical. Each piece of jewelry you make is evidence to the world about all the choices you have made. Choices about translating vision into a tangible form. Selection of visual elements, product functionality, technology and technique. Accepting or rejecting client desires and hoped for experiences. Steering your business towards particular ideas about branding. Design can enhance. It can amplify. It can set boundaries. It can increase accessibility. Engage. Impact.
Gennifer refused! She refused to listen to me about how important it is to relate the materials you choose to your design goals. She made wrap bracelets, usually two bands around the wrist. She sold them for $300 each. Took her about 2 hours to make each one. The materials she used were cheap. If the price tag you put on your jewelry has no relationship to the effort and materials you put into it, you’re not being authentic.
A wrap bracelet consists of beads ladder-stitched between two pieces of leather. She used Indian leather, which dries out and cracks easily. Does not hold up. She stitched her beads with fishing line. Fishing line in sunlight and heat dries out and cracks. Very quickly. She used glass beads from China. Glass beads from China typically are a clear bead with a color coating. The side of all her beads along the full almost 20” length of the bracelet which touched the skin had lost their color. Originally black, they were now white with peeling black. No reinforcement was placed on either end, so, on either end, again pretty quickly, the stitching would start to break and the two supporting strands of leather would come apart.
Gennifer’s wrap bracelets probably had $10–12 of materials in them plus two hours of labor. Her $300 price tag was not representative of appropriate design. She should have upped the quality of her materials: Greek leather, Czech glass or gemstone beads, micro bead cord for the stitching. She should have reinforced both ends, such as using a silk wrap technique. Then her pieces would be durable and justify the price tag, and be much more authentic to herself as a designer. Or, she should charge what her pieces are really worth: perhaps $75–100. I’ve yet to meet one of her customers who has gotten more than six months of use out of her pieces. To me, if Gennifer thinks she is being authentic, I’d tell her it’s contrived.
About Authenticity
Authenticity is multiplex. It functions on several planes.
You have material authenticity. Given the value you want to assign to your piece, your choice of materials, and how you leverage them, should be the highest, appropriate quality in durability, sustainability and craftsmanship.
You have technical and technological authenticity. Your choice of techniques and technologies, and how you leverage them, should bring your design to that optimum (sometimes called parsimonious) point of efficiency and effectiveness. That is, that perfect point where you can maintain both shape and suppleness.
There is emotional authenticity. Good jewelry should resonate with the customer. It should evoke genuine emotions in line with your audience’s intended desire(s).
There is cultural authenticity. Good jewelry shows respect and acknowledges any cultural influences and inspirations, when design elements are borrowed or otherwise represented.
There is contemporary design authenticity. In contemporary design, the designer substitutes personal values and understandings for those of traditional socio-cultural norms and values which influence more traditional design. You must always show respect for tradition while concurrently using your own authentic self as the measure and rationale for successful design choices within any designing process. You must overcome pressures to conform and present a curated version of yourself.
Another type is personal authenticity. As a jewelry designer, you always have something to say. It can be simple such as what you think might be beautiful or wearable or appropriate for a certain situation. It might be more complex where you make a series of interrelated choices relating your values and desires to those of your client.
Dilemmas For The Designer
For me, I grew up with both parents and teachers discouraging me from pursuing my creative self through the arts. Doctor or lawyer. Basically, those were the two allowed choices, as I was steered and tracked and encouraged (or discouraged) over all my young and teenage years. [Parents, if your child tells you who they are, support them!]
Finally, in my early 20’s, having achieved some separation from my overbearing career police, I made an attempt for a few years to paint. Pretty. Ok technique. No reflection of who I was as a person except perhaps, in the choice of subject matter. I tried to convey emotions and meanings, but, primarily ended up with pretty paintings to decorate my apartment. Friends and family loved them. Sold a few. But none of this was coming together as a reflection of my authentic self. I was in my 20’s but hadn’t found anything authentic about me.
Twenty years later, when I began to make jewelry, I felt a strong connection. With jewelry, I had to create something meaningful for both myself and my client. Both our understandings. Both our values. Both our desires. Jewelry by its nature requires this kind of dialogue. That challenge stirred me. It forced me to come to grips by reflecting on what I wanted the object I created to be, and how that compared to what someone else wanted. Add on top of this was the fact the design had to account for the fact that the wearer moves around and never wants to look clownish. Jewelry design, under these circumstances, becomes very complex. And, as a result of all this thinking and concerning and anticipating and interacting, my sense of authenticity began to grow and clarify and grow and clarify some more.
From my experiences, and those of my students and colleagues, I can identify several dilemmas and challenges for the designer who wants to find their authentic self and successfully express it through the designing of jewelry.
The originality dilemma. You don’t design in a vacuum. And most certainly, many of the design choices you make have been influenced by other designers around you. Finding a balance between originality and the influence of others can be daunting. But think about it this way. Define ‘originality’ as differentiation. Your authenticity will emerge and shine by the way you differentiate yourself from other designers and influencers.
The art market dilemma. For many of us, we want some level of commercial success. Often this means compromising our integrity as we bow to things like fashion, market trends, client expectations, commercial requirements and limitations. Sometimes, when commercializing what we do, we use the label “authentic” to commodify our jewelry, when we are really stretching the imagination and legitimacy here. The challenge is to find balance between making a living and maintaining true authenticity.
The shared understanding dilemma. Successful design emerges from the insights and applications of the values and desires of the artist in coordination and conjunction with the assumptions, values and desires of the client. That might mean some compromising. Some give and take. Some less authenticity. The designer must decide to what degree personal integrity will be compromised in the design process.
The vulnerability dilemma. Since jewelry must be introduced publicly — for someone to wear, to be exhibited, to be sold, to be collected — the designer, of necessity, must open themselves up. Be exposed. Be given critique and criticism. There is doubt and self-doubt. There is a questioning of whether you are truly genuine. The designer is faced with determining how to overcome feelings of vulnerability and how much ego-self-protection they want to build into what they do.
The evolution dilemma. You grow, you learn, you change over time. What you thought was your authentic self (and all that that meant) earlier in your career may be different than what it is now and how you want to express it now. In a similar way, your authentic self may vary a bit from one context to another. This might result in a tension between the consistency and coherency of your body of work as these relate to your authentic self as you see / feel / sense it in the moment. The designer, in this case, must grapple with whether to change or not, or if so, how much to change. If you are already an established business with a strong brand identity, this becomes especially difficult to deal with. Changing your brand identity is especially hard. You don’t want to be rejected by or confuse your audience.
During my jewelry designing career, all these challenges confronted me. I can honestly say that there is a give and take, from piece to piece that I have designed, between achieving that authentic self, and having to make some compromises. Often, when I find I have had to compromise too much — usually to conform to my client’s wishes — I concurrently design a piece in the abstract, one I can create which majorly resonates with many aspects of my personal authenticity as an artist.
One last point. Look around at all the jewelry available for sale and that people wear. There is a lot of sameness. Standardization. Very machine-made looking. In some sense, lacking in personality and individuality. Infusing your jewelry design with your authentic self helps you differentiate yourself from mass-produced or superficial alternatives.
How someone actually goes about finding and expressing their authentic self varies from person to person. This isn’t a straightforward process. You the designer must be guided by your own self-reflection, empathy and commitment to your core values, beliefs and desires. You must strive to align your choices about design with your inner convictions.
And remember: Rogue Elephants are always authentic. They can be no other way.
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Keep From Letting ‘Doubt’ Paralyze You As A Jewelry Designer
For the novice, all that excitement at the beginning, when thinking about making jewelry and making some pieces, sometimes collides with a wall of developing self-doubt.
It’s not easy to quiet a doubt.
As a jewelry artist, you organize your life around an inspiration. There is some fuzziness here. That inspiration has some elements of ideas, but not necessarily crystal clear ones. That inspiration has some elements of emotions — it makes you feel something — but not necessarily something you can put into words or images or fully explain. You then need to translate this fuzzy inspiration into materials, into techniques, into color, into arrangements, into a coherent whole.
You start to make something, but realize you don’t know how to do it. But you want to do it, and do it now. However, to pick up the needed skills, you realize you can’t learn things all at once. You can’t do everything you want to do all at once. That initial excitement often hits a wall. Things take time to learn. There are a lot of trial and error moments, with a lot of errors. Pieces break. Combining colors and other design elements feels very awkward. Picking the right clasps and rings and connectors and stringing materials is fraught with implications. Silhouettes are confusing. You might get the right shape for your piece, but it is difficult to get the right movement, drape and flow, without compromising that shape.
To add to this stress and strain, you need to show your jewelry off. You might want someone to like it. To want it. To need it. To desire it. To buy it. To wear it. To wear it more than once. To wear it often. To exhibit it. To collect it. To show and talk about it with others. And how will all these other people recognize your creative spark, and your abilities to translate that spark into a wonderful, beautiful, functional piece of jewelry, appropriate for the wearer and appropriate for the situation?
Frequently, because of all this, the artist experiences some sense of doubt and self-doubt. Some paralysis. Can’t get started. Can’t finish something. Avoiding showing your pieces to others. Wondering why you became a jewelry designer in the first place.
Doubt holds you back from seizing your opportunities.
It makes getting started or finishing things harder than they need to be.
It adds uncertainty.
It makes you question yourself.
It blocks your excitement, perhaps diminishing it.
Doubt and Self-Doubt should be useful in forcing you to think about and question your choices. However, for many jewelry designers, it mostly holds them back.
Having doubt and self-doubt is common among all artistic types. After all, for much of what you do and how you spend your time, you’re mostly alone with your thoughts.
What becomes important is how you manage and overcome it. You do not want your doubts to get in the way of your creative process and disciplinary development. You want your doubts, rather, to inform them.
8 Major Ways Doubts Can Force You Into That Abyss
There are 8 major ways in which jewelry designers get caught beginning to fall into that abyss we call self-doubt:
1) What If I’m Not Creative Enough or Original Enough or Cannot Learn or Master or Don’t Know a Particular Technique?
2) What If No One Likes What I Make?
3) What If No One Takes Me Seriously As An Artist And Designer?
4) I Overthink Things and Am A Bit of a Perfectionist.
5) How Can I Stay Inspired?
6) Won’t People Steal My Work?
7) Being Over Confident or Under Confident
8) Role Confusion
1. What If I’m Not Creative Enough or Original Enough or Cannot Learn or Master or Don’t Know a Particular Technique?
Everyone has some creativity baked into their being. It is a matter of developing your way of thinking and doing so that you can apply it. This takes time.
So does originality. The word originality can be very off-putting, but it does not have to be.
At first, when you are getting started making jewelry, originality will mean that you will try different ways of personalizing projects. There are always things you can do to bring some aspects of originality to your pieces. This might be the choice of colors, or using a special clasp, or rearranging some elements in your composition.
Again, as with creativity, the ability to be more and more original will evolve over time. It is helpful to think of originality, not necessarily as coming up with something completely new, but rather as differentiation — how you differentiate yourself from other jewelry designers.
For almost everyone, you don’t begin your design career at the height of your levels of creativity and originality. Yes, if you look around you, other people are more creative and original than you or have more skills than you. Don’t let these observations be a barrier to your own development as a jewelry designer. You get there through persistence and hard work. You handle your inner critic. You may not be there, yet — the key word here is yet. But you will be.
2. What If No One Likes What I Make?
We all have fears about how our creativity and originality are going to be evaluated and judged. We project our self-doubts to the doubts we think we see and feel from others. What if no one wants to wear my pieces, or buy my works?
We can’t let these outsider reactions dictate our lives and creative selves. A key part of successful jewelry design is learning how to introduce what we do publicly. At the least, it is the core nature of the things we create that they are to be worn on the body. Jewelry is a very public thing.
Turn negative comments into positive ideas, motivators, insights, explorations. Allow yourself some give and take, some needs to step back awhile, some needs to tweak. Jewelry design and jewelry making are iterative processes. They in no way are linear. Your outcomes and their success are more evolutionary, than guaranteed.
Distressing about what others may think of your work can be very damaging to your self-esteem. It can amplify your worries. Don’t go there.
Don’t become your worst critic.
3. What If No One Takes Me Seriously As An Artist And Designer?
Jewelry design is an occupation in search of a profession. You will find that a lot of people won’t recognize your passion and commitment. They may think anyone can design jewelry. They may think of jewelry making as a craft or some subset of art, not as something unique and important in and of itself. They may wonder how you can make a living at this.
The bottom line: if you don’t take yourself seriously as a jewelry designer, no one else will.
People will take you seriously as they see all the steps you are taking to master your craft and develop yourself as a professional.
4. I Over Think Things And Am A Bit Of A Perfectionist
Some designers let a sense that their work is not as good as imagined get in the way. They never finish anything. They let doubt eat away at them.
Perfectionism is the enemy of the good. It’s great to be meticulous, but emotionally, we get wrecked when anything goes astray, or any little thing is missing, or you don’t have that exact color or part you originally wanted.
Go ahead and plan. Planning is good. It’s insightful. It can be strategic. But also be sure to be adaptable and realistic. Each piece is a stepping stone to something that will come next.
The better jewelry designer develops a Designer’s Toolbox — a collection of fix-it strategies to deal with the unfamiliar or the problematic.
Overthinking can be very detrimental. You can’t keep changing your mind, trying out every option, thinking that somewhere, someplace there exists a better option. Make a choice and get on with it. You can tweak things later.
Yes, attention to detail is important. But so is the value of your time. You do not want to waste too much time on trivial details.
Be aware when you begin over-analyzing things. Stop, take a breath, make a decision, and move on.
5. How Can I Stay Inspired?
Designing a piece of jewelry takes time, sometimes a long time. That initial inspirational spark might feel like it’s a dying ember.
Don’t let that happen.
Translate that inspiration into images, colors, words, sample designs, and surround your work space with these.
Talk about your inspiration in detail with family and friends.
6. Won’t People Steal My Work?
Many jewelry designers fear that if they show their work publicly, people will steal their ideas. So they stop designing.
Yet jewelry design is a very communicative process which requires introducing your work publicly. If you are not doing this, then you are creating simple sculptures, not jewelry.
Yes, other people may copy your work. See this source of doubt as an excuse. It is a self-imposed, but unnecessary, barrier we might impose to prevent us from experiencing that excitement as a jewelry designer. Other people will never be able to copy your design prowess — how you translate inspiration into a finished piece. That is unique and special to you. It is why the general public responds positively to you and your work.
7. Over Confidence can blind you to the things you need to be doing and learning, and Under Confidence can hinder your development as a designer.
Too often, we allow under confidence to deter us from the jewelry design and making tasks at hand. We always question our lack of ability and technical prowess for accomplishing the necessary tasks at hand. It is important, however, to believe in yourself. To believe that you can work things out when confronted with unfamiliar or problematic situations. It is important to develop your skills for thinking like a designer. Fluency. Flexibility. Originality. There is a vocabulary to learn. Techniques to learn. Strategies to learn. These develop over time with practice and experience. You need to believe in your abilities to develop as a designer over time.
With over confidence comes a naivete. You close off the wisdom to listen to what others have to say or offer. You stunt your development as an artist. You overlook important factors about materials and techniques to the detriment of your final designs and products. You close yourself off to doubt and self-doubt, which is unfortunate. Doubt and self-doubt are tools for asking questions and questioning things. These help you grow and develop as an artist and designer. These influence your ability to make good, professional choices in your career.
8. Role Confusion
Jewelry artists play many roles and wear different hats. Each has its own set of opportunities, requirements, and pressures that the artist must cope with. It’s a balancing act extraordinaire.
First, people who make jewelry wear different hats: Artist and Designer, Manufacturer, Distributor, Retailer, and Exhibitor.
Second, people who make jewelry have different needs: Artistic Excellence, Recognition, Monetary Gain, or Financial Stability.
Third, the artist needs to please and satisfy themselves, as well as other various clients.
Fourth, the artist constructs pieces which need to function in different settings: Situational, Cultural, Sociological, Psychological.
Last, the artist must negotiate a betwixt and between situation — a rite of passage — as they relinquish control over the piece and its underlying inspirations to the wearer and the viewer, who have their own needs, desires and expectations.
This gets confusing. It affects how you pick materials and supplies. Which techniques you use. What marketing strategies you employ. How you value and price things. Anticipating who your audience is. And the list goes on.
It is important to be aware (metacognitive) of what role(s) you play when, and why. Given the role, it is important to understand the types of choices you need to make, when constructing a piece of jewelry. It is critical to understand the tradeoffs you will invariably end up making, and their consequences for the aesthetic, emotional and functional success of your pieces.
Some Advice
While doubt and self-doubt can hinder our development as jewelry designers, some degree of these may be helpful, as well.
To develop yourself as a jewelry designer, and to continue to grow and expand in your profession, you must have a balanced amount of both doubt and self-doubt. Uncertainty leads to questioning. A search for knowledge. Some acceptance of trial and error and experimentation. A yearning for more reliable information and feedback.
Jewelry design uses a great deal of emotion as a Way of Knowing. Emotions cloud or distort how we perceive things. They may lead to more doubt and worry and lack of confidence. But they also enhance our excitement when translating inspirations into designs.
· Don’t let your inner doubts spin out of control. Be aware and suppress them.
· Be real with yourself and your abilities.
· Keep a journal. Detail what your doubts are and the things you are doing to overcome them.
· Create a developmental plan for yourself. Identify the knowledge, skills and understandings you want to develop and grow into.
· Remember what happened in the past the last time doubt got in your way. Remember what you did to overcome this doubt. Remember that probably nothing negative actually happened.
· Talk to people. These can be friends, relatives and colleagues. Don’t keep doubts unto yourself.
· Don’t compare yourself to others. This is a trap. Self-reflect and self-evaluate you on your own terms.
· Worrying about what others think? The truth is that people don’t really care that much about what you do or not do.
· Don’t beat yourself up.
· Get re-inspired. This might mean surrounding yourself with images and photos of things. It might mean a walk in nature. It might me letting someone else’s excitement flow over to you.
It’s important to learn in an organized, developmental way. You want to be always asking how things are interrelated. What depends on what? You want to pose what-if questions so that you can train yourself to anticipate the implications and consequences of making one choice over another. What happens If? What happens When? What enhances? What impedes? What synergizes? What can be leveraged, and toward what objective? You want to reflect on your outcomes.
Some places for learning:
Local craft or bead store Community college University (art, fiber arts, metalsmithing, fashion) Jewelry design program Fashion schools Bead and Jewelry Making Magazines Social media groups Self-taught, crafting at home On-the-job training Certifications Art institutes Art grants How-to books Video tutorials Networking with other craft artists
Types of Beading and Jewelry Making
There is so much to know, and so many types of choices to make. Which clasp? Which stringing material? Which technique? Which beads? Which strategy of construction? What aesthetic you want to achieve? How you want to achieve it? Drape, movement, context, durability.
Sample of Techniques:
Stringing Assembling Bead Weaving Bead Working Wire Working Wire Wrapping Wire Weaving Silversmithing, Metal Work Cold Connections Fabrication Casting Fiber Arts, Knitting, Crochet Micro-Macrame Bead Embroidery Kumihimo, Knotting, Braiding CAD (Computer Aided Design) Enameling Lampworking and Glass Blowing Stamping Engraving Polymer Clay, Precious Metal Clay, Sculpting Lapidary Woodwork, Carving
Types of Tasks Jewelry Makers and Beaders Do
Adjust, reshape, resize, create and attach clasp assemblies Cutting stones, setting stones, determining value and authenticity of stones CAD (Computer Aided Design), 3-D Printing Fabrication, stamping, engraving, casting, soldering, cold connections, shaping metal wire and sheet, annealing Model and mold building, sculpting Manage thread tension, create self-supporting shapes, manage movement, drape and flow String, weave, netting, embellish, embroider, knit, crochet, braid, knot, wrap, assemble Understand jewelry-making as a process, from beginning to end Select color, proportion, volume, shape, forms, size, silhouettes, themes Place and Arrange design elements and components Read patterns, figures, graphs Select materials and techniques Determine measurements Assess stress, strain, strength, suppleness, stability and synergy Understand and access the creative marketplace, introduce their pieces publicly
Learning Objectives
A. Technical Mechanics
1. Managing tension, whether using thread, cord, string or wire
2. Holding your piece to work it
3. Reading simple patterns, figures, graphs
4. Selecting appropriate materials
5. Identifying areas of potential weakness, and strategies for dealing with these
6. Determining measurements, including width and length of a piece, especially in relationship to bead and other component sizes
7. Extending your piece, such as adding thread or wire
8. Finishing off your piece and adding the clasp assembly
B. Understanding Craft Basis of Technique or Stitch
Starting the technique or stitch
Implementing the basic technique or stitch
3. Finishing off the basic technique or stitch
4. Learning variations on the technique or stitch
5. Embellishing the Stitch, including fringe, edge, bail, strap, connectors
C. Understanding Art & Design Basis of Technique or Stitch
1. Learning implications when choosing different sizes/shapes of beads or other components, or using different stringing materials
2. Understanding relationship of the technique or stitch in comparison to other techniques or stitches
3. Understanding how bead asserts its need for color
4. Creating your own design with this technique or stitch, in reference to design elements and jewelry design principles of composition
5. Creating shapes, components and forms with this technique or stitch, and establishing themes
6. Building in structural supports, and other support elements, into the design
D. Becoming a Bead Weaving or Jewelry Making Designer
1. Developing a personal style
2. Valuing or pricing your work
3. Teaching others the technique or stitch
4. Promoting yourself and your work
5. Advocating for jewelry as “Art” and as “Design”
Types of Tools Needed To Get Started
Scissors Chain nose pliers (inside of jaws smooth) Flat Nose Pliers Side Cutters Flush Cutters Tweezers and Awl Assorted sizes of hard wire, cable wire, bead cord and bead, thread, elastic string Ruler Crimping pliers Hammers and mallets Steel block plate Doming block, anvil Sizing cones Hand held torch and fire-proof work surface Bead stoppers / clamps Color wheel Work Surface or Pad Bead board Round nose pliers Ring, Jump Ring, and bracelet mandrels Needles, wax Jeweler’s saw and blades Good lighting Comfortable seating
Finding jobs and pathways utilizing your skills as a jewelry designer…
There are actually many career pathways for people who have backgrounds in jewelry making and bead working. Besides the obvious pathways of making jewelry to sell, or teaching jewelry making, there are still many job and career opportunities for you.
Jewelry maker Illustrator Fashion designer Stylist Metalsmith Teacher Lapidary Gemologist Jewelry repair Wood worker Fiber artist Lampworking and glass blowing Physical and Occupational Therapist Counseling Custom designer Engraver Sales Merchandising Website design Data analyst Grants writer/reviewer Program director Video instructor or host Jewelry assessor Display and Packaging Influencer Writer Business Developer
I am writing an article about how jewelry designers began their careers/hobbies/avocations.
I would be interested in you sharing your stories.
Some of the questions I want to explore in my article:
1) How did you get started making jewelry? motivations, intentions, whether the start was very dramatic or mundane, whether you thought it was fate, destiny, luck, personal choice. Was there a particular point in time, or some kind of evolution?
2) What was your first moment of validation like? Not when you started making jewelry per se, but when you started telling people and feeling like an ‘artist’ or ‘designer’. It might have been a quiet admission, coming out to yourself as an artist. It might have been something public, like selling a piece, exhibiting it, some reaction from a client. It might have been some kind of break-through or finding newness or inspiration. It might have been a feeling of originality. A lot of people make jewelry, and can be very talented at it, but do not consider themselves as ‘artists’ or ‘designers’.
3) To what extent did beginning as a jewelry artist/designer feel like a response to society or family or local culture? Art doesn’t exist only because of feelings and emotions. There is a complex infrastructure within which the jewelry designer needs in order to survive. How would you describe this infrastructure within which you work and because of it you can survive. To what extent does it help you to enhance your work and vocation? To what extent does it impede you?
4) Were there special circumstances that were critical in your beginning and development as a jewelry artist/designer? Were there specific excitements, anxieties, challenges you faced?
5) For you, was there a beginning, and then a beginning again? Describe how difficult it was to begin again. How did it feel/seem to question or know whether you could create again?
6) What kinds of things have enabled you to keep going as a jewelry artist/designer? What contributed to your ability to survive your creative life?
I may or may not reference what you share in my final article. Unless you specifically tell me it’s OK, I will not use anyone’s real name in my article.
I appreciate you taking the time to share. I know a lot of jewelry designers and would-be jewelry designers can learn a lot from your experiences.
That’s it for now! There is a lot of creative expression all around the world right now. Hope you get to experience a lot of it, either first hand, or through social media online.
