Practice

For many years I've worked in the role of a custom
jewelry designer for a major, high end jewelry store. The work has
been wonderful and rewarding. I've loved the process of
getting to know my clients, discerning their tastes, and creating
beautiful keepsake items using the most beautiful materials
imaginable. Believe me when I say I feel privileged for the
experience. I continue to work for this enterprise even as I work to
develop my own body of work.

The desire to create beautiful things has always been a part of my life.
I've been a potter and a painter and loved both. I settled into the world
of jewelry because it offered me the most viable career path of all the
crafts I've practiced. Always, there has been this other life in my mind,
where I could work on creating pieces that draw from my own
experiences and tastes. After honing my craft for almost 25
years, I have started my own studio business where I can follow my
heart and create those things I have dreamed of!

The hardest part in this whole process has been learning the practice
of self promotion. I should be preparing for the video that I am
having shot in a couple days, but am blogging instead as a classic
avoidance to the task at hand. What do you include in your story and
what do you leave out? My first attempts at PR left me feeling
uncomfortable and embarrassed. The only comfort in that process were
my neighbors, friends, and customers who carefully clipped the
articles out of the paper and dropped them off at my home or work.

Even at the point where I am, with a long career in a craft that I
have grown to love, the attainment of my dreams, requires me to dig
deeper, learn more, and overcome the innate shyness I was born with. I
am reassured by people who work in the PR business that it will be as
easy to tell my story as it is the set a diamond, all it takes is
practice!

"The lyf is short, the craft long to lerne."

Geoffrey Chaucer c 1380  Parliament of Fowls

My husband and I were visiting the rural community of Lancaster, Ohio the first time I read this quote. The attraction that day was a liquidation sale of Arts and Crafts style furniture. I found the quote carved in a beautiful oak mantel piece. (Which I did not bring home!) It is not surprising that a quote from the 14th century would be carved into an Arts and Crafts piece made in the 20th century. It is the idealization of craft that drove the movement at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

The words made me feel as if I were in contact with a kindred spirit from another time. Another soul who had experienced the dilemma of wanting to create a better or more perfect thing within the confines of their own limitations, and the limitations of time.

I have worked in the craft of jewelry making for close to 25 years. I am proud of many of the works I have completed, and many of the relationships built with clients. They have shared the stories of their lives and loves with me, and made my life rich! 

I am amazed at the amount I still have to learn, and how much technology is changing the craft today! To CAD or not to CAD? To pursue a quiet studio business or try to grow a brand name to be mass produced overseas? How will I, in the time remaining in my life, get it all done?

I don't have the answers to these questions. The craft has taught me much about patience and perseverance. I am comforted in knowing other artists before have lived in the knowledge that life is short, and the craft is long to learn!