I Am So Close to a (Somewhat) Regular Schedule

..and I can't stand it. Today I am really *not* wanting to work...I mean, I DO want to work, but my body is tired and my energy is low. But I'm in the same situation I've been in all year - too busy to stop, too busy to address anything but sitting-at-the-work-table-and-fabricating, too busy to catch my breath.

Once the Memphis festival is over next week, I have two months (or most of two months) to work my schedule and take my time designing, working toward a larger goal than "in ten days I have another festival". I am really, really ready for it. I have had several things click into place, or at least start to, in the last few months, but no time to fully develop or work on my grander plans.

I'm not the patient type, as anyone who knows me will tell you. So I'm waiting, gritting my teeth, trying to calm my mind from all the things I'm thinking about and trying to focus on the necessity. Which is having more inventory to sell:

ohisthisnotatonoffuneyecandy?

I've been trying to slowly step back into wholesale, but growing a wholesale business takes time (lots of time) and a product range that I simply don't have yet. I've designed several new rings, just recently, and I think they'd be great wholesale items. But I can't make the mosaic ones fast enough, and I have NO MORE STONES that will work for the pop rocks rings...it's sort of a problem, no? So wholesale plans are a bit stymied right now.

Also I am wanting to really stretch the mosaic designs to their fullest, and those are so time-consuming that I can barely keep three or so in stock at festivals. At Nashville, a woman randomly said to me, "Well, you must have had a good show!" I asked her why and she said, "Your booth looks a little sparse". Um...it always looks like that! At least this year it has. I actually had as much inventory out as usual, but absolutely no back stock to fill in with. 

So it's back to the making. Which I do love. But maybe notsomuch when I HAVE to make it every day. My shoulders don't love it that much. Or my wrists...one more big push for Memphis and then I can regroup, refocus, and (maybe) even relax, a little...

Peering Through the Murky Darkness

I see a ray of light. Or hope. Or whatever it might be that makes me feel a bit better. I'll take it, whatever form it chooses.  :)

My last two shows have been very good to me - not huge moneymakers, but solid returns. And the customers have been excellent! Especially this past weekend in Nashville - a very similar reaction to the last time I was in Nashville. Warm and fuzzy, buying bigger ticket items, and very interested in the design work. It feels like a really grow-able market for me. With where I want the jewelry to go, I have to play a long game of sorts...not expecting huge dollars at every new show, but hopefully building a mailing list and loyal crowd of collectors. And Nashville feels like it could become part of that.

Finished it last week, sold it last week. It's hard to keep these in my inventory. 

In my last post, I mentioned that I sold 9 stone-set pieces at the Atlanta Arts festival. In Nashville, I sold 13 pieces. !!! (I had made 12 between the Atlanta and Nashville shows). I had no back stock to replace them with by the end of the show - whatever was on display was all I had. So guess who's going to be at it again, making a bunch of pieces to replace the sold items?? Yep. I have almost four weeks before I head to Memphis for my next festival. Hopefully it will be enough time to accomplish all that I want / need to...leaving, I also hope, some time to work on OTHER designs. I sold several of the mosaic pieces in Nashville (finally! a market that likes that series!) and need to make new ones not only to sell, but to send off to be photographed for jury shots.

So. I'm starting to see some things clicking into place. Patterns are emerging. I first introduced the newest line in April, and it sold regularly, from the very first show. So now I have to refine what I can, like having stones that really suit those designs, or having someone else help with cleanup or stone setting...to free up some of my own time to design, create, move the business forward.

And the mosaics...they didn't work out as well as I thought with casting the pieces. Sloooow movers. So maybe they're not meant to be cast. Maybe - light bulb - not everything I make is going to be cast and available to the masses. These, with their high labor factor, are more collector-type pieces. So far they've been rather niche-y; they don't appeal to everyone. Or they appeal...but not as much as some of my more mainstream work. So I'm going to treat them as they deserve to be treated. I've fabricated chains for the necklaces I made this year with the mosaics, and made bigger, more statement-y necklaces. I don't think I've quite hit my rhythm yet with these designs, but I'm working on 'em. I have a whole series of smaller, less labor-intensive designs to start working on whenever time permits, but they're never likely to be my bread-and-butters. And that's okay. I want to push outward and upward with my jewelry, and these will let me do that.

It's been several years since I've been comfortable with what I'm creating. And with what I'm displaying at festivals...the fabrication journey has been a hard one. I used to have this stuff figured out - but I think I'm moving toward having things figured out (as much as they ever can be) again. I can feel ideas flowing, designs coming together so that my creations look like a cohesive whole.And I just listened to a webinar yesterday that made me re-think a lot of things...got a lot of pondering to do while I'm working.

And this quote is now on the bulletin board:

"Follow your passion, do not settle, see beauty in the unexpected.
Oh, it will be difficult if you want to be the best, you'll have to deal with that as a constant."

- Todd Reed, jewelry designer  (want to see his web site? The work (and the overall aesthetic - for his designs and how he lives) is amazing! Click here
 

Blue Piranha 2.0 (or 3.0). I Know, it's Hard to Keep Up

I began my business in 2003. And now, nearly ten years later, I am beginning it again.

Okay, that's not entirely accurate. I've been beginning it again now for a couple of years. It's seen more revamps and changes than...well, let's just say it's seen a *lot* of changes.  :)

Back in 2003, I was stringing beads, as I had been for most of the eight years prior (my love of jewelry design was a hobby before it was my livelihood). My first show - it did not come close to qualifying as an "art festival" - was in Woodstock, Georgia. A bit off the beaten path. It was, as you may suspect, rather sparsely attended. Hell, it was sparsely populated with artists - I think there were a total of thirty of us. We mostly sat quietly in our booths, wondering, waiting, and hoping. It was a long weekend. Oh, and it rained. My business was off to quite a start!

My first display was rented tables and cloths. Shiny satin-like cloths, in what were supposed to be a nice, neutral cream color, but turned out more like a light yellow. Do I have to tell you that it was not good? It was not. I had shells out on the tables for display stands. Why shells? I had some vague idea of piranha = fish = water = shells. The shells *did* look good...in fact, they looked so good that people kept asking to buy them. Oh, they bought a little jewelry too, but they really liked the shells.

In hindsight, maybe I started selling the wrong product?  :)

Anyhoo, one of my best sellers at these early shows was the Harmony bracelet. I'll show you the last remaining one, from my personal stash:

So now you know...I did have the humblest of humble beginnings! When I talk about "starting from where you are" I really mean it. I began with the basics. There was really nowhere to go but up.  :)

When I did research at juried art festivals, I realized just how much beaded jewelry was out there. Seeing that made me think about how I was going to differentiate, how I would compete, what I would offer that was unique and unusual. And I didn't have any happy answers. I knew I loved color; that's been a constant since I can remember (note that the bracelet above is chock-full of color), but other than that, I was so not unique.

I knew I wanted to play around with metal, so I started messing with wire. I shaped it, I bent it, I curled it...and eventually I had some designs I thought were pretty good. Around 2005-2008, I had a booth of mostly wire and bead designs. Shows were crowded, customers were happy, and I was making some decent money. I even had people occasionally say things like, "Where did you go to school for this?" and "You've really done something different!" (the ne plus ultra of design, at least for me). I was pretty pleased with myself. Pleased enough to try and ignore the nagging question of....what's next? 

 mid-Aughts bracelet design

Because I didn't know what was next. I felt like I had no ideas. I was frozen, paralyzed. I had a lot of sketches in my sketchbook but no way to make them happen. Well...no way to make them happen in the clean, modern style that is part of my design aesthetic. And so began the long, long, looooooong journey into fabrication. You may have read about it on this blog.  :)

from the bracelets above...to this...I could not be happier. Charoite pendant

Jumping ahead to 2012:  I had a bit of a design breakthrough earlier this year with the mosaic pieces. And I'm still working through what direction I'm going to take those designs. So far the direction looks like bigger, more intricate jewelry. Also maybe bigger mosaic metal pieces. Those tiny buggers are so labor-intensive and hard to handle with my hand tremors. And I just designed that B-I-G necklace and really liked the feel and size of it...I'd like to make a B-I-G mosaic necklace... bracelets...rings...there's so much more to come!

Gratification

Last weekend was a milestone for me. I exhibited at a festival in Nashville, TN....as a full-on metal girl. Though I've been fabricating / metalsmithing regularly since late 2009, I have been straddling the fence. I still brought my suede lariats, my less expensive bead-y creations, with me to festivals. But this was the first show I juried into with my new photos - all metalwork - and I felt obligated to show up with nothing less than...just my metal work.

(down and dirty cellphone shot of my booth in Nashville). I had a lot of room because the people to the right of me never showed and the people to left of me skedaddled on Saturday night.

And I learned a LOT from this:

- First, I barely had enough inventory. I have been selling through my previous cast work because I want to go in a new direction, but don't have new cast pieces yet. So I was pretty low on production stock. And because the stone-set items take longer, and I'd just been through the Virginia-Highlands show in Atlanta, and then off to Chicago to help a friend with her show..I was a bit light on my one of a kind pieces.

- Second, it was surprising and impressive to watch the customer behavior when I didn't have the lower-priced bead-y pieces...I ended up selling more of the higher priced work. At this festival I sold six cabochon items, where at previous shows this year I sold maybe one or two. It was like I'd bumped myself up in the customer's expectations and they weren't looking for lower priced items from me. And that felt very, very validating.

- Third, I'd better get my butt in gear because I want to do more of this going forward! But I think it will be impossible to do as many festivals as I do with only one of a kind pieces. The design time, the fabrication time, the finishing time all take longer. And there's only one me to get it all done (at least right now). So I need to work on new stone designs AND really get the new cast masters created and in the production process. My next show is a month away and that's not a lot of time!

Here are the pieces that sold this weekend:

The "To the Top" charoite pendant (to a gentleman who actually knew what charoite was just by looking at it) and this new piece:

of Russian lacquerwork. Both sold to the same customer and his wife. They loved the Russian connection.  :)

Also:

"Uncharted Island", a larimar pendant. To a sweet couple on Sunday.  ;)

And:

My second pair of earrings, also Peruvian opal. I think I should have bought more of these earring-sized stones!

And both of my contrast-y pieces:

Peruvian opal (top) and turquoise

What I loved is that each person really connected with the pieces...even when they didn't know the story behind the designs. I have been wanting to do this kind of work since I began jewelry design...and it was very rewarding to feel like I am (finally!) getting there. Mwah! Nashville, you made my weekend! I look forward to seeing you all again next year!