Loving Life

Which I shouldn't be...loving life, I mean. Money's tight. Art festivals are a tough (even tougher) job these days. I'm working hard and can't seem to get caught up on housework, paperwork, staying in touch with loved ones and friends...and yet. I am loving life.

It's been a long journey. How many times have I said that?? Especially here on the blog. But it has...it's been more work (and yet more rewarding) than I ever imagined. A good friend told me years ago, "You have to know the rules in order to know which ones you can break" and it's so true. I really wanted to skip ahead, stick my tongue out at the rules, and be a diva from the get-go. And it wasn't going to happen. Metal Diva...what I said to my husband when my first piece of many solder joins didn't fall apart...it was a joke then, and it's still a joke now. Only less so...metalworking is getting easier.  :)

I cam home Monday from a show in Michigan which didn't meet expectations. And normally I would have a few days' pity party. Long drive (11 hours each way), tough show, low ego. And usually I'd be hurting a lot (which I am, my Fibromyalgia doesn't like travel much). But I have so many plans and so many design ideas in my head that I don't want to wallow. I'd rather work through it. So I selected a bunch of stones for my next bezel-ing blitz:

The lighting is poor - it's a quick snap from the work table. But you can see all the turquoise...especially those Roystons, and the tiny chrysocollas, and a little bit of red creek jasper too. I think there are nearly 20 turquoise stones in the mix. And I haven't even gotten started on the Larimar...but one thing at a time.

I've learned that with fabrication and stone setting, my reach far exceeds my grasp. Every time I set a new goal for show inventory, I never get it all finished. So I think I have to cut my expectations in half because there's just too much labor involved and not enough time before the next festival...only this time I've got a bit of a gap. I don't have anything on the horizon except a possible wholesale show in August...and that I'm still debating doing. But if I DO exhibit, I'm looking to wholesale one of a kind pieces. Which means having sample inventory ready and similar pieces that I can remake.

I'm not sure I'm ready - I'm really not sure I have enough stone supplies for that. It's a lot of outlay with no guarantee of income. BUT it might be possible...so I'm focusing on that instead of wallowing. And I'm full of ideas. Some may be great, some not so great...but I'm willing to try them all right now. The journey isn't easy but the work is worth it. I'm loving life.  :)

The End Game

I've been at a lot of art festivals recently that seem like they're just not doing what I need them to do. Someone asked me this weekend if my reason for exhibiting at festivals was more exposure, or more money. I told him (this was a friend, not a customer) that my only reason for working festivals was to make money. Exposure helps, but NO ONE spends their time in an art festival booth for exposure. :)

Anyway, the show was slow. It's been a great show in the past, but in recent years it's started to feel like I should look for an alternative option, because the buying customers seem to be few and far between. BUT I am a girl who prefers to look on the bright side, and I like a silver lining. So I'll share some experiences that made me happy this weekend:

First, I sold the highest amount of stone-set pieces (seven) that I've ever sold at one festival. I keep track of these because it's still kind of amazing to me that people buy them...they're my favorite pieces to design and create, and every single one has called to its own special customer. Sometimes a sale feels very impersonal - someone sees something they like, and they say, "I'll take this." I box it up and they pay, and we're done. Nothing wrong with that. But the cabochon pieces...they wait for just the right owner.

One of my first sales on Saturday morning was to a couple of "regulars", meaning that they have purchased from me before. They're on the mailing list when I notify customers of events, and they come out and support. Not that every regular buys every time - and I totally understand that they can't - but they have made several purchases over the years and are always interested in what's new.

This couple bought a jasper pendant for their daughter:

and the wife had been looking at another pendant, but was hesitating. The husband bought it for her, saying, "She just announced her retirement last week" so this turned into her retirement present:

She was so happy and excited...now it will be a special piece that she'll always cherish. I LOVE it when that happens.

I also sold my to a young lady, about eight or nine years old, who used her own money to buy her first pair of "grown-up" earrings. Miss Kylie had been to my booth with her parents, and was looking at some turquoise earrings. She asked about the stone and guessed that it was turquoise, and we had a little guessing game with some of the other stones in my booth.  :)  Her mom said the turquoise earrings were too expensive at $70, and we moved over to my $25 earrings. She fell in love with a pair of tanzanite bead earrings, but they went away to do more shopping and "think about it". About an hour she and her parents were back, and she bought the earrings with her own money. Her mother tells me that she's not been allowed to wear dangle earrings before, but this would be her first pair and she could wear them on special occasions. She told me that they take Kylie to lots of art festivals because they want to expose her to all sorts of art and handmade creations. (Gotta love these folks!!). And it was the feel-good moment of the weekend. They even let me snap a photo:

It's hard to see, but Kylie's wearing her new earrings. With a BIG smile. And I hope this is the beginning of a girl who loves and collects jewelry all her life.  :)

And finally, an established metalsmith and SCAD graduate, whom I know slightly but hadn't seen in a while, came by my booth to chat. As we were talking, she stood back slightly from my display, sort of took in everything, and said, "Your work has really...evolved." And I can NOT tell you how good that felt! I've been working hard to learn and grow, and it's just nice sometimes to have independent verification that that is, in fact, what you have been doing.  :)

So that was the good news. And there's really no bad news...I'm just stressed because I haven't had a day off since May 15th. And tomorrow I'm driving to Michigan for another festival, the Royal Oak Clay, Glass, and Metal Show. It's a two day drive and I still have replacement jewelry to finish...the work never stops.

I DID manage to finish this though:

Oracle Necklace

All hand fabricated, chain, clasp, etc. My goal is to have three of these, what I consider my signature work, at each festival. I have one more piece I'm still (yes, at the 11th hour) working on, so I didn't quite make that goal at my last festival, but I had two, and a whole slew of the dot-and-line pieces.

Anyhoo, back to the cleanup and stone setting! If I'm lucky I'll be able to show you this week's pieces before I leave; if not they'll be posted once I'm home again.  :)

A Grander Plan: Designing a Series

I've been working on honing not just my technical skills, but my design skill as well. And this month, I took on a design series. Instead of designing one or two pieces that complemented each other, I designed...twenty-four.

That is a LOT OF METALWORKING! I am tired. My body aches. B-u-t I have twenty-four stone-set pieces that complement one another. 

I did make it a little easy on myself because I had bought a good quality of  Red Creek Jasper stones this winter, and they usually can be a little mix-and-match-y to begin with. And I was playing around with a new design feature, which transferred well among the stones. I'd started sampling it with single-color stones, and I liked it...but it's subtle, and I felt like it needed some more vibrant stones to accentuate.

So I sorted my stones into groups with similar patterns:

Canyon Sunsets Series

 

I made the bezels, textured the backs (the back of each piece in each grouping has the same texture), and then the fun started. I played around with wire, tiny silver discs, even tinier silver balls, and jump ring placement (for attaching ear wires and neck chains), until I had the designs worked out. Then I moved on to the next series:

Arroyo Carvings Series

And repeated the process. Different back texture, but assorted dots and lines and discs on the top and sides.

And once more:

Desert Vistas Series

Voila! Several groupings of mix and match designs. Any pendant could go with any earrings in the series.

I really enjoyed working on these, and I also managed (a twofer!) to refine my skill in joining pieces of metal together like this. I've been able to solder a join on a single piece of metal easily, and I can sweat solder pretty well, but I've struggled with this kind of work for a while. And since nearly every piece (the curved wire, the discs, the balls, and the jump rings) all have to be "side-soldered", for lack of a better term, I think I've improved my abilities just a wee bit. Which was actually part of the plan to begin with.  :)

Now that these are finished, priced, and listed on line, next week I'm going to be working on some more "Capital A" Artisan pieces. Can't wait!