[Jewelry making - Article 00569] - Re: [Orchid] a new way to market jewelry

[Beth Wicker]

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    Love the response Ken!  If you haven't clicked through to Ken's
    website (www.shadras.com ) you should do so, and read the comment in
    red near the bottom.  Does it qualify as a jeweler's joke? 

    As a practicing artist for over 20 years who has fairly recently
    added jewelry to her list of media used, I have to say that I LOVE it
    when pieces sell, but I don't make them because I KNOW they will
    sell, I make them because something inside me insists they be made. 
    I do some preliminary sketches sometimes regardless of the media I am
    using, but for the most part the materials I am using "tell" me what
    they want me to do with them.  I am perfectly aware that this sounds
    really strange, and probably makes no sense at all to most people. 
    It is, however, how I work.  Quite often I start thinking the print,
    or painting, or handmade paper, or jewelry, is going to look and end
    up a certain way....only to have it inform me as I proceed that I had
    it all wrong, and that is not what it is going to do at all!!!  When
    I listen, I wind up happy with the end result.  When I try to force
    it to do what I had in mind, I wind up with trash.  So over time I
    have learned to listen! 

    That said, I am not anyone's "typical" artist type.  I live in a
    small Southern town in the US, I am an overweight middle-aged mom who
    is a Girl Scout leader and active in community affairs.  I am an avid
    gardener, and have been president of the local garden club.  I work
    with severly disabled and handicapped children (just finished a month
    long residency with a special ed class in a school 1 1/2 hours from
    where I live).  I have homeschooled my dd.  So I don't fit any "mold"
    for much of anything - never have! 

    Personally, most of the artists and craftspeople I know do a mixture
    of work for themselves and work to sell.  The main difference being
    those who consider themselves craftspeople tend to have one or more
    "lines" of work that they produce in multiples.  Those who consider
    themselves "artists" tend NOT to work in multiples or "lines".  This
    includes jewelrs, painters, potters, printmakers, fabric artists,
    photographers - I'm probably leaving someone out, but it seems to
    cross the lines of media.  The other difference is that you find
    primarily "artists" teaching at the colleges and universities (the
    teaching pays the bills leaving them free to create as they choose -
    I have always thought that probably matters a lot!).  The
    "craftspeople" tend to have small studios and/or do lots of crafts
    fairs to pay the bills.  Quite possible more a matter of economics
    than semantics. 

    Out of curiousity, how many on the list consider themselves to be
    "artists", how many to be "craftsmen/women", how many to be
    "artisans" (that tends to be more a business term in my experience),
    how many something else entirely? 

Beth in SC


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