[Jewelry making - Article 00018] - Re: [Orchid] Jeweler's former lives

[Jeff Georgantes]

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This is a fun thread...

    In my former life I was a jeweler. I'm one of those kooky people who
    figured out what they wanted to do with their lives as a teenager. I
    started at 16 and have stuck with it my whole life. Now I'm in my
    early-50's. 

    Within the field I have gone through a lot of different incarnations
    though. A lot of these phases overlap, so if you add all of the years
    separately it doesn't make sense. 

    As a teenager I practically lived in my high school's jewelry studio
    (we were very lucky to have one) BA in Art, with emphasis in
    Jewelry/Metals. 

    15 years as a custom goldsmith working in jewelry stores. Mid-30's,
    missed the artist life and wanted more human interaction in my
    career. After a zillion years doing the custom goldsmith thing I
    found staring at the bench 40 plus hours week after week after week
    to be like prison.. Went back to college got a MA in Sculpture.
    Emphasized in welded steel and cast bronze. 

    Made the leap to self-employed studio artist. 15 years: Taught art as
    part-time adjunct at various colleges: jewelry, sculpture, art
    history, design and foundation skills classes Late 30's, started
    teaching jewelry workshops across the USA and running the
    Jewelry/Metals Program at the Mendocino Art Center with my friend,
    Susan Wood Turned 40 and took a year off to try my hand at art
    administration and ran the Mendocino Art Center's school for a year.
    Missed the self-employed artist life and quit Mendocino and embraced
    the traveling trade show/craft fair/gallery life again. 

    Late 40's decided to correct a thing that I always thought should
    have happened in my 20's, went back to college again and got a MFA in
    Jewelry/Metals. A month after graduating, got a full-time teaching
    job as head of the metals program at Dartmouth College in NH. After
    49 years by the beach in Northern California moved to a forest in New
    Hampshire. What's next? Who knows? 

Jeff Georgantes
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