[Jewelry making - Article 00236] - Re: [Orchid] Jeweler's former lives

[Thejewelmaker]

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    I have to reach away back to find a former life. I grew up in rural
    northwestern Alberta. At the age of five I discovered that I could
    draw, accused of tracing at school, so quit showing my work. Failed
    the second grade for refusing to memorize. Math was easy, spelling
    was hard. Learned to recognized words as pictures. I though that I
    would be an artist when I grew up. At the age of ten, saw a starving
    artist skit on TV. Stopped drawing, decided to be a rancher or
    businessman instead. Fought with the school bully from grade five to
    seven, punished frequently. Spent a summer in hospital with busted
    ribs and a punctured lung after a horse stepped on me. Drew a picture
    of "Venus de Milo" that got a negative reaction from the hospital
    Nuns. Decided that drawing was OK afterall. 

    Started helping my father in his lapidary/jewellery workshop at
    thirteen, rock hunting on weekends. Made my first original idea:
    muskrat fur jewellery in gold plated settings, stubborn student,
    refused to do math homework, so failed the seventh grade as well.
    Finally creamed the bully after working all summer bailing hay. Had a
    great male teacher the second time in grade seven, great teacher in
    eight. School was a blast. At 16, after packing in on horseback 2= 5
    miles from nearest road, got frost bitten hunting at 46 degrees
    below zero in the mountains, nearly died. Rescued by forestry
    service. Almost lost both feet also froze fingers, ears and tip of my
    nose. Dropped out of school and moved to the Cayman Islands "The
    Islands Time Forgot". 

    Started a lapidary-jewellery souvenir shop. No business in the
    summer went spear fishing and diving for conchs for money, bought
    chicken and macaroni. Spent a summer setting up a turtle farm, and
    another setting up a dairy farm. 1968 made the first deep water Black
    Coral dive in the Cayman Islands. Started the Black Coral industry.
    Got married in England, Spent 2 years in Canada having babies and
    selling diamond rings for Peoples Jewelers. Returned to Cayman,
    expanded the Black Coral Business to 47 employees, became the 4th
    largest employer on the Island, Designed a new line of sophisticated
    Black Coral and Diamond jewellery, had wonderful craftsman-contactors
    in UK, New York and Europe. Had more babies. 

    After a number of diving events: an underwater blackout, a touch of
    the bends, and finally an hour decompressing in a squall that nearly
    sank the dive boat, I stopped deep diving for Black Coral in 1976. 

    I designed a line of Jewellery featuring gold Doubloons and "Pieces
    of Eight" from Spanish shipwrecks. Opened a fabulous diamond and
    gemstone jewellery store. Opened an international "Hard Asset"
    brokerage busine= ss. Published a market newsletter. Designed a line
    of rare jewels featuring exceptional antiquities and Spanish gold.
    This collection, offered only in the Cayman Is= lands was published
    extensively in Europe and the Caribbean. Opened a studio in Miami
    with 27 craftsmen. 

    In 1986 I design a relational data program that eventually became
    the basis for a software company that developed an open source code
    shell for the Macintosh development community. After 13 man-years of
    development I closed the software company and then spent 3 years of
    long nights rewriting 300 thousand lines of code into something
    useful. 

    In 1987 I designed the Metamorphosis Jewel, a never-ending collection
    of rare component jewels that enabled collectors to interchange,
    transform and evolve their jewel into new creations over time.
    Metamorphosis was very complex and difficult to develop; it took over
    4 years before the first jewel was displayed in my George Town
    showroom. Aesthetically, mechanically and functionally it is a very
    sophisticated jewel. Metamorphosis never became easy to make, the
    masters that created and assemble this unique jewel have gradually
    past on.In 1996 I took the Metamorphosis collection private and have
    spent most of the last 10 years in the studio making new metamorphic
    components for my existing collectors. So it seems that I have come
    full circle. Currently I am designing and prototyping a new
    collection that will bring a lot of my concepts togeth= er. The
    problem is that I keep getting new ideas before the old ones are
    complete. By the way I still can't spell and boy am I glad that I
    didn't get an education. 

Dennis Smith - thejewelmaker
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