Finding work in N.Z

Greetings from N.Z.to Tessa As usual it takes me a day or two to
answer a posting, and once again John Burgess was the catalysis. Tessa
there hundreds of towns large and small from North Cape to the Bluff
(top & bottom) of these Islands and in most of them there are people
making jewellery. We use anything at hand, wood carvings, bone
carvings after the style of the Maoris. There are heaps of people
working in jade (local nephrite) some to a very high standard. Around
this city there are numerous craft shops with one or two people inside
creating there own thing, and other workshops that are turning out the
kind of rings earrings, bracelets etc you see in the average jewellers
in most any town. There are a few supermarket type, jewellery chain
stores and most cities have one or two stores where the average
customer uses gold or platinum cards to make a purchase. Some of the
pieces in these stores are made locally and are of a very high
standard. I don’t suppose this is unlike where you live at present and
finding a niche here would probably be much the same as moving to a
city or town not to far removed from where you now live. If the urge
to come down to the South Pacific becomes overwhelming, get in touch
and maybe you can let us know what field of jewellery you work in. John
is right, for the last few years the small suburban jeweller works
very hard to make a living. But live in hope, there are also the
success stories.

Bruce from NZ