If I talk to people in other countries about your work or made in Canada -without beeing respectless or humiliating with your work- people don't care realy. If I talk about gemstones cut in Antwerp (or other well known place)s, people know around the world that this is the good.stuff.
I'm more humble in my work but people like it very much because I make jewerly with a story using my brains ,heart and hands. No special machinery, no CAD, just ordinary files, gravers, hamers and lots of elbow grease. Guess what, nobody knows my stuff nor name in America or Canada, not even here, not even in my own country. Some pieces of mine where exposed in the Antwerp diamond museum. I've been a laureate during a exposition called "Napoleon in Antwerp" and my work is still not known. You and I are another fine craftsmen in "a" specific country.
Trademarks like Vancleef & Arpels, Bvlgari, Chopard, Tiffany's and Co, Graff or whatever, they made it and their names means something. However they aren't interrested in what we make, that's to small for them which is ok..
If I sell my work to a customer, he or she leaves with a part of me beeing more then a gemstone or precious metal. Sometimes it even hurts because I know the full story, know howmuch work I spend to create exactly what people can't convert into words. That is -for me- the most awarding value bigger then the amount of money they leave behind. That is even closer then my workbench.
Still, my name doesn't ring a bell, only for the very little amount of people who happend to cross my way
