crikey!
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For a first piece that is very impressive. Like others here, I kept my first piece, I’m fond of it and it’s kind of cool. Other people have given good critiques. I have been doing this for five years and am also self-taught (I consider myself to now be an advanced beginner). I started setting cabochons two years ago and have probably set 2-300, and feel like I’m finally getting fairly good at it. I often work with odd shaped stones, which does make it trickier at times. Big learning curve. I’ve just learned basic flush setting - the first one was perfect, which gave me a false sense of optimism, as some others since then were very frustrating.
As to having what it takes - it depends on what your goal is. Making beautiful things as a hobby or supplemental income is one thing, doing it full time as your only income (which is what I do) is quite different. I would love to take a lot of time to make less pieces but that won’t pay the rent (my Christmas shows just ended though, so for the next month I’m rewarding myself by only making things which which make my creative heart sing; then it’s building inventory for spring).
One thing I will add - the best thing is to practice as much as you can. Nothing beats hands on experience. I’m sort of the opposite of you, I learned a lot messing around at the bench before I really started paying attention to all the great resources out there (like this place). It’s important to be okay with one’s failures and mistakes - and if you keep at it there will probably be many - for they are opportunities to learn. One YouTube jeweler I enjoy is a lovely Dutch woman who produces really useful videos at about my level, which include her mishaps & her solutions as she goes along.
Best of luck to you, Sue
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One last thing, re your bezel. It looks like you have enough room in between the pearl and the cab to use a burnisher to try to tighten it up. I looked at the video on your Etsy site and it’s a bit hard for me to tell (my eyes are sometimes not that great) but it looks like there is a tiny gap between the stone & bezel all around? I finally got a hammer handpiece for my flexshaft a few months ago and am I ever glad I did, particularly for small stones, since I find sometimes the rub over can be really hard on the hands. Though fair warning, I learned the hard way that it’s not advised for certain stones. I’m not sure about turquoise.
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I opened my Etsy shop in 2016 after I had made a LOT of rings for all of my family and many of my friends. I must have bezel set 200 stones! After all of this, it took 4 months to sell anything. Today, it is much, much more competitive, especially selling jewelry on Etsy.
I learned more through my failures than my achievements and you will too if you can develop some objectivity in your craft. Of course you have talent. But critique is very helpful and while you did request that, what you expected was only praise.
I have been formally schooled in the visual arts for many years and it is customary for professors to require class critique of each students projects in the class when it is due. It was often humiliating, but learning to deal with that was part of the lesson, I eventually learned!
Living in the creative arts can be perilous if you let adversity crush your spirit. Keep in mind that every day is an opportunity to learn.
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I had an Etsy shop but didn’t put much effort into it, plus it was a hassle because if I had the item on my market table and sold it I’d have to rush to Etsy & remove it right away. But I realized I was selling more off Instagram without even trying or posting prices, just people asking, and of course there are no fees that way, so I closed my Etsy shop. I think I had about 35 sales in two years. Some people do extremely well but they really work at it, and they have dozens or even hundreds of listings.
I don’t have anyone to critique me but I don’t need it, I’m my own harshest critic 
When I spend too much time on Instagram looking at the amazing work out there I have to give myself a pep talk - “you’re a thousand times better than when you started, and people like your work enough that it’s providing a decent living, and you will keep getting better”.
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If you give up that easily, if you’re this defensive, if you’re this unwilling to learn anything because you’re convinced you already know it all, if you’re this combative with people, if you’re this dismissive of the experts in this field who have put in the hours to be rightly called masters, then no, you don’t have what it takes to do this for a living. I think you’ll probably find you don’t have what it takes to do most things. Sadly, you won’t fail because you don’t have the ability to succeed, you’ll fail because of your mentality, attitude, and issues. These people weren’t some random people on an obscure site on the internet trolling you. This is a friendly community of educated well-known and respected metalsmiths who have a lot of experience, training, and expertise and who are gracious enough to give good solid advice to others and help them along the right path without any expectation of reward in return. Some of them have worked in this field for 50 years, have written books, know each other and are professional associates and colleagues, and have spent years teaching. You basically walked into a friendly, intelligent, civilized gathering of a close-knit community and spit on everyone then got huffy and left, leaving us all shocked and appalled by your bad behavior. And yet everyone has still continued to give you gentle solid advice because they’re really nice and decent people, and they’re right about everything they said because they actually know what they’re talking about. If you were to attempt to make a real career in this field, these people would be your professional associates: it would be their books you would be reading, their videos you would be watching, their classes you would be taking, and their techniques you would be learning in order for you to learn how to do anything at all with jewelry. You would see these people at metalsmithing events, fairs, and conferences because the community of serious metalsmiths, jewelers, and suppliers isn’t that big and they all know each other. You’ve made one piece of jewelry; they’ve made thousands and have been featured in magazines and exhibits. Ganoksin has been around nearly since the internet was made available to the public and is also well known in the community and considered an important resource for metalsmiths and jewelers.
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I’d forgotten about this. She’s made no posts since, the ring is still for sale on Etsy, it’s the only item in her shop, so it looks like she really did throw in the towel. Or is making and selling elsewhere.
Even the gentlest constructive criticism can be hard to swallow, even when it’s genuinely desired and we know we need it, but it’s so essential if we want to improve. I agree that the responses were thoughtful and on the whole quite gracious. It’s a shame.
This is the an amazing discussion. Truly.
Deserves to be re read from time to time.
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You’re probably not going to read this, but if you do my answer is this:
Don’t start a thread like this one on Ganoskin or any professional website if you cannot handle criticism. In other words:
Can’t stand the heat? Then don’t get near the fire.
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Amazing thread. It caused me to start thinking about how I started 50 years ago. I remember my first pieces. My aim was also to make a living making jewelry–eventually–but I had the common sense to realize that nobody in their right mind would buy my first pieces. I made them to learn what I was doing. I was self-taught, as I suspect most of us here are. I tried all sorts of techniques and processes. I recall the first and last time I tried to make niello; I mixed up the sulfur and whatever else it called for, put it into my burnout oven, and as soon as it started to heat up, the fumes were so noxious that it sent all of us running for the exit.
I did not make a living by selling my work for awhile; instead we sold the work of other silversmiths who knew what they were doing. In the meantime, I kept learning all I could, and, eventually, started actually producing work that I could be proud of. I too tried to convince myself–repeatedly though with considerably less conviction than the OP–that glaring mistakes were in fact “artsy” and gave character to poor work. A crinkled bezel, of course, is poor work. Rather than try to sell it, I would take it apart and do what I could to fix it. Of course, I never entirely succeeded, but the point is I learned from my mistakes rather than try to justify them and pretend they were intentional.
Eventually I had the very good fortune to meet and become friends with the master Navajo silversmith Orville Tsinnie. I have mentioned him before and will continue to do so because I consider my debt to him to deserve it. Fortunately when we met, I had acquired sufficient skill that I could make the changes I needed to make from what he showed me. From that point, my work actually started to become good enough to sell. The differences between what I had been making and what I came to make were stark. I consider my earlier efforts to have produced no more than shiny trinkets. A crinkled bezel? Don’t try and delude yourself through artistic arrogance that a mistake will be regarded by anyone besides you as artistic individuality.
Thoughtfulness is always a good thing. Putting effort into a design is always a good thing. But, to spend months devising the ultimate piece of jewelry is time wasted. Instead, make jewelry. Good designs? Please. No design is good enough to justify poor work, and the truth of the matter is that the only person who will cherish its wonders is the person who made it. Don’t try to sell it or it will lead to embarrassment. Look at your first piece as something to be improved. If you want to spend time thinking and planning, think about not only how you can make it better next time, but also how to take it apart and do what needs to be done.
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Just coming across your original post some 9 months later.
For a first piece, you did remarkably well. However, you asked for critiquing and as such, you were given many. I’d like to add a few comments of my own.
There should never be any gaps between the bezel and the stone. It appears as if you didn’t burnish it.
You had also mentioned that you used “epoxy” when you set your pearls. If an item is set correctly, no epoxy or glue should ever need to be used.
I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve been following a goldsmith recently who repeatedly says over and over, “Be extremely critical of your work, be absolutely brutal, don’t lie to yourself.” You have to be your biggest critic if you want to produce anything worthwhile. Aim for perfection and accept nothing less. If it’s not perfect, fix it, take it apart, start over if you have to, the process of aiming for perfection is its own learning experience. The techniques, methods, tips, and tricks all help, but they are simply things that you can use to reach perfection because perfection is always the goal. It’s not for the fainthearted or those who get discouraged if they don’t hear exactly what they want to hear. Failure doesn’t mean defeat, it means keep trying and don’t give up. And there’s a lot of failure that’s going to happen before you reach perfection. That’s okay, that’s the way it is for everyone, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Nobody picks this stuff up and is instantly a master at it. Even the greatest masters botched up their fair share along the way before they became masters. There’s a reason it takes years to get really good at this.
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So I have a question for you. Some people use epoxy, some don’t. Personally, the idea of any sort of adhesive just kind of turns me off. Yes, adhesives have come a long way and gotten better. I still don’t want adhesives on my jewelry. So having said that, how would YOU set pearls? Most people today just put a half drilled pearl on a post with epoxy. Do you have a particular technique for setting pearls that you favor that doesn’t use any sort of adhesive? Would you mind sharing that technique?? I’m about to embark on my first pearl setting soon, and I would like to do it well and without epoxy. I have some really large and nice akoya pearls I’m using for this project, and I really want to get it right.
One reason to use an adhesive is if the piece ever needs repair the pearls can be removed so they don’t come near the fire, or into the pickle, or under the buffer.
Pre-epoxy the adhesive was pearl cement, which is simply shellac with white pigment added. The post and pearl are gently heated, just enough to melt the shellac, then the pearl is slid onto the post which has a small bit of shellac on it. There are dangers of over-heating, the heat changing the color of dyed pearls, and internal pressure of the shellac causing damage. This is why pretty much no one uses it any more.
One mechanical method of attaching pearls is to use a wedged post. But this also can be dangerous, as the wedge can split the pearl if it is not exactly the right thickness. And the pearl can never be removed without drilling or cutting the post from its base.
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I took a screenshot of your post, you explained this really well. Ok, I’m seriously considering using epoxy then because yeah if it ever needs to be repaired, you’re limited in what you can do because the pearl can’t be removed from the wedged post. I can see the common sense behind the reasons for using an adhesive with pearls. All right, I think I’ll use an adhesive for these pearls I’m about to set then. I’m kinda kicking myself for it, buuuut… I also don’t want to have to destroy the pearls removing them later on if, years down the road, the piece has to be repaired.
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Dana,
I’m so glad that you are taking what Elliot said to heart and taking a screenshot of it so that you won’t forget about it, as what he said was exactly correct. I would also like to add that Pearls are incredibly fragile and “sensitive” and can be damaged quite easily if not taken care of properly, which the vast majority of people who where Pearls do not do, most especially when wearing Rings. This is another reason why most Pearls are Epoxied on now, so when the person wearing them damages them and I’ve never seen a Pearl Ring that hasn’t suffered some form of damage, the damaged Pearls can be relatively easily removed and replaced.
Pearls are also very easily scratched, chipped and cracked, so when you are trying to mount a Pearl with Prongs holding it in, you have to be very careful not to put too much pressure on it, which may end up chipping or cracking the Nacre where the prong lays on it. Also, when a Pearl is mounted with prongs holding it in, as time goes buy and the piece of Jewellery is worn, the prongs will eventually harden from being bumped repeatedly and the Pearl will become a little loose and start moving under the prongs, which over time will end up scratching it.
The vast majority of Pearls used in the Jewellery Trade these days are Cultured, grown on Farms or in Controlled Environments and typically aren’t very many years old and so their Nacre isn’t as thick as Natural Pearls are. This allows the growers to produce larger quantities of Pearls, much faster, rather than waiting for the Oyster to slowly, naturally create it’s treasure over many years. There are of course exceptions to this, as there are some Cultured Pearls, including Freshwater Pearls that have very thick Nacre and they will usually have a very healthy price to go along with it! Though most of the Pearls that you will encounter will have thinner layers of Nacre and so will be more susceptible chipping, cracking and staining, so they need to be handled more carefully.
So, even though we would all love to have any piece of Pearl Jewellery that we make, last forever and never have to replace a damaged Pearl, the chances of that happening are almost zero - unless the person rarely if ever wears it… Therefore, it is almost essential to use Epoxy to mount your Pearls, that way when the time comes to replace a Pearl, and it will, you will be able to do so without risking any damage to the mounting.
Jonathan
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I took a screen shot of your post, too! Lol So let me ask you this… are akoya pearls also farmed or do they only occur naturally?
I’m guilty of damaging pearl rings as well, I love jewelry, I love making jewelry, I love wearing jewelry, but even when I’m not working, I’m just exceptionally hard on my hands and any rings I happen to be wearing. My stuff gets beat up badly, that’s for sure, I have to recreate some settings, reset some of my stones, etc., I’ve got a bunch of rings sitting here that actually belong to me that I’m planning on resetting with better settings than what I bought them with years ago because they’re just not holding up well. I’m wearing a really large pearl ring right now with an enormous center pearl, and I’m probably going to end up having to replace it at some point because it has a lot of scratches on it. Necklaces and earrings usually fair better with me, but not rings, rings get beat up. So I’ll use Epoxy, especially with pearl rings that I make. I might be able to get away with using the wedged post with a pearl if the pearl is deeply set and protected in a setting perhaps… The setting that I’m planning on making is a large bib necklace, but I’ll use Epoxy for that.
I appreciate every tidbit of information I get from all of you, I always learn something when I get on Ganoksin!
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Dana,
Akoya Pearls are farmed as well and if my memory serves me, they were the very first Pearls to be Cultured, by the famous Japanese Jeweller, Mikimoto… Though Akoya Pearls do have a much thicker Nacre than many of the other Cultured Pearl growing areas, apparently some of the waters around Japan seem to be perfectly suited to growing truly beautiful Pearls!
I personally would stay away from the Wedged Post as a form of securing Pearls, unless of course the Pearl will receive absolutely no possibility of wear, like a Jewelled Box or a Display Piece of some sort, as even with these type of pieces, it only takes one accidental bump and the Pearl is damaged… The biggest problem with the wedged post is, that once the Pearl is mounted, the only real way to remove it is by breaking it off, which more times then not, will typically break the Post off too, thus making even more work for the Jeweller to Repair it.
I do understand that learning new Techniques is important to you and I agree that every new Technique that you learn will only make you a better Jeweller, this Technique though, especially when using Cultured Pearls, will probably bring you more heartache than satisfaction. That being said, it is still worth knowing how to do, even if only as a demonstration of your technical acumen, because making the “V” Post and an accurate Wedge to fit in it exactly, is not an easy task to accomplish… As an interesting aside, Woodworkers use this Technique too, to create a very tight Blind Mortise & Tenon wood joint, though when (2) Wedges are used it’s often called a Fox Wedge Joint and the Wedges are typically in a contrasting colour of wood, which makes a very lovely Through Joint that you can see. Again, like with the Wedged Post for a Pearl, once this style of wood joint is used, it cannot be removed, at least not without breaking or sawing it apart…
Jonathan
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Jonathan!
Thanks for this very detailed post about a time honored technique that is so, so clear about why and why not and takes into account the OP’s situation and feelings, too. The Post of the Month by me, at least! From what you said, if you do break off both post and pearl, you have to drill out the post and that, it seems to me would be a dicey business, with the drill bit slipping off the gold or silver post and into the (softer) pearl. Eeek! However did our forefathers (yes, mostly male, then) do this and save natural pearls for Aunt Hattie and her niece, who inherits? -royjohn
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