In posting a response to Mike’s “copper prejudice” post, I ended up
with this mulling around my head:
I make jewelry to connect with people – I adore it when a woman
goes nuts over one of my pieces, buys it, and calls me later to say
how many people admire it and how special it makes her feel. Bingo!
That’s the wonderful human sharing and connections of making and
passing on adornments. Nothing I’ve ever done that is creative has
this special human-to-human connection.
I don’t make jewelry to demonstrate the highest form of art as a
jeweler – that is, in producing pieces I am usually drawing out from
the stones and metal the design, form, and function that reaches my
goals of ultimate adornment (aesthetic) and the making of the piece,
the process, is second for me. I know this will likely evolve as I
mature as a metalsmith, but that’s how I perceive it now.
When I started out I thought I couldn’t sell anything until I could
perform every type of skill in silver and then gold – not until I
was a “true artist” (whatever that is). But my recent experience with
the copper pendants really changed this perception. Here I am with a
line of copper pendants that make people go nutso, and I never wanted
to!
Does that not make me an artist, because I create for people and not
the art? I lurked around Orchid for a year before joining in because
I thought had not earned the title of “metalsmith” let alone
"artist."
Roseann
