I make a living selling my work wholesale to galleries and stores
around the country thru winter BMAC, ACRE and wholesalecrafts.com,
and pay a California mortgage and outrageous health insurance.
How I keep prices affordable for the galleries while producing a
quality product is by having my original designs cast.
I will spend weeks making the original, refining it and figuring
ways to both make it beautiful and easy to complete.
I accent the sterling silver work with pearls, glass or I
am known for my glass, and have been moving away from the glass
because the market has been saturated with it by Early Work.
Key to the work is good design. I don’t have the metal or the glass,
pearls or gemstones dominate. The look is expensive contemporary at
a reasonable cost.
I guess I merged the quality and economy threads, and come to think
of it, that’s how I do my business.
It brought tears of joy to a lady that had just lost her mother
and had then been insulted by other jewelers that wouldn't lower
their standards to the level of quality she could afford. It also
allowed me to make a lifelong friend and customer. You can decide
if doing that quality of work is the right thing for you to do or
not, but for me, it's that matching of my standards to the needs of
my customer that makes my quality of life the best it can be.
You have brought Quality of Life to my life today, and I thank you.
You certainly would be a person I’d choose to have as a friend and
role model. I have given work to a surprised customer, just because.
Karma works.
Leonid, you seem to take people’s comments and blow them up out of
all proportion. Nobody said that attention to detail should be
neglected or omitted. The point was that it is simply not profitable
to spend the same number of hours on an agate street fair ring (to
use John’s example) as on a crown jewel. Nobody implied or said that
the standard of workmanship on the agate doodad would be inferior.
We’re talking about the practicalities of business.
The International Standards Organisation (ISO) defines “Quality” as
the: “Degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills
requirements.”
By linking quality to requirements, ISO 9000 implies that the
quality of an item cannot be established in a vacuum, but is always
relative to a set of requirements.
(The standard defines requirement as need or expectation.)
(TC 176/SC (2005). ISO 9000:2005, Quality management systems –
Fundamentals and vocabulary. International Organization for
Standardization.)
“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high
intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful
execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”
-William A. Foster (I've also seen this attributed to John
Ruskin)
“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”
-John Ruskin
I applaud anyone who rolls up their sleeves, digs in and makes
things. In a world of increasing numbed out hours in front of a TV or
computer monitor, those who motivate themselves to try something
new, and explore a craft as complex as the one we are involved in
has earned my respect. I admire those that try to push themselves to
‘do it a bit better’ every time, and strive for quality.
I love that this forum represents diversity of ability, inclination,
and experience!
Leonid, you seem to take people's comments and blow them up out of
all proportion. Nobody said that attention to detail should be
neglected or omitted. The point was that it is simply not
profitable to spend the same number of hours on an agate street
fair ring (to use John's example) as on a crown jewel.
Apparently, as much as I try to emphasize, I am still failing.
I believe I was very explicit stating that characteristics of fine
jewellery, which you call “details”, are not the results of hours
and hours of back breaking labour. They are the results of applying
correct techniques in proper order.
I also emphasized that making jewellery with attention to details is
the most profitable way to make jewellery. In my opinion, claims
contrary to that are just excuses used to conceal the lack of
competence.
Any time I go into a jewellery store and handle a piece the first
thing I instinctively do is look at the back.
Not related to the subject for for
I recently purchased a book about Bulgari by Amanda Triossi and
Daniela Mascetti.
I own quite a few books on jewellery designers, but this is the only
one which has photographs of the front and the back of the jewellery.
Authors really understand that back of the piece can tell much more
than the front.
The point was that it is simply not profitable to spend the same
number of hours on an agate street fair ring (to use John's
example) as on a crown jewel.
Well put Helen. A number of years ago I stopped making silver jewelry
for just this reason. It took me as much, or more, time to make the
same piece up in silver as it did in gold. Only thing was that I
could make far more money selling it in gold than in silver. Since
the day I stopped (about ten years ago I made my last piece although
I’d pretty much cut most of it out of the display cases five years
before that) I’ve never looked back, and never been more profitable.
Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
Well, I’ll tell you what quality isn’t…it isn’t this blasted
platinum engagement ring I took in for a cracked shank. Sure, near
ideal cut diamond, pretty nice pave’ around the shank, looks nice.
Quality right?
My second impression (which I should have trusted myself more on)
was this doesn’t heft the way it looks, feels too top heavy. Come to
find out the shank, all the way around mind you, is tubing. Now this
ring probably cost the owner something like $5,000 and the maker cut
corners with a hollow shank! Maybe the maker had a logical reason for
tubing(easier to drill?), maybe they just wanted to shave a hundred
bucks from production cost but the result is the ring is not suitable
for its intended purpose, to be worn on a daily basis.
So now I’ll hafta laser-fill the tool marks (can’t polish them out
and make the situation worse) and probably be married to this
cheap-shot ring.
You can bet I’ll remember the makers mark. And you can bet I’ll never
buy the line. And that is what poor quality gets you, a bad
reputation.
As a child, my father told me that in this life all of us were
like pieces of a puzzle. Some of us were the border pieces that
kept the puzzle together. Some were the center pieces that gave
focus to the puzzle. Some were the bright colored pieces etc. But
the bottom line was that the puzzle could not be complete without
every single piece in it, even the tiniest pieces were important.
Leave one of them out and the puzzle wasn't complete.
I like that better than mine - the funny thing about the universe is
how every time we pull something out to look at it we find it’s
connected to everything else.
Any time I go into a jewellery store and handle a piece the first
thing I instinctively do is look at the back. Really Bad habit. If
the sales person is even 1/2 a jeweller the look on their face
means they instantly know I'm not a 'civilian'.
When I used to do kilnformed glass beads, and someone looked at my
work from the side, I would ask what kind of glasswork they did. I
knew immediately that they were not ‘civilians’, ie buyers, and now
they knew I knew.
Buyers would look at the top. Glassworkers trying to figure out my
technique would look from the side. Never failed.
When I said I’ve spent (wasted) many hours ironing out
irregularities, I don’t mean the type of irregularities that teach me
something, I mean that I’ve spent too long on pieces that didn’t
warrant the number of hours I was piling into them, especially when
the recipients can’t tell the difference between the before and
after. But I do like my jewellery to look professionally finished, no
matter how short a time I’ve been making jewellery. As Leonid said,
“A goldsmith can make quality jewellery from the day one”. The skill,
as far as I’m concerned is having learned the tricks to effect a
professional finish in as short a time as possible (fewer hours spent
on a piece), by carefully planning the steps involved in an
economical way, reducing the need for clean-up, etc.
I made a pendant and earring set for my niece’s 21st birthday last
week (it took me only a few hours) and nobody believed I’d made it
because it was very well made and beautifully finished (don’t mean
to boast, but I was very proud of it), just like you’d buy in a shop.
But then that leaves me wondering whether it’s better to back off a
bit and leave pieces looking more hand made (as a friend has advised
me to do). It’s a bit of a puzzle for me because the set in question
looked beautiful, very contemporary and smart but made from sterling
silver and set with CZ’s means that to sell such work, I’d be
competing with the mass-produced stuff bought for very small amounts
of money and that’s not what I want. It would have looked even more
gorgeous in gold and set with diamonds but sadly I can’t afford that
yet, at least not in large enough amounts or of a high enough karat.
It’s a design I’m going to keep in mind to make in gold later on and
I also have in mind turning it into a necklace with multiple elements
rather than just a simple pendant.
But to address your point, to cut myself some slack would mean me
not trying so hard, and it’s only through trying so hard and
constantly striving for “perfection” (I know it doesn’t exist) that
makes me progress at the rate I’m progressing, and getting to the
stage that people do actually want to buy my jewellery. The thing
about finishing something when it is “good enough” is difficult for
me because to me my pieces are never “good enough” but usually time
constraints make me leave a piece alone. However, those around me
are always telling me that my work is more than “good enough” and as
I’ve said previously, I’ve bought pieces from jewellers that were
less well made so on that I will cut myself some slack. But I will
keep trying hard to improve the quality of my work, within the time
parameters that the budget of a piece will allow.
The point was made that it is waste of time to refine details,
which nobody but jeweler can see.
This point was I think addressing something I said. I said something
along the lines of me having spent (wasted) hours of time ironing
out irregularities that the recipient couldn’t even see. My intention
in saying that was somewhat taken out of context by Mr Surpin. I
meant that the value of such pieces did not warrant the hours I put
into them, trying to “perfect” them, when the new owners of the
pieces couldn’t even tell that it wasn’t “perfect”.
I did NOT mean that the irregularities shouldn’t be ironed out, but
that the time spent to do so should be limited in line with the
value of the piece. And part of my teaching myself this “art” is to
learn how to “perfect” a piece in a shorter amount of time, with
careful planning and less clean-up - thus hopefully ending up with a
professionally finished piece, whatever the budget. Perhaps I didn’t
explain myself very well.
"details", are not the results of hours and hours of back breaking
labour. They are the results of applying correct techniques in
proper order.
I’ll agree with that (surprised, Leonid?). It seems the best pieces
just blossom forth effortlessly. The ones you have to coerce and
cajole and threaten, look it.
There’s that song that goes, “When you’re hot you’re hot, when
you’re not you’re not”. When I’m Not, I go find some paperwork to do
The International Standards Organisation (ISO) defines
"Quality" as the: "Degree to which a set of inherent
characteristics fulfills requirements." By linking quality to
requirements, ISO 9000 implies that the quality of an item cannot
be established in a vacuum, but is always relative to a set of
requirements.
When I worked for IBM and the year they were deep into Six Sigma for
measuring quality, I was assigned to be in charge of the defining
and measuring of presentations, as a side job. We were an artificial
intelligence center giving briefings and making recommendations and
we all knew this was bs. Fine for manufacturing, but our work was
not easily measurable for quality. So I met bs with bs and defined
quality as having all presentations completed and on file. And the
way Six Sigma worked, former math major here, I saw that the worse
you are when you start, the bigger the improvement that can be
reported. I was a hero for reporting each month and with great
improvement of ‘quality’ per my definition. Depending on the field,
defining and measuring quality can be invaluable or total bs.
For our field, I agree that it is relative. I do bridge jewelry and
spend weeks refining an original to be cast. Quality is important to
me. However, it is a different standard from those creating $$$k+
pieces. My production work sells for less than $50 wholesale and I
sell a lot of it. Still there are common standards, from pleasing
proportions to flawless execution. The pleasing proportion is not so
measurable, but flawless execution is more so. Depends.
The International Standards Organisation (ISO) defines
"Quality" as the: "Degree to which a set of inherent
characteristics fulfills requirements.
In ISO the term used is “Quality Assurance” as opposed to the widely
used term “Quality Control”. A company holding an ISO certificate
assure their customer that the quality will not only be good but on
the same standards over time. Another facet of ISO is the customer
satisfaction, which should be aimed to 100%. Customer satisfaction is
a manifestation of quality.
In 2001 I was part of team that implemented ISO9001:2000 procedures
in mass jewelry production for the company I worked for. (1 of the
top 5 Thai jewelry factories in export volume)
What we did was first to identify our production key processes and
define Quality Assurance (QA) levels for each. Once done we had to
decide how process quality will be measured.
Knowing our processes and QA indicators for each we started to
document the existing levels for each process and set the desired
quality we want to achieve. Once all set, defined and understood we
had to keep the processes quality according to the levels set and,
most important, continuously improve it.
There should not be a difference in quality between "agate street
fair ring" and "the crown jewel".
I don’t see how it could be more clear - it’s a plain-as-day
statement and you haven’t failed at all. It just bears no relation
to reality, that’s all. This isn’t art school, again. There IS a
difference between agate street fair and crown jewels, period. Which
the rest of us have no problem seeing. Everybody working at their
level. The perceived internal awareness of “I am doing my best job”
is the same, but that’s childish - the objective, measureable
quality of both design and technique are worlds apart. Each is made
for it’s marketplace. Meat comes in varying qualities, as do steel,
concrete, cars, fabrics - even dirt. Not to mention pearls,
gemstones and jewelry. To suggest otherwise is curious and a little
disturbing…
I also emphasized that making jewellery with attention to details
is the most profitable way to make jewellery. In my opinion, claims
contrary to that are just excuses used to conceal the lack of
competence.
I resent your implication. I have NEVER said what you are accusing
me of saying and I thought I was very explicit in what I said too.
Perhaps my grasp of the English language is lacking.
If you read what I wrote yesterday, you will find that we are in
fact agreeing. I quote “And part of my teaching myself this “art” is
to learn how to “perfect” a piece in a shorter amount of time, with
careful planning and less clean-up - thus hopefully ending up with a
professionally finished piece, whatever the budget. Perhaps I didn’t
explain myself very well.” Also in another post I wrote “The skill,
as far as I’m concerned is having learned the tricks to effect a
professional finish in as short a time as possible (fewer hours
spent on a piece), by carefully planning the steps involved in an
economical way, reducing the need for clean-up, etc.”
I may only have been making jewellery for a year but I take a pride
in my work and ALWAYS strive to make a professionally finished piece.
The photos on my websites are a little out of date now as I have
improved the quality and finish of my jewellery since those pictures
were taken. I always strive to be better than the last piece and
will never stop trying. You misunderstood what I was trying to say. I
used an unfortunate word which was taken out of context - “wasted”
with respect to time - but merely meant that the pieces in question
didn’t warrant the number of hours spent. The standards I ask of
myself are very high for someone so young in the business so please
do NOT imply that I am making excuses to conceal a lack of competence