Taming the Tangle

Pure 24k gold for "May is gold" month + The golden rule of customer service

As many of you know, I’ve started working in gold more. I love 18k, but due to rising costs I’ve been working mostly in 14k. In December I got a request from a client to create a necklace and earring set in pure 24k gold. I love this type of custom challenge, particularly when given the timeline of “you take as much time as you need to complete the project to the best of your ability.” Whoa… the (self-inflicted) pressure!

Being comfortable with the idea of self-education, my first step was to call my favorite wire supplier, Hoover and Strong. I love working with them because their wire is all recycled content (harmony metals), meaning it’s not freshly mined, making it more eco-friendly. They have 24k gold – this is gold in its pure form – but they explained to me that the gold would be too soft for my wire work. I also needed to buy or make 24k gold ear nuts, which they considered impossible since 24k gold would not work harden so the ear nuts would not have enough tension to hold an earring. I knew I could substitute 18k ear nuts if needed, but I didn’t want to resort to that unless absolutely necessary.

Hmmm… a major stumbling block. Whenever I reach a major technical stumbling block, I call my friend and jeweler Janice Ho. She is amazing! Her education and work experiences are so thorough, and she can boil something down in such a way that I can understand it. She knew of a product called PureGold, which she had worked with, that is 24k with a tiny amount of titanium alloy to add structure… but it can still be hallmarked as pure 24k gold.

What a breakthrough! Needless to say, this is the product that I worked with. If you love gold, you have not experienced the warmth and beauty, and sheer heft, of the metal until you’ve seen it in its pure form. I cannot wait until I can afford to do all of my gold wire work with this product! In my mind, gold represents optimism, and the beauty of this product captured the light and delicate beauty I’m always striving to capture in my designs.


For all you jewelers out there, I will warn you, though. This product is fabulous, but the company and customer service are not. From what I can tell, this is a one-man operation. He deals in gold, but does not accept credit cards! I mean, come on!, I’ve accepted credit cards for 4 or 5 years now. He – John Bernardin – is very well-versed in the product and comfortable talking about it and its qualities. But he is not comfortable with the business side of things. He hadn’t realized that I had actually placed an order when I called because we didn’t have the formality of me giving payment over the phone. I kept wondering why my product hadn’t arrived. He also had numerous manufacturing issues, which he didn’t call me about. It all boiled down to… I placed an order in December and got my product in April. That is ridiculous! And, as you might know, gold prices had radically changed in that time period. This was a MAJOR flaw in PureGold’s ordering system. With all of my other suppliers the market price is captured at the time of order, which is also when I’m paying. This was not true with PureGold… the market price was at the time of SHIPPING, which meant the price I quoted for a custom piece 4 months earlier was way off compared to the actual market value of gold at that time.

I always strive to give good customer service. Sometimes I fail due to my travel schedule, but I always get back to a customer as soon as I can to explain the situation. This is an area I am working on for myself. Especially after this experience. It was so odd to receive a product that I was thrilled with but be so horrified by the service that I wasn’t sure how I felt in the end (especially since the service waylaid my product delivery by months). That’s why I waited to post this information – I wanted to cool off a bit and get back in touch with the excitement of the gold itself… which is beautiful. If you work with PureGold, and you should consider it if it sounds right for a project, be as clear as possible with your expectations and timeline so you don’t suffer from the same issues I had.

And, if you are looking for a special piece of contemporary heirloom-quality jewelry, contact me to discuss a design in pure 24k gold. You won’t be disappointed!

Learning Something New

This past weekend was one of my few weekends at home, but, despite that, I couldn't resist taking a class with Arline Fisch. What an opportunity! The Chicago Metal Arts Guild brought her here (from San Diego) for a 2-day workshop held at Northeastern Illinois University, which has great jewelry facilities run by Jane Weintraub (the classes are auditable as well!). It was tough to forgo sleeping in, spending time outside on a beautiful spring weekend, or even just lazing around reading a good book. But I saw an opportunity to expand my skills in the exact area that I work in, and fate made the timing work out so how could I deny that?

For those of you who aren't familiar with Arline Fisch, she's one of the artists who have worked hard to develop textile techniques in metals over the time of her career. She has written several books, which was one of the reasons I decided to write my own book as well. She's really looked to as an expert in her field.

I do not know Arline, so it was a real treat to meet her and learn directly from her. The workshop was really about working, and due to other plans I wasn't able to join the group for dinner out, so I didn't get to know her very well. She alluded to retirement, which I think means she retired from full-time teaching. I was excited to see slides that she brought of her designs over the years, which includes work that she is doing now. Currently she is creating a large installation (a new challenge for her as she is a jewelry artist) for the Racine Art Museum, which will go up in August. I was to plan a visit there like my friend Anne Leuck Feldhaus describes doing on her Adventures & Art blog (she went on a jaunt to Kohler)... sounds fabulous for a fall weekend.

Here's what I worked on in class:

I threw myself into just trying all of the techniques rather than wanting to make finished products... there never would have been time for that. The samples will be great reference points for me when what I've learned has sunk into my design consciousness. We learned various weaving techniques as well as braiding. No shocker, I liked the weaving more because it came more naturally to me, although the braiding in a zig-zag was super cool! You might see some experiments where I try incorporating these techniques into a few designs to see how they look and feel... I'll keep you posted for any studio shows where this would come into play.

Looking for Spring, Finding Inspiration

Last week some friends invited me and Dan for a nice walk through the Garfield Park Conservatory. It was a great chance to get a jump on spring, which has been taking its time coming to Chicago.

While there I became obsessed with all things bumpy. I snapped some photos as ideas to pursue in jewelry. The bumps could be pearls or other stones, or even the wireball tangles I make. I like how some of the bumps are orderly and some are more sporadic. The color combinations are also fantastic!

And in the spirit of spring, I caught a few takes on the "emerging" theme... an idea I've been wanting to explore. Maybe I'm finally ready to emerge and start experimenting?

I'll share new developments as they happen.

Artist Statement Inspiration

On Saturday afternoon I was catching up on my reading and hopped over to my friend Anne's Art Blog where she had written about developing her artist statement. It reminded me that this is a task that I still have not finished for myself... instead I have a personal-style bio (which is probably too wordy and detailed) and another type of bio that is essentially my history of stumbling into working with wire as my jewelry medium. But where's the inspiration?

I learned from Alyson Stanfield in her book "I'd rather be in the studio!" about writing an artist statement, and she presents a series of questions with open-ended answers to guide you through analyzing your own work and thought-process that went into it. These exercises are so helpful. After doing them she recommends setting your writing aside for a while (which probably means a few days, but for me has been a couple of weeks) so you can analyze it, find common threads, and just generally see the answers in a fresh light.

After reading Anne's statement, I've moved this development process of my own near the top of my to-do list, but still having the website launch and 2008 catalog as my highest priorities right now. On Saturday night I found myself in a conversation with an artist I was meeting for the first time. She designs furniture and accessories, and she talked a lot about how her work is ingrained in history, family, and being grounded. Suddenly her work had context, and I felt a sense of understanding about it on some level -- the roots imagery she used was no longer just "natural beauty" but was imbued with meaning. When she learned I was a jewelry artist, she asked me "what is your work about?"

At that moment the importance of an artist statement washed over me. I fumbled through my usual answer of being trained as a graphic designer and exploring the design themes that I learned in college, the use of line, positive and negative space, shape, contrast, etc. But is that what my work is about? That's more my design process, an easier thing for me to discuss, but that's not the underlying artistic inspiration.

Sunday morning when Iris, my early-riser dog, woke me at her usual 8am (which was really 7am due to the time change... how did she do that?), it hit me. As much as that artist's work is about stability because her life has been that way, my work is about transience and movement. For me this is symbolized by water; I have traveled and flowed through life from place to place. Water has always been an important aspect of each place I've lived, but the momentum of it is a powerful symbol to me. Many of my jewelry pieces are named after things that relate to water... waterfalls, anemone, and riverstones being the main ones... but there is something deeper there in how I'm capturing the idea of fluid movement in my designs. Suddenly so much clicked into place for me! So now I at least have an outline and a direction to go in for my artist statement, so I won't fear it when that project makes it to the top of my to-do list.

Sometimes the obvious stares you in the face, these are just two of the several water inspiration images that I use in my catalog... indication that I'm not off the mark in my artist statement direction.