Amy Cliser
Mark Shipman
Amy Dalness
Molly Bell
Bernadette Bennett
Molly T. Bell
Eddie Bell
Shelby Chant
Heather Apodaca
Viqui Sanchez
Kevin Whitmore
Yvonne Padilla
1,744 comments, 639 posts, 53 authors, 5 years and 1 awesome community of jewelers. That’s the history of The Studio, by the numbers. Today marks our 640th and final post, and we are both sad to say goodbye and excited about what’s next…
inspiration
Today’s “Influencers in Jewelry Design” post continues a series by Marlene Richey that celebrates the most influential and important shapers of contemporary jewelry design. This time, Marlene spotlights metalsmith, master enamelist, and renaissance woman Linda Darty. Linda has played a pivotal role in advocating on behalf of the integrity and versatility of the art form of enameling. Take a look at her story and then tell us how Linda’s work has influenced you. Join the conversation—we want to hear your jewelry Influencer stories!
Today marks our final “What Are You Working on Now” contest with a big, fat “thank you” to all of you for sharing what’s on your bench month after month! Take a look at today’s contest winner, Kristen Baird, whose gorgeous work is the perfect way to finish our peek onto jewelry benches all over the globe over the past three years.
Jayne Redman’s new class at Rio Grande’s 2015 Winter Workshop, held January 25–30, is Making Multiples: Blanking Dies and Pattern Development. During the class, Jayne will teach students the process of making and using a blanking die from start to finish, in the process teaching them how to save countless precious hours they would otherwise spend individually sawing components.
Each year we look back over the landscape of articles we wrote and try to pinpoint five of our readers’ favorites: The ones that drew the most eyes, the ones you spent the most time with, the ones that generated the most interest on social media. And each year, after Google has finished crunching the numbers for us, we are surprised and delighted to discover the five that made the cut. Here they are, Studio readers, your top five posts of 2014!
Have you signed up for Rio’s annual Winter Workshop yet? Get to know John Sartin, who will be teaching a two-day intensive on textures and treatments that will enrich your designs and expand your conceptions of jewelry. This class is a must for beginning metalsmiths!
Today’s “Influencers in Jewelry Design” post continues a series by Marlene Richey that celebrates the most influential and important shapers of contemporary jewelry design. This time, Marlene spotlights the extraordinary talent and groundbreaking contributions of George Sawyer. George was the first to bring gold mokumé gane to the market as jewelry and the first to use precious metals in his patterning. How has George’s work influenced you? Join the conversation—we want to hear your jewelry Influencer stories!
A 2013 Forbes survey found that “those customers who had customized a product online engaged more with the company. They visited its website more frequently, stayed on the page longer and were more loyal to the brand.” How can you, as a jeweler, tap into this craving for personalized goods? Read on and consider the myriad ways you can tap into this trend and make things personal!
A jeweler in West Africa will typically own a hammer, pliers or tweezers, and a few other odds and ends that they keep in a hand-made toolbox. Since The Studio’s initial post about the Toolbox Initiative—a project that aims to provide West African jewelers with commercial tools and materials that are rarely available to them—Tim McCreight and Matthieu Cheminée have received donations of hundreds of tools and several ounces of silver to support the project. Read on to learn a little more about these skilled metalsmiths and to make a donation to this fantastic project.
What inspires you these days? What materials have you been experimenting with? Nearly every month we present you with another “What are You Working on Now?” contest, in which we invite readers to submit a picture or two and a description of what’s on their bench right now. Well, this month’s winner, Beth Beck, has won a $20 Rio credit, and December’s contest has officially begun—show us your stuff for a chance to win!
