A necklace I am proud of :)

Peter W.. Rowe, wrote:

First, let me state catagorically that jewelry made with beading techniques is
most certainly within the topic and scope of this newsgroup. Discussing such
work here is entirely acceptable within the terms of the group charter.

Yep. And may I add that the image was posted several days
before the Real Power, Kojo, declared that multi-strand
necklaces were going to be the hot item this year.

Flic may outsell all of us!

--
mbstevens
http://www.mbstevens.com/

"Peter W.. Rowe," wrote in message
...

"Critical posts may sometimes hurt, but if written intellegently, can also
be great teaching tools."

Yes, some people who post their work are looking for positive feedback to
bolster their own feelings and are taken aback when they get a less than
glowing response. I'm fine with critical constructive feedback - but when
it's negative and mean spirited - I don't find it useful and tend to ignore
it. I'm not sure what I would suppose to be learning from comments such as
this "I think I'm going to hang myself now, or maybe I'll just quietly slit
my wrists" - How is that constructive? What can be learned from that? As
someone relatively new to jewelry design, construction and creation I look
to all sorts of experts and ask their opinion regarding my work. I've
learned so much from then and have found them to be truly beneficial to my
development.

By the way, I create jewelry using beads and do wirework. It's not as
fulfilling as it once was and am now branching out and will start expanding
my knowledge taking silversmithing classes and working with PMC. My
inspiration came from looking at the Sundance Catalog while looking at a
piece of jewelry that was thinking to myself that "I can do that" and I was
right. Would you consider the "artist" featured in that catalog to be true
artist? Or are they just "beaders" in your opinion?

On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 18:39:07 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry "mehughes"
wrote:

"Peter W.. Rowe," wrote in message
. ..

"Critical posts may sometimes hurt, but if written intellegently, can also
be great teaching tools."

Yes, some people who post their work are looking for positive feedback to
bolster their own feelings and are taken aback when they get a less than
glowing response.

True enough. Often, the problem may lie in that readers of such a post do not
always have the means to put it's writer in full context. A post showcasing a
work that, to the seasoned professionals, may seen naive or rather basic and not
otherwise obviously outstanding when judged against the full body of jewelry
work out there, might have been responded to differently if readers knew,for
illustration purposes, that the maker was just eight years old, or was totally
handicapped and this was as technical as he or she could manage, or was atotal
beginner, having had no instruction and this was the second piece ever
attempted. In these admitedly extreme examples, the otherwise unispiringwork
takes on new impressiveness. But in the group, we're seldom able to be aware of
the difficulties a person with such a post may have had to face and overcome, or
what extent of prior experience they bring to the work. In those situations
where I've had the honor to play the role of teacher to students of jewelry,
I've set tasks to be undertaken that I usually am pretty sure will challenge
abilities. The results, not surprisingly, often are lacking in various ways
were they things made by me or someone else with my experience. Yet, from
students at the level they have been, usually the work has been impressive, as
often as not exceeding my expectations. The newsgroup is a little bit like
seeing that student work in a craft gallery showcase. You have little with
which to put it in context, unless the maker fully explains the situation, and
usually they do not.

I'm fine with critical constructive feedback - but when
it's negative and mean spirited - I don't find it useful and tend to ignore
it. I'm not sure what I would suppose to be learning from comments such as
this "I think I'm going to hang myself now, or maybe I'll just quietly slit
my wrists" - How is that constructive? What can be learned from that?

Not much, indeed, other than that one has failed to impress the writer, or that
the writer has a problem. It may indicate nothing more than that the writer,
like the hypothetical poster you first refer to, is interested in bolstering his
or her own self image, rather than offering constructive commentary. Just
keep in mind that a fair number of the readers of this group or others like it,
have the natural tendancy to assume, at least at first, that other readers are
somewhere near their own level of sophistication, or aspiring to it. This can
lead, obviously, to misinterpretations and abrupt initial responses. So can
long or frustrating days at work when one then settles down, finally, to relax
for a moment reading the newsgroup for anything of interest.

I happen to rather enjoy the irony in the fact that Abrasha is also the fine and
long time contributor to this group who has, on appropriate occasions, graced us
with his posting a copy of this bit of usnet wisdom (it's longer, but I've
edited it a bit for this post

**********
***
***1. If you post and pretend to be a fool, people will believe that you
***are a fool.
***
***Corollary: If you then post and explain that you were only pretending,
***nobody will change their mind.
***
***2. The Net-Nature is very simple. Usenet is *not* dominated by the
***smartest people, the most interesting people, or the most learned
***people. It is dominated by the people who want to tell other people
***their opinions. To expect anything else is absurd.
***
***3. Similarly, the topics that dominate any given newsgroup are not the
***most interesting, the most helpful, or the most useful. They're the
***most acrimonious and the most dissent-laden. How else could things
***possibly turn out?
***
***4. A person who says, "Sorry, I had to point that out to you" is always
***telling two lies. Ditto for "Sorry, I couldn't pass this up." "I see
***your point but...." means the opposite.
***
***5. When a fool posts deliberate flamebait, he has no influence over
***whether he/she succeeds. You do.
***
***10. The exclamation point "!" is a sentence tag which denotes emphasis.
***The double exclamation point "!!" is a sentence tag which denotes the
***writer is a self-centered fool who think his/her concerns are more
***important than anyone else. The triple "!!!" is an exaggeration of the
***double. Four or more exclamation points indicate sexual inadequacy.
***
***11. You, personally, are a unique, exciting, vibrant, intelligent, wise,
***and self effacing individual with a great deal to contribute to the
***newsgroups you select on the Net. So is every other schmuck who posts.
***Get over it.
***
***14. Internet gurus on a specific topic are a dime a dozen. It is the
***people who don't know much who are rare.
*******

See the prior postings of this for the full version (google archives). It's
funny and all, but has enough of a hint of truth that I'll leave it to speak for
itself in this discussion.

As
someone relatively new to jewelry design, construction and creation I look
to all sorts of experts and ask their opinion regarding my work. I've
learned so much from then and have found them to be truly beneficial tomy
development.

Without good teachers, many of us would still be floundering with things we now
consider very basic. It's a heritage we all owe to those who've gone before us
and solved problems for us, developed techniques and tools for us, and been kind
enough as to share their learnings. And it's a responsibility too, for us to in
turn, be willing to pass our own learnings back to the next generation.


By the way, I create jewelry using beads and do wirework. It's not as
fulfilling as it once was and am now branching out and will start expanding
my knowledge taking silversmithing classes and working with PMC. My
inspiration came from looking at the Sundance Catalog while looking at a
piece of jewelry that was thinking to myself that "I can do that" and Iwas
right. Would you consider the "artist" featured in that catalog to be true
artist? Or are they just "beaders" in your opinion?



I'm all for learning more. Good luck. Be aware that PMC is a highly
specialized and unique material. It's capable of some interesting things. But
don't confuse learning to work with it as being the same as learning traditional
silver smithing and jewlery techniques. Though it produces metal objects, it
has more in common with ceramics than it does with classic silversmithing.

I note from your email address that you're at the University of Washington. And
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you're there as something other than a
metals and jewelry major in the art school. If so, be sure you familiarize
yourself with that department. It's a fine one, and if you can take on of Mary
Lee Hu's classes, you won't regret it. If looking for off campus classes, North
Seattle Community college and Pratt fine art institute both offer fine ones,
among others.

As to the sundance catalog, there's no way for me to tell without knowingmuch
more about the work of that person. I don't have a sundance catalog, so I
cannot even go that far. But I'd observe that it seems common for a number of
print media, including things like Lapidary Journal magazine and others, or a
number of the supply catalogs, to publish photos of works made using their
materials, or otherwise intended for instruction. Many of these things indeed
come from established fine artists, but are often chosen to be especiallyuseful
at the beginner level. As such, often such published examples, intended often
to be copied or as inspiration for those without so much experience in that
aspect of the craft, do not really reflect the true nature of the work of that
artist. The real work those artists do for their own production and sales and
exhibition is often much more sophisticated. But not always. So it's really
not such a good idea to judge an artist from such small snapshots in those
places where the artists is not clearly showcased for their own promotion.

HTH

Peter Rowe

mehughes wrote:
I'm not sure what I would suppose to be learning from comments such as
this "I think I'm going to hang myself now, or maybe I'll just quietly slit
my wrists" - How is that constructive? What can be learned from that?


It was not meant to be constructive nor was it meant me be a post from
which anything can be learned. Except maybe about me, to those who would
have been capable of reading between the lines!

People who make this kind of crap, make a great deal more money than I
do. Take a look at the work by an old acquaintance of mine who used to
be a sales person for IBM when I knew her here in San Francisco many
years ago. http://www.lauragibson.com/ Click on "Collections". Now a
major business who's work is in many of the major jewelry stores around
the country.

In fact, after having been a goldsmith more than 30 years, and having
received multiple honors, prizes, publications in magazines and books as
well as inclusions of my work in private as well as public collections
as prestigious as the Smithsonian, I am still struggling to make a
living and pay my bills.

2005 was my worst year EVER, and with the price of precious metals going
the way they have been going the last year or so, I see it only getting
worse. There is no future for me and my work in this market where
garbage like "pretty necklace" is all the rage. Or where the
competition are businesses like Elie International (recent post of
Partnership Opportunity), who has been in business for 23 years and now
carries an inventory of over 24,000 items. I have been in business
longer, and I have such a pathetic inventory compared to that, it's not
funny.

When I see that untrained people who make this kind of crap, because
they suddenly have a need and "passion" to make what they think is
jewelry, I get very discouraged, and depressed.

The point of my post was: I'M WORTH MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE! At least if I
were dead, my wife would get to collect on my life insurance!

So to all of you who don't like that, **** YOU ALL!

Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

Clearly I mistook your meaning.
Please accept my apologies.

Regards
Ben Smith


"Marilee J. Layman" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:16:22 GMT, "Ben Smith"
wrote:

"Marilee J. Layman" wrote in message
.. .

It's very pretty, but you'd get better response on rec.crafts.beads.

I thought that it was pretty too, and that Flic was justified in being
pleased with it. I hope that she will be even more pleased with her next
piece.
Would it have been more acceptable to this group if it had been made of
precious metal and natural gemstone beads?
What determines if an item is jewellery or not?
It is very easy to be snobbish about other peoples efforts, but perhaps
Marilee J. Layman was commenting on other readers reactions.

shrug I'm primarily a beadweaver these days, but I read this
newsgroup because I used to be an engineer and I'm interested in
techniques, even though the doctor will never let me do that kind of
thing again.
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mjlayman

On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 19:10:15 GMT, "Ben Smith"
wrote:

Clearly I mistook your meaning.
Please accept my apologies.

Accepted.

"Marilee J. Layman" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:16:22 GMT, "Ben Smith"
wrote:

"Marilee J. Layman" wrote in message
. ..

It's very pretty, but you'd get better response on rec.crafts.beads.

I thought that it was pretty too, and that Flic was justified in being
pleased with it. I hope that she will be even more pleased with her next
piece.
Would it have been more acceptable to this group if it had been made of
precious metal and natural gemstone beads?
What determines if an item is jewellery or not?
It is very easy to be snobbish about other peoples efforts, but perhaps
Marilee J. Layman was commenting on other readers reactions.

shrug I'm primarily a beadweaver these days, but I read this
newsgroup because I used to be an engineer and I'm interested in
techniques, even though the doctor will never let me do that kind of
thing again.
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mjlayman

On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 02:39:10 GMT, mbstevens
wrote:

Peter W.. Rowe, wrote:

First, let me state catagorically that jewelry made with beading techniques is
most certainly within the topic and scope of this newsgroup. Discussing such
work here is entirely acceptable within the terms of the group charter.

Yep. And may I add that the image was posted several days
before the Real Power, Kojo, declared that multi-strand
necklaces were going to be the hot item this year.

If this is the Today guy, I think it's Cojo.


Flic may outsell all of us!

--
Marilee J. Layman
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mjlayman

Did you read this all the way to the end before you approved it?

On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 19:10:10 GMT, Abrasha wrote:

mehughes wrote:
I'm not sure what I would suppose to be learning from comments such as
this "I think I'm going to hang myself now, or maybe I'll just quietlyslit
my wrists" - How is that constructive? What can be learned from that?


It was not meant to be constructive nor was it meant me be a post from
which anything can be learned. Except maybe about me, to those who would
have been capable of reading between the lines!

People who make this kind of crap, make a great deal more money than I
do. Take a look at the work by an old acquaintance of mine who used to
be a sales person for IBM when I knew her here in San Francisco many
years ago. http://www.lauragibson.com/ Click on "Collections". Now a
major business who's work is in many of the major jewelry stores around
the country.

In fact, after having been a goldsmith more than 30 years, and having
received multiple honors, prizes, publications in magazines and books as
well as inclusions of my work in private as well as public collections
as prestigious as the Smithsonian, I am still struggling to make a
living and pay my bills.

2005 was my worst year EVER, and with the price of precious metals going
the way they have been going the last year or so, I see it only getting
worse. There is no future for me and my work in this market where
garbage like "pretty necklace" is all the rage. Or where the
competition are businesses like Elie International (recent post of
Partnership Opportunity), who has been in business for 23 years and now
carries an inventory of over 24,000 items. I have been in business
longer, and I have such a pathetic inventory compared to that, it's not
funny.

When I see that untrained people who make this kind of crap, because
they suddenly have a need and "passion" to make what they think is
jewelry, I get very discouraged, and depressed.

The point of my post was: I'M WORTH MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE! At least if I
were dead, my wife would get to collect on my life insurance!

So to all of you who don't like that, **** YOU ALL!

Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mjlayman

On Sat, 14 Jan 2006 16:00:44 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry "Marilee J. Layman"
wrote:

Did you read this all the way to the end before you approved it?

Yes. Carefully, and with interest.

To be sure, I can't say I greatly approve of the profanity used, but it'snot
prohibited in the charter, and frankly, were I writing such a post, I might well
have felt inclined to say much the same.

Though I might have worded it differently.

Yes, it's an angry and rather depressing or depressed posting, but it seems a
pertenant part of the ongoing discussion, and in fact, a whole new aspectto
that discussion. Perhaps even the most valuable point made yet in the thread.

Frankly, I'm glad Abrasha shared the increased insight into his prior postings
and reactions to the other posts, explaining just why he feels as he does.

And given that, I must say that I feel I owe Abrasha a sincere apology for
misinterpreting his prior posts. I'd thought them dismissive or eliteist
regarding beginner work, and now see I was wrong, totally, about what he was
reacting to.

So Abrasha, I apologize. Please forgive my lack of understanding.

Really.

And I sympathize as well. You're in a position faced by many artists with
integrity in their work, as well as the large number of other small retailers
faced with things like competition from Walmart or Costco, including many
jewelers who now find their livelihood threatened by mass marking of cheap
imports, knockoff copies of good designs for less, and a general perfusion of
mediocrity into the marketplace that makes it more difficult for people to sell
quality work.

I'm reminded of similar concerns expressed already when I was in grad school in
the 80s, by my major professor. One of his practices was to totally refrain,
despite numerous requests, from doing the common workshops one finds, including
those short courses at places like Haystack, or the like, some of which have
fine reputations. He felt that as a professor at a full university level
program, he has students who were paying full tuition for multiple years to
learn from him, and that for him to go do workshops giving away even a small
part of that knowledge to those taking that quick route, would be a conflict of
interest, against the interests of those full time students who'd then have to
compete with the workshop students. As such, on the very few occasions when
he'd bend his own rule (such as a workshop in CAD at a SNAG conference one year)
he'd require participants to the workshop to be those who already held a find
arts degree of some sort, ie those who had already "paid their dues".

He illustrated these concerns with those semi pros or advanced hobbyists who'd
take a couple workshops, learn one or two neat tech tricks and dive rightinto
production without any training or real care in actually making new work,but
rather just doing lots of what they'd been shown. We see such folks doing PMC
work, granulation, Mokume, wire wrapping, and who knows what all other narrow
technical niches, and sometimes doing them very well, but to the exclusion of a
full understanding of the field or even the history of what they are working
with. And having learned it not by actual research and experimentation, but by
being spoon fed the methods, they also end up being the ones who post oddly
simple tech questions to this group or Orchid, on matters that they couldeasily
solve themselves with just a little experimentation. But they've never learned
to think this way, wanting to be simply shown the answers someone else has
already found, rather than earning their own way to the knowledge. Suchpeople
are common on the craft show circuit, and on the web and other sales venues,
often sell for less than those truly comitted to doing worthy unique work, and
take dollars away from those more committed artists. The lack of training these
people have in design, art history, and arts ethics often means they lacksome
of the inhibitions in doing yet more knock offs, and they sometimes, ironically,
seem more prolific and sucessful than the much more fully trained graduates of
full arts training programs. And one unfortunate consequence is that even the
well trained artists with really good work, may have to downgrade their own work
ethics just to be able to compete in the marketplace with the poorer workout
there.

It seems to me that this situation is not going to change markedly. Thislevel
of competition, whether from some well meaning but unsophisticated beginner,
some marketer who's sole aim is to make lots of money without regard to quality,
or simply from the big boys like Costco and Wal mart, is simply There now, and
won't go away.

So the question for many of us then becomes one of how to compete. It's no
longer, it seems, enough to just produce really good work and hope the world
finds it's way to your door. There's so much info out there flooding the
awareness of the public that a merely hopeful artists is going to get lost in
the clutter.

What we need is to consider how to compete, and how to better market ourselves.
We need to increase the number of consumers who understand the difference
between really good work and kitschy or commonplace but still attractive work,
and are willing to pay for the difference. And these people then need tobe
able to find us.

So then.

Here's the question for the group.

How can someone like Abrasha, or other fine artists who's integrity and skills
with their craft lead them to put quality first, and thus produce a really high
end product, but in perhaps more limited quantitites, suceed in today's
marketplace? It's not enough to just have a good web site, since as anyone
who's looked at Abrasha's can see, he's done that part already. So what else?

Peter Rowe

Marilee J. Layman wrote:


If this is the Today guy, I think it's Cojo.
Thought that was that Stephen King dog.