July 7 2009
by C.S.

Artistry vs. Mass Jewellery Production

There is a fine line between art and mass production, and this is no different in the jewellery industry. Recently I was part of a discussion that took place during lunch. I was one of seven female entrepreneurs at the table, breaking for lunch during an event where we exhibited our wares. There were two jewellery artists from Toronto, a novelty handbag company based in Oakville, a fashion accessories company, and a couple of agents. The discussion started when one of the women talked about how difficult it is to start and maintain a business. There are many costs and not enough people willing to give budding entrepreneurs either breaks or encouragement, and how difficult it is to grow one's business. This eventually led to a declaration by the other jewellery designer, who was very nice and curious as to where I get my sterling silver jewellery components, that it is not art unless the jewellery designer makes each piece herself, and to have someone else make them amounts to mass production. I disagreed and hastily gave my reasons, embarrassed that I had contradicted her so reflexively and perhaps with less tact than I needed.

Art of any form, including jewellery designing, is and should be almost entirely about the creative process, originality, and the work's ability to invoke an emotion within the viewer. The great masters like Rembrandt and Leonardo Da Vinci created prolific collections with the aid of apprentices. Likewise, Kostabi, a contemporary oil painter made himself famous by publicly denouncing the old masters, created pieces almost entirely by guiding his students to put his ideas on canvas. I'm not a fan of Kostabi, and I don't imagine he really had many true fans of his work, but he solidified the idea that art is thought. The thinker is the artist. I think jewellery designing is the same. Whether the jewellery designer or a jewellery maker puts the silver jewellery components together should have no bearing on the originality of the piece. How many pieces were produced from the same mould or with identical silver jewellery components in the exact way does have influence on uniqueness, but that's not to be mistaken with artistry.

There are many arguments for not doing the final jewellery assembly yourself. I'm a big proponent of giving artistic direction to those who are technically more skilled and more dextrous than me. I can focus on what I love: jewellery designing. Ideas are constantly cooking in my head, and building in my sleep. And apparently, this is how most artists and writers form their ideas. It builds in their subconscious. So, when the pot boils over, the jewellery ideas overflow and you just need to catch as much as possible. This opportunity and idea crystallization might not come again for another few weeks. So, many of us work in spurts. When I'm on a roll, usually during the hours of 6 to 9 pm, I just throw down silver jewellery components onto sticky paper. I might even take a few notes and make some sketches, but often this slows me down. If I tried to make the piece, e.g., wire wrap something or thread some crystals, I get a mental bottle neck. I usually then hand the concepts over to a sample maker to finish. I'd be there to answer questions, check lengths and edit certain accents and oversee the actual cohesion of the collection, but I don't stop to make entire pieces unless I absolutely have to. I have found the productivity of my time has increased exponentially since I adopted this method 8 years ago.

By all means there is great pride in hand making a piece of jewellery you've designed. I might even be willing to pay more, but not much more, for a piece that I know the artist had laboured over assembling or polishing each and every silver jewellery component. But mostly because I know they can't possibly make money unless the price was very high. And I'm willing to do so mainly as a subsidy, because I want that person to keep designing and live not only at a subsistence level, like many artists of the traditional school of thought do.