This month’s Blog Carnival** topic is “industry changes in
the time that you have been in business”.
That covers a lot of time and territory in our case, over 50
years, half a century, to be more precise.
The short answer to the question is “everything has changed and nothing
has changed. How we make things has
changed, why we make things, not so much. What this really means is that
technology changes, people don’t.
Its comforting to have a nice tidy view of the universe like
this, but in the studio, where we live, this can all get really messy fast.
Example: We employ some of the most cutting edge technology
available to the jewelry industry for design and manufacturing. We also invest
considerable time, energy and money studying and practicing ancient
jewelry/metalworking techniques.
We appreciate the latest technology for the relative speed
and ease it brings. We also appreciate the skill and understanding that comes
from practicing ancient techniques.
It is not lost on us in our 21st century studio,
that texts from the 17th, 18th & 19th
centuries contain a wealth of useful knowledge on tools, techniques and
materials. This even extends to studio
business practices. Yes, we have the
Internet, but who, how and why people buy art really has not changed much.
Back in the studio this all translates to a mash-up of ideas
and methods, a hybrid of the old and new. The one thing that never changes is
that everything is always changing.
** Blog Carnival is a project of EtsyMetal Team, an
international group of artists, who share perspectives on common topics
