T-minus Ten

days until I get to move into my new studio! Good gravy, I am so excited. It will be like a whole new world! This last Monday I went to look at the space, which was so much larger than I expected. It's in this old house near Mississippi (which is a cool little street with a great breakfast place called, aptly enough, Gravy, and an okay yoga studio). I met the two ladies I will be sharing the space with and they seemed super cool and laid back. It will be so nice to have people to talk to about jewelry things. We chatted for a while about stone suppliers, casting places, and mold making. It was awesome. I'd been in such a vacuum working alone for so long (well, since February). The space itself is large (I have no idea how I will fill it up..I'm sure I will manage it. I'm picturing a little space with my desk etc. and a couch for people who want to consult in person to sit on, and then my work space.) and the house is so old that the floor sort of slants away from the middle of house. But it's sort of perfect, really. Next door to our space is a tailor's sweat shop. I think the main lady over there is Russian, and there is a clothing store downstairs. One of the girls has a little brindle french bulldog, so Gunter and Dieter will have someone to play with! What else..... I'm thinking of getting this:

(vacuum table, kiln and assorted odds and ends for investing)

Along with this:

(centrifugal casting machine)

And eventually this:

(this is used to inject molten wax into molds)

and this: (to carve wax with)

Man, I am so excited to start carving my own designs. I love fabricating by hand, and the possibilities and limitations of the method have definitely influenced my designs for the better I think, but carving in wax just seems like freedom! There are just so many more possibilities! Right now I sort of feel like I'm caught in 2D and when I can start using wax carving and casting I will break free into 3D. Does that make sense?

This is new:

And it's in my size, so I plan on keeping it for myself.

Time for a Studio?

Dearest friends and family, is it time for singleB to move into a new space? I think it is. I go to look at studio space tomorrow afternoon. It would be a shared space, I'll meet the two other jewelry artists tomorrow. I hope they are cool. The space seems sort of neat (craigslist find), it's open, but also allows for a semi private space.



I am just not very efficient when I am working at home. There is just too much to distract. Plus, I would like to move into a smaller apartment (perhaps downtown?), so it would be nice to have a separate studio to put all of my tools and misc. business stuff in. I plan on purchasing casting equipment towards the fall/winter this year, so I definitely need this extra area. I'm so excited, I hope it works out with the other girls at our meeting tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Process Photos

Wrench in the Gears

Or maybe, more appropriately, drill bit in the gears.



People, this is the last thing you want to see when you are in a hurry. Even if I'm not in a hurry, it's still not at the top of my list of things I want to have happen. That evil pointy thing, sticking up from the top the ring is a broken drill bit. And it is close to impossible to remove without substantial damage to the metal around it (unless you use acid to dissolve it out...but I try to use as little acid in my work as possible). If that ring had been silver I would have just scrapped it and cut my losses. But that was 14kt palladium white, so I had to fix it somehow. What made it even worse was that I couldn't really enlarge the hole at all since I had to set a small stone there, one that was not very much larger than the drill. Argh! These eternity rings are really starting to be the bane of my existence, I'll be honest. They are just so high stress...there is so much that could go wrong. I'm either going to have to give them up in gold entirely, or only make them with slightly larger diamonds. 2.1mm versus 1.7mm. The smaller stones just make it so much more difficult to center in the middle of the band. My other version in silver is much easier to do, because the stones are 2mm. Stressful. Ok, resolution: I finally got the drill bit pieces removed through persistence and judicious use of a hammer and punch. Whew.

New Designs! Coming soon!

Man! I am so excited! I have time today to do some work on my own projects...things I've been thinking about making forever. And the best part is that I'm going to make them in my size! Yay! I will finally have some of my own jewelry to wear. If it doesn't sell right away my sister generally makes off with it whenever she comes to visit. But who can say no to someone to who brings you this to squeeze:


The answer is that you can't. She takes anything she wants while I'm occupied snugging my niecette.

Ok, look for pictures and design sketches in the next few days!

Burn Notice

So this post title is actually a double entendre. It seems like I moved to Portland just in time to die of heat stroke. It's is 104 degrees outside right now, and I have no AC. And I work with torch. It's fantastic!

And this, loyal readers, is photographic evidence of the first burn I have ever received in the course of my work (well, there was this one time that I dripped molten dop wax on my finger, but that doesn't count). This comes from pure foolishness on my part: I had used this thing called a third hand, which is basically a set of tweezers attached to an adjustable weighted base, to prop a ring up for soldering. Instead of picking up the third hand from the cool base part, I used another pair of tweezers (which I will talk about more later) to quench the piece of metal I was working. Then, moments later, I was clearing my workspace for another project when I grabbed the third hand to move it out of the way. With my bare hand. And since it hadn't cooled at all, it burnt the bejesus out of my grasping fingers. This is just the most visible evidence:

Not bad as burns go, but I won't be modeling rings on that hand any time soon.

A pictorial day in the life:

let the pugs out in the morning before the back yard becomes a blazing pit of heat

coffee!

emails, quotes, general questions

figure out what is on the agenda for the day

survey the wreckage of my kitchen table. the larger the horizontal surface the messier it gets.

The supplies cabinet. Which right now is making all of my supplies smell like an 80 year old woman with an addiction to avon perfume and nicotine. hence the can of kilz primer and odor blocker sitting in front of the printer. I love this cabinet, I bought it on craigslist, but the smell was driving me cra----zeee.

Now a little game I like to call find the tweezers, preferably played while you have a live torch in your hand. There are two pairs in there, can you find them?

Recent variations:

gold on gold, citrine and 14kt

ruby, sapphire, silver


My lovely friend Kellie, modeling the new bangles. Of course she got to take that set home for her troubles.

An oldy but a goody.

Multistone rings.

New eternity band shape.


Since the move, I've lost my white windowsill that I used to photograph on, so I got this little decorative piece of ceramics. But I wonder if it is too distracting?

Moving Accomplished!

Ok, I have finally unpacked and organized enough to have the time to post here. The move went really well. Thanks to all who wished me luck! I'm certain it helped!

I was thinking this morning about how much I love my job. I love it. And what I am loving most right now is my customers. They have been so awesome lately. So nice and supportive and just cool in general. It's amazing how kind strangers can be, I never thought that making jewelery would increase my belief in the goodness of humankind, but it really has. Maybe it is just the community on Etsy, but the vast majority of the people I interact with everyday are super positive. It great to be around that sort of energy, positive and excited. I think it might also be that I do a lot of wedding jewelry. It's been my experience that people who are getting their wedding jewelry are at a happy stage in their life and it's a blessing to me to be able to share in that excitement. Really. It's been so great. I just want to put a thank you out to all those couples that chose singleB for their wedding jewelry! I'm honored.

Big Changes

Hello! Big huge changes going on over here at singleB. I'm getting ready to move somewhere new. The packing hasn't yet started, but the internal preparations are already underway. I've finally settled on a location!

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P-town! PDX! Bridgetown! In the fabulous NW!


I was actually born in a little town near there and grew up there and in Eugene. So it's a move back, really. I lived there before I moved to China in 2006. So, it is familiar to me and it's an awesome town in itself.

On the business side, I'm thinking of renting industrial space. I think it would improve my productivity to not work at home.

There is a little place here that I am interested in:

It would be nice to be around other people, instead of alone all day. And it's not too expensive and the rent would be a business write off.

Man, I can't wait. If I get up there early enough in the summer it will be fantastic river swimming! I'm soooo looking forward to hitting the Laurelthirst and the Goodfoot. Wallowing around in the Kennedy School soaking pool. Riding my bike all over town! It's going to be awesome.

The Quick Change Handpiece is Dead

Long live the quick change handpiece!

My Foredom quick change handpiece for my flex shaft recently went kaput on me. One of the little collets that are deep inside in the handle broke and I need a new one. I'm not quite sure where to get it, so I will have to do a little bit of research. I don't want to have to buy a new, they are sort of spendy, but I can't be stuck using the handpiece above because it is a giant pain in the a$$ to have to constantly be using the little chuck key to change burs. Especially since I do a lot if stone setting and that requires lots of bur changing. I'll figure it out though. I am so glad that I bought that handpiece above in addition to the quick change handpiece, because it would have been so terrible to have no handpiece all of a sudden, right in the middle of working on things. I couldn't do jack without that handpiece.

One thing I love about Stuller, besides the high quality of their gemstones and customer service, is that they send dum dums in every package.

It used to just be one or two, now it is a handful!



So recently a customer has been very interested in this ring:
But they are a little bit leery of buying something so expensive without seeing it in person first. I totally understand, it would be hard for me too. So in order to ease their mind I am first making a model in silver and spinel to send to them so they can judge. I'm a little nervous about this. I think I will build a lovely ring, but silver just doesn't have the same feel as gold, and I'm afraid that it will feel too light. We'll see.

Trying for a cohesive style

Man, have I been busy. Not only with work, but in my life too. My sister was out for a visit recently, bringing my tiny adorable niece with her. Then my Grandpa got married (he's almost 80!) and I traveled to go to the wedding. Thank goodness I have this or I would never been able to keep up with things:

Tax write off! But I had no idea how useful it would be in the end. I was a little afraid I would always be on it, but it's been okay. I'm getting the hang of putting it down.

I'm also moving out of California soon! I love the golden state, but there are just a few too many people here and the cost of living is ridiculous. I want to buy a house at some point, and I don't want to spend almost a million dollars for a shack, thank you very much. I'm thinking Oregon (my home state, go Ducks!), Montana (I love cowboys and I just finished Lonesome Dove), Tennessee, Alabama (my family is originally from the south), or Rhode Island. I've never been there, but I have romantic notions about New England. Expensive though! So I'm busy trying to decide where to live and find a cute house to rent. I bought a car too! Crazy.

As I've written in previous posts, I'm very concerned about creating a cohesive style. I don't want my jewelry to look like anyone can make it and I don't want to have my collection look like it's made by a bunch of different people. I do other artwork (I love illustration) and everything I draw seems to be very distinct. It has an identifiable style. I would like to have that for my jewelry. Not just to please myself, but also to grow and protect my business. I want to have so distinct a style that it can't be copied.



I don't know if I'm there yet, but that is the goal. I don't like to look at other goldsmith's work because I like my ideas to be totally my own (I do make an exception for dead people. If they are dead, their stuff is fair game I think!). Plus, I'm uber competitive (one of my worst traits, actually) and it's better for my peace of mind to just ignore what everyone else is doing. I come up with better ideas that way as well. The mind needs peace and boredom to be creative, and constant stimulation gets in the way of that. That's what I think anyway. But I won't have any peace or boredom for a while now...new car, new puppy, new place to live! Excitement! But I have a few new ideas that I hope to get to soon, I feel like my Etsy shop needs a few fresh pieces.

Ok, that is all for now. I have a heap of stuff to take care of this week, wish me luck!

And this is why I will only buy Italian

made mandrels from now on. Because American made mandrels are made of styrofoam it seems.

A Confession

I have ugly ears. It's true. And nothing makes their ugliness more apparent than taking close up photos of them. But what am I to do? Customers want to see what earrings look like on! They can't judge how large something is when it stands alone. So I am forced to use my own ears as models as I don't have a cute teenage daughter to use instead.


It pains me! How I would love to have petite shell-like ears. Sweet little ears, with perfectly curved earlobes. But no! I have those monstrosities. And the worst part? I never realized it till just now when I uploaded this photo onto my computer. If I hadn't taken this photo, I could have gone my whole life being satisfied with my ears (which I never thought about much before), but now I have a new thing to be shy about. Fantastic!

I'm Starting to Lose it

So the German is in Oregon right now, rock climbing. I stayed home because I have too much work to do. So what did I do?! I stayed up till 5am reading a trashy novel (the 4th novel in the Twilight series, to be specific. I know. I'm not a teenage girl, and I usually read Nobel prize authors, I really don't read naughtly teenage romances on a daily basis. I swear!), totally sabotaging my plans for a big work day yesterday. I was so tired, I felt hungover. So I got nothing done until around 9pm when I started on this one order that was supposed to done already, and that the people who ordered it were supposed to pick up the very next day. So I worked until midnight and finally finished it:



And then I went to bed.


Somewhere in the middle of the early early morning I had a dream. In this dream I had woken in the morning and went to my studio to do the final cleaning and packing of the rings. To my horror (and I can't even explain how horrified I was) the setting around the stone crumbled like oily clay. I peeled the setting off and panicked. Then I woke up.

What does it mean!?

I think it means I've been sleeping weird hours the last couple of days and drinking too much coffee. Plus I skipped yoga all week.

Redundancy is Key

I am losing my mind...

...with frustration.

I can't find this little wooden stick with a lump of crystalline wax on the end. I use it to move stones around with I am stone setting. Right now I want to get an eternity band finished. Small stones, 1.7mm. And I can't move them with my fingers, and I don't want to drop any into my catch tray (which is filled with scrap and dust and other detritus that makes it impossible to find any small stone that falls into it.) I was working on it yesterday before I quit work and now I can't find that dang tool. It's driving me insane because I have a heavy workload at the moment and I want to get this thing done. ARghh!!!!!!! And since my work is pretty stone dependent there is nothing I can do right now! Why, oh why don't I have another one of those sticks??!?! No wax either. This is killing me. I've torn my studio apart looking for it, but no dice.

Crisis. A total standstill in the studio at the moment.

Antique Inspiration

Is it okay to pilfer designs from the past? There is nothing new under the sun, so I'm convinced that no matter what I do I'll end up stealing from someone.

This is my newest ring. A couple from New York was looking for a ring that looked like the engagement ring of some starlet, and this is what came from my bench. I like it!

"what be the total cost if this set was made in gold?"

I'm thinking of answering in this way:


Good afternoon,

My name is Justine Collins, I am the owner of singleB. Thanks for your interest in my designs. I've noticed that you've sent several very brief requests for price quotes without ever acknowledging my replies. Normally, when people ask for a quote, they include a civil greeting along with their name and details like ring sizes and what karat of gold they are interested in. Without those things (and the history of asking for quotes without any sort of reply), your demand makes me think that you are not serious about this and that you are wasting my time.

So, I wish a cheerful good afternoon to you. If you would like to do business with me (and fortunately, I'm in a position where I don't need your business and can tell you to take a hike with a smile on my face) you can send me an actual email (perhaps not from your phone?) and treat me like a human being. I don't need your business, and you should remember how to ask for things with a modicum of politeness. Pretend that you are in an actual jewelry shop talking to the person who might make your rings. Would you approach a total stranger with "what be the total cost if this set was made in gold?". I don't think so. And it would be "what WOULD be the total cost if this set WERE made in gold?".

Cheers!
Justine



I probably won't though. I think I'll just reply with the cost (plus my extra fee for jerks) and no other text. I tried to be polite on the last few emails from this person and still nothing. Am I overreacting? Being too sensitive?