emiko-o reware

emiko’s Top 5 Tips for Getting Your Business Out There!

Tip 1: Professional Quality Photography

This is THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP for getting exposure for your business, if you are overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, focus on getting professional photography of your work. Less than professional photos will not bode well on how you as an artist are perceived by the industry/editors/curators. First impressions are everything so why not wow people’s socks off from the get go!

If you aren’t a skilled photographer (yet), best to hire a professional studio photographer and ask if you can observe the shoot. Some won’t mind if you quietly look on while they shoot your pieces, but it’s best to ask.  Do your homework before your appointment and look at magazines and books for the type of shots that you are attracted to and bring these to the attention of your photographer so they know how to style your shots. Also, if you have strong ideas for the composition of your shots or how the pieces should be oriented in the shots, do some quick mockup drawings or quickie photos to give to your photographer. ALWAYS GIVE PHOTO CREDIT TO YOUR PHOTOGRAPHERS for images that you use, for print and web.

Lark Books (Sterling Publishing) and their 500 series is a great place to start looking at photos. Just released this week is their “greatest hits” of the 500 series books, titled, 21st Century Jewelry: The Best of the 500 Series. I was one of the jurors for this compilation and you can read my quotes and see my work in this hardbound, gorgeous publication. Available now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

photo by emiko

If you want to take your own photos, make sure you are using a camera that is not a point-and-shoot (or your smartphone), but more on the professional level. There are camera stores that will rent cameras, lenses and lighting by the day, and this a great way to test out equiptment before investing in your own. As I started taking more photos with work on a model, I needed a lens other than my usual 90mm macro, so I rented a great portrait lens (24-105mm) for a few shoots at $30 a day, which is a deal compared to how much it costs to buy that lens new ($1100). Now I own that lens, but it was worth it to test it out before making such a big investment. Make sure to use a TRIPOD so that your photos are as crystal clear as possible. You don’t need a fancy set-up or even lights; for years I shot in the bathroom over the tub using natural light since it was a diffused white and perfect for what I was shooting. Check out my current set up in my living room:

Shoot TONS of photos, more than you think you need. And shoot in RAW mode if possible. Shooting JPGs means that your losing information in your files as they are compressed.

After shooting your photos you will need to be well-versed in photo editing software like Photoshop. Taking a class at a community college is great for keeping up with the latest versions of software. Fortunately, software is getting easier to use, and what used to take an hour to digitally correct, can now be done in a few steps with programs like Adobe’s Lightroom and Camera Raw photo editors. Online tutorials like lynda.com are super informative, especially if you have specific tasks or tools you want to focus on learning. You will need to understand how to create files from your master image for print and web for magazine/book publishing, for juried show applications, and for online viewing.

One interesting thing I’ve noticed over the last few years is that editors are drawn to images of jewelry on models, rather than just jewelry by itself, even if the jewelry is not the focus of the image. Model shots tell a story, give a human element, plus add a reference to scale of the work in relation to the body. Much more editorial and eye-catching to grab a reader’s attention. I suggest shooting both the work on the model and by itself so you have options for different scenarios (online shopping sites vs. jewelry book vs. fashion blog). Practice really does make perfect, the more you shoot, the better trained your eye will be! Last, but not least, experiment and have fun!

Read more about Professional Quality Photography on this week’s ASK HARRIETE blog.

photo by emiko

photo by Aura O'Brien Photography

photo by Aryn Shelander

Christine Dhein and emiko oye at SNAG

A couple of months ago I was invited to give a short presentation on Niche Marketing for the SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths) Conference in Seattle, which was a great honor and quite the thrill! The audio and digital presentation were recently released by SNAG so that those were unable to attend the conference could still experience the Professional Development Series of that Saturday, on Niche Marketing and Professional Photography. This week I’ll be breaking down my Top 5 Marketing Tips in the next few blog posts. You can catch a snippet of what I’ll be talking about in today’s “Ask Harriete“, the Professional Guidelines blog by Harriete Estel Berman.

Here are my Top 5 Marketing Tips that I’ll be discussing:

1. Professional Quality Photography

2.  Take Risks: Don’t Get STUCK: Balance

3. Take Note and Be Accessible

4. Be Ready Set GO!

5. Get Involved

Listen and see my presentation in the video link below as well as the other Niche Marketing Presenters, Hilary Pfeifer and Deb Stoner, through Slide Share. Thanks to Harriete for doing such a superwoman job of sound editing!

This weekend,  July 9-10, Accessorize with Toys Workshop will be at Renegade Craft Fair SF at Fort Mason’s Festival Pavilion. We’re bringing back the ever-popular Charm Bracelet project, and trying a new format with hourly seating for 10 participants. Make your own personalized charm bracelet from recycled toy and game parts – we provide all the parts, findings and tools, plus demos!

Sessions will be 45 minutes at the top of the hour, starting with a demo and should allow for more individual time with us. Fee is $10. Come a few minutes before the hour to get your spot! Find us up in the Mezzanine: sessions are Saturday 12-4pm, Sunday 1-5pm. Check out Renegade’s Website and Facebook page for more info on the fair.

See us on Renegade's home page!

SNAG Seattle 2011 EXHIBITION CRAWL MAP

Seventeen shows were up and running for the SNAG Seattle conference (check out this map), can you believe it! We hardly made a dent in seeing them all, but made new friends along the way, and experienced some inspiring (and interactive) works, highlights from which are posted here.

Firstly, the geography show curated by Susan Cummins and Mike Holmes under the Art Jewelry Forum, in the conference hotel. A lovely show catalog is available for purchase online or at Velvet da Vinci.

Tina Wrath's Wanderlux Souvenir brooch, geography show

Bettina Dittleman, geography show

Mobile Canada:Bringing Contemporary Canadian Jewellery to You was a clever show across the street in the parking lot, all within the confines of a mobile home. Suzanne greeted guests and word on the street is that there may be a whole gaggle of RVs with “traveling” exhibitions for 2013 Toronto!

 

Kelly Nedderman admiring Annie Tung's flatware

Mobile Canada 2011

Suzanne Carlsen's pendant

Counterflux exhibition curated by Suzanne Ramiljak at G. Gibson Gallery- wonderfully large and unusual wearable objects; well displayed and styled. Great use of color on walls. I love that Christine Dhein’s circuit board breastplate was grouped with Kiff Slemonsdark pencil breastplate!

Christine Dhein at Counterflux show

Kiff Slemmons' Mourning Sun breastplate

Lori Talcot's Night Corsage

ComLink: New Work: Jana Brevick solo exhibition at SOIL gallery was the most fun opening by far, as Jana encouraged people to put on her found object pieces for a personal photo shoot, she behind the camera. Ham bone time! See more images posted on her facebook. LOVE the display tools, literally wrenches attached to the wall and small clamps and styrofoam inserts for center displays.

Jana Brevick's recycled neckpiece & display

me in Jana Brevick's neckpieces

Jana Brevick in action behind the camera

Pride of Paper:Kiff Slemmons and Arte Papel Oaxaca at 3 x 10 was BREATHTAKINGLY GORGEOUS – and even more amazing was having Kiff there to talk about the process and the work. Her styling of the show was impeccable and yet so simple. So much work over 10 years of collaborating with the artists from Oaxaca. The “Bones” table of all-white pieces was beautiful, very Louise Nevelsonesque. Read more about it in the current issue of Metalsmith Magazine.

Kiff Slemmons with Keith Lewis

Pride of Paper show "Bones" table

Pride of Paper show

Pride of Paper show

Pride of Paper

Pride of Paper

Dr. Damian Skinner (editor Art Jewelry Forum blog, writer, curator) headed off the afternoon of SNAG Seattle Day 2, following the captivating talks by Glenn Adamson and Lola Brooks quite well with his “All the World Over: Ambitions of Contemporary Jewelry“. You may recognize him from The Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelry exhibition and catalog that had it’s US debut in 2010, or his various articles on artjewelryforum.org. In this presentation he quotes largely from Peter Dormer and Ralph Turner (writers of The New Jewelry: Trends and Traditions) on locality vs. universality of contemporary jewelry.
This image says it all, I love how crude but effective it is. Basically, jewelry from Europe is regarded as the International standard for Contemporary Jewelry, whereas American jewelry is not held in such high esteem and  is by the rest of the world only referred to by locality as “American Contemporary Jewelry”. How do we feel about this? “Liberation occurs when you destroy the hierarchy”, Skinner remarks.
In the “New Jewelry Movement” (in which we  find ourselves now) there is an ongoing critique of preciousness that allows for a deeper engagement with society. As with Australian jeweler, Roseanne Bartley, her “surface archeology” work repurposing found items, such as in her “Human Necklace” (photo, left), where people became the structure of jewelry shapes in public places. The notion of a jewelry piece solely existing for a small blip of time, only to live on in the photographic form, recurs often over the course of this conference.

Her “Seeding the Cloud” acts of walking about town, tools in hand, making jewelry from discarded materials she finds along the way, “demonstrates the potential of jewellery to counterbalance the increasing physical isolation of contemporary life in info-hubs” (craftUnbound.net). She is endearingly coined a “neighborly ornament”. This leading into my favorite quote by Damian, one that I truly believe and would like to see more of:

“The Greatest Art is created when there is no boundary between art and community.”

“I know Exactly how she feels”, stated Lola Brooks, collector/borderline hoarder of shiny vintage things and jeweler of steel/gold/stones. Over the course of her talk, “Love and Other Indoor Sports” (day 2) we got a sneak peak into her closet and drawers full of vintage sunglasses, jumpsuits, and wallets, as well as the lot of rose cut garnets that have come to distinguish her jewelry line.

For Lola, she finds “power in accumulation” and considers herself a magnet for things; the materials end up finding her rather than her seeking them out intentionally. In her work, ornament becomes the structure, as in the Vomit Bracelet. 
Even though she had written out her lecture and was reading from it, her skills as a storyteller kicked in and soon we were all drawn into her world, captivated. And following on the heels of Glenn Adamson’s killer lecture, it was remarkable how many intersects there were between their lectures.

Smashed vintage cars and Damian Hirst’s “For the Love of God” 5o million pounds (100 million dollars) diamond and platinum skull, “the object I love to hate and hate to love” as Lola remarked. Thus began her obsession with diamonds and emulating them through faceting steel balls.  She takes it to the limit with her “32 Fuckin’ Balls” neckpiece, somewhat a caricature of her work, made for Sienna Gallery’s Masterpieces exhibition.

32 balls necklace

blood garnet heart Brooch

brooch

From the disco balls to ivory roses with steel bows, she is a prolific artist to say the least, and finds “necessity for making lots of things” as she finds necessity in accumulation. 
What you may not notice is that there are springs attaching the roses to the armature (see underside photo above), which causes an ever slight movement of the roses. After tiring of roses and bows, Lola turns to hearts, which may sound saccharine, but actually imbues a dark kind of sexy, especially after you hear her describe the process of carving hearts similar to “carving J-Lo’s ass and suddenly I became a believer [in carved hearts]“.

On Truth and Value
During the “Smaller conference experience” lunchtime discussion, Lola remarks that Truth is Plastic, and she focuses more on Authenticity in her work and in living her lifestyle. “I don’t always understand a work while I’m making it, often not until it is done”, and “I’m an incredibly intuitive maker”. She does employ studio assistants and does not apologize for having hired help, nor should she. How strange that some people don’t consider her a studio jeweler because of this fact; does studio jeweler by definition mean you have to make all the work with your own hands, and if so, how does this leave any room for growing one’s business? Lola proudly reveals that she cultivates special relationships with her assistants and that both parties benefit from the arrangement.
Value is subjective–value of her art work is purely subjective, in the “eye of the beholder”, whereas her fashion jewelry is priced differently.

Not only is she a studio jeweler, but also crosses over into the fashion world, as she has worked with celebrities, fashion designers such as Jay McCarroll (Project Runway Season 1 winner), consulted for TV show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and teaches at RISD. I’m very excited to see what she has chosen for the upcoming Metalsmith Magazine’s Exhibition in Print, on the theme of Fresh. Apparently she has spent the last year focusing on her writing and not as much on making, so we can look forward to more of Lola Brooks story telling.

Want to hear more Lola Brooks! Lucky for us in SF, she has agreed to be a panelist for the Metal Arts Guild of San Francisco‘s One-Day Symposium, Forging Communities, Nov 12, 2011. Come hear the discourse on What Success Looks Like in the Jewelry World Today.

Too many days of not enough sleep in combination with way more caffeine than I’d ever allow myself, plus an extreme amount of stimulation and interaction leaves me to post just a few humorous quips in this Interlude between more in-depth blog posts. Cute things and comedy are my weak spots when I’m drained, so here are some great quotes posted by the Art Jewelry Forum on Friday, following the In Memorium presentation for Marcia MacDonald. Really lightened the mood and I’m sure Marcia would have appreciated the laughter.

Contemporary Jewelry…
..makes other crafts jealous
..when adornment goes bad
..what diamonds dream about
AJF:WTF

Major cuteness with artist Hilary Pfeiffer‘s Bunny with a ToolBelt line of painted wood figures. She’s been doing stop-motion animation and For the Love of Dog video makes me forget that I’m beyond tired. See  for yourself….
For the Love of Dog by Hilary Pheiffer

“More Glenn Adamson” was my moto at Craft Forward in April after hearing him speak the keynote in San Francisco, and how lucky we are that he flew back to the states to be the keynote at SNAG. Invigorating–I felt as delighted Namita Gupta-Wiggers is in this photo with Glenn; you feel your brain stretching just listening to his talks.

“Design and the Image of Craft” was Glenn’s talk, on the relation of Craft as an Image and Craft as Something you can actually hold. The Intimacy and Emotional charge when skin touches object. The flux between materiality and image and Authenticity (re: outsourcing labor and giving credit to the maker). The deception in marketing today as ad agencies are riding the Craft Crest that has permeated our culture and using the emotional connotations with craft to sell manufactured goods. Best example is the Jeep ad , “The things we make make us”, which he bemoans as the “Most Fraudulent Ad of 2011″, yet ironically won that agency the Best Firm of the Year Award (check out his article on the topic in a recent issue of American Craft). See the video yourself:Jeep Cherokee The Things We Make

Yes, corporations are taking note that Craft is urgently important to the culture at large and spinning it into a commercial advantage to move their product or idea. Are we mad or excited by this?

Wouldn’t it be fascinating to be able to chat with him over a meal? 150 of us took that opportunity during the luncheon “Small Conference Experience” talks/Q&A  following the morning sessions. During this lunch pow-wow, this issue of Authenticity vs Deception came up again and again from attendees, remarking on how This is Our Time to bring Craft up to the next level, make people aware of its presence and importance in our lives, while giving respect to it as the Fine Arts naturally receive. Sure, let’s mobilize, people!

More Glenn Adamson! I could go on and on talking about his lecture, but you just have to be there in person…

So of course as we were riding down the elevator this evening, a bit of a late start to the Exhibition Crawl (and because of the tortoise-like Elevator Crawl to try to get anywhere in the hotel), I was delighted to see Glenn on the other side of the door, questioning whether he wanted to squeeze in to our rather cozy lift. Yes, please do join our party in this metal box for a brief minute! It’s catching a few extra moments with inspiring individuals that makes these conferences such a draw and give us an extra boost when we go back into the studio. Next thing we find out  is that he has a TWIN brother who has a blog on the History of Philosophy (are we surprised, no, of course his family are intellectuals), and that our friend Rebecca and he are from the same small town in Massachussetts AND their grandfathers worked together way back in the day. Small small world is this craft world we live in.

Every moment is an opportunity,  people – especially in elevators! Practice your 30 second elevator commercial and don’t be afraid to introduce yourself. You just never know, if you do it right, your conversation will continue to solid ground and you’ll get a reveal of the person beyond the podium.

We’ve just spent a wonderful first day of SNAG FLux 2011 here in Seattle, enjoying a lovely sunny/rainy/sunny afternoon settling in and running into familiar faces (they are expecting 900 some in attendance!). And naturally spending time at Pike’s Place Marketplace–especially Three Girls Bakery, a MUST for the best breads, baked goods and sandwiches. Glorious! 

Then off to Facere at City Centre, just a few blocks away, conveniently, for their artist reception, some champagne and meet the super staff of one of the best jewelry art galleries around–I love those ladies!

me and Karen Lorene of Facere

The Pin Swap back at the hotel really was the kick off of the conference fervor as we all rushed around to exchange our pins with others, meet new people, have excuses to talk to others and just plain get excited (and briefly forget how exhausted we are from getting ready for this moment!).

Dawn Miller--made this corset and dress

gary grossman's pins

john jensen- humorous shirt and name tags

sweet pin swap!

About to head into the second day of the much anticipated, annual Maker Faire! Just when you think it can’t get any bigger or hold more people, it just blows you away! Our Accessorize with Toys workshop certainly has a following after 6 years of doing this event and we look forward to the creativity and enthusiasm for craft and reuse in our participants, from 3 yrs of age to 80.

This time we’re focusing on Expressive Name Badges, our favorite project so far with people of all ages and skills. A very personal project, people invest in making the badge (even as signs for their bedroom doors at home, genius, Lucy!), and are very proud to spread the word about upcycling afterwards. And so many terrific badges today–there must have been close to 150 projects made in a mere 4 hours today. Can you believe we were out of glue sticks by 4pm, yikes!

Great seeing our repeat AWT Fans – anyone coming back again today gets to make for free. We thank everyone who contributed funds towards our supplies costs, and who dontated toy/game parts.

Best Upcycled toy redo of the day. Sparkle Pants!

Find us in the EXPO HALL, #253 closer to the South Delaware St entrance. Right between LEGO (drool, drool) and the large, luminous CRAFT orb. Today from 12-4pm. Come early while the pickin’s best. 

For more info, go to our page on Maker Faire’s website.