Nicolette’s Design Diary

I’m talking to a fellow artist, we may be discussing the current show, shows that we’ll be doing in the future, shows that we’ve been doing in the past. If the fellow artist is not a jeweler, I’m almost guaranteed to hear this statement.

“It must be great being a jeweler. You guys always make money.”

Or…

“I need to figure out how to include jewelry in my line. That way I’ll can get some of the action you jewelers get.”

Eh…okay.

A lot of the time when I hear these statements they’re usually said with a hint of resignation, frustration, or envy…and occasionally with more than a hint of hostility. In a way I understand. It’s difficult when you feel that your hard work is being overlooked you’re constantly losing sales to someone else. If you aren’t a jeweler, it may seem that our booths are always filled with customers and that we’re making money hand over fist. In reality, being a jeweler can be just as tough as any other medium.

In some ways, it’s true. Look at any craft show, if jewelry is not the biggest category, it’s usually the second or third biggest. And in most cases it’s one of the highest grossing categories at any craft show. Why? Most of the people that attend craft shows are women. Women love jewelry and they tend to buy a piece of jewelry faster than they would buy a painting or a piece of sculpture. Jewelry is also a popular gift item. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Graduation, birthdays, and of course Christmas…jewelry is almost always on the menu when it comes to gift giving. And women aren’t the only people that buy jewelry. Men also buy their fair share of jewelry…for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Graduation, birthdays, anniversaries, and Christmas. If your line of jewelry is particularly manly (think cuff links, money clips, and tie tacks), they’ll even buy a piece for themselves.

In terms of transport and setting up for a show, jewelers can also be at an advantage. Our stuff tends to be relatively small and lightweight in comparison to say pottery, clothing, or paintings. I can pack up everything I need for a show, booth, display, and merchandise in a medium sized pick-up truck. Artists who do glasswork, pottery, or large works like furniture usually need to purchase or rent a trailer or a large truck to transport their wares. Set up and break down for a show is also relatively fast as well. Unless I’m working a show by myself, other artists who have fragile items are usually still packing up their work and their booths long after I’ve loaded the last box into my truck and had pulled away from the show site.

So if you’re a jeweler you have it made right? Well, lots of my fellow artists seem to think so. Many have the impression that I make five figures at every show and have customers forming lines outside my booth with one hand filled with jewelry and the other hand waving their credit cards and checkbooks. And it seems that at almost every show, I have to set my fellow artists straight.

A couple years ago, I read Sun Tsu’s Art of War. Why? Don’t ask…I like reading books on random topics. If you’ve never read or heard of The Art of War, it’s a 2400 year old Chinese manual about military strategy. Although the book is about military strategy, many of the principles in the book also translates well in business, management, and interacting with people. One of the principles in the book that an opponent’s greatest strength can very often can also be their greatest weakness, and the way to defeat your opponent is to turn that strength into a weakness.

A lot of what the Art of War says about strengths and weakness also applies to being a jeweler. Sure, jewelry is very, very popular at craft shows…so popular in fact that it is one of the most competitive categories in the industry. The jewelry category is one of the first to fill up when artists are being juried in for a show. If you’re a jeweler, you better make sure that your work is unique enough or compelling enough, because you’re guaranteed to be competing against a dozens and dozens of other jewelers for that coveted spot in the show, and in all likelihood, they’re doing something very similar to you.

Jewelers may get a lion’s share of the sales at a show, we but have divide that share among many other jewelers. At the last show I participated in, out of 299 artists, approximately 80 of them were jewelers..that’s 27%…over a quarter of all the artists at that show. Compare that to potters…there were only 25 out of 299(8%)…or photographers…20 out of 299 (7%)…or even glass artists…19 out of 299 (6%). So out of 299 artists, I’m in direct competition with 79 other artists. In addition, some artists who work in other media such as glass, pottery, or fiber may also create a small line of jewelry in addition to their usual work in an effort to bring in more sales. These artists aren’t even counted in the jewelry category, so I may be directly competing with both jewelers and those artists in other mediums who also have a line of jewelry.

And from the customer’s point of view, having 80 jewelers at a show is not necessarily a good thing. I also overhear comments from customers…

“I’m tired of seeing so much jewelry at these shows!”

Or even worse…

“Oh…more jewelry…”

It’s funny, I almost never hear complaints about how there’s too many photographers at a show or that if they see one more woodworker they’ll scream. If anything, customers appear to want more of these mediums and want they want to see something different.

The fact that jewelry is small and lightweight also makes jewelers a prime target for theft. All artists and craftsmen who exhibit at shows can be targets of theft to some degree, but jewelers are an especially attractive target, particularly if they use high karat metal and expensive gems in their work. Just two weeks ago at the Timonium show, a jeweler had $100,000 worth of merchandise stolen out of her van while she and her husband were eating dinner after the show. And this is by no means an unheard of occurrence. Theft can include robberies on a small scale with customers who shoplifts individual pieces (I’ve been a victim of this more than once) to the organized thieves who steal whole inventories of merchandise.

Just because you offer jewelry, it doesn’t mean that customers are falling all over themselves to buy your stuff. Because there are so many other jewelers that exhibit at a show, that also means the customers can be somewhat selective. I think that it’s this fact that surprises other artists the most. Somehow many are under the impression that customers buy jewelry indiscriminately without regard for personal taste or preference. For every customer that buys a piece of jewelry from me, there are fifteen others who won’t because my earrings are too long and they don’t wear dangly earrings, or they don’t wear gold filled jewelry, they only wear 24kt gold, or they only wear posts and not french hooks, or their ears aren’t pierced and they only wear clip-ons, or my earrings aren’t long enough, or my bracelets aren’t thin enough, or wide enough, or that my jewelry is so delicate-looking they’re sure that they’ll destroy it because they are “hard on their jewelry”, or they’re afraid it’s going to snag on something, or they have more than enough jewelry for the time being thank you and they don’t need yet another pair of earrings, or they like butterflies and I don’t have any jewelry that have butterflies on them…or ladybugs, or sunflowers, or elephants, or frogs, or dragonflies…etc…etc…etc. Every customer has their own likes, dislikes and their own sense of aesthetic. No matter how unique and beautiful and well made your jewelry is, if your work doesn’t fit what they are looking for, they won’t buy it…just like any other medium. And if you don’t offer customers what they want…well, there’s another jeweler two booths down that might. Customers at a craft show may buying a lot of jewelry…they’re just not necessarily buying it from you, they may be buying from any one of 79 other jewelers at the show.

I mention these pros and cons when I start to hear the “Jewelers have it easy” comments, not because I want to get into contest about who has it the worse, but rather to point out we’re all trying to make a dollar and that it’s not neccesarily easy for anyone…even us jewelers. The more I do craft shows and the longer I’m in the arts and crafts world, the more I see is that it isn’t necessarily all about the medium. Take doll artist Charla Khanna. Most people I know don’t think of dolls as an art form and I know lots of doll artists that complain that no one appreciates the time, work, and the artistry that goes into dollmaking. Now take someone like New Mexico doll artist Charla Khana. Each year she does the famous Ann Arbor Street Art Fair. There are frequently lines of customers camping outside her booth hours before the show even opens. She usually sells out by the second, even the first day of the four day show. You can be sure that she’s not wondering how to increase sales by selling more jewelry. Because her heart and soul is all in her dolls…people who love her dolls recognize that…and respond.

Sure, there are general trends in how popular a certain medium is, a couple years ago art glass was all the rage, now it seems that fiber is beginning to make a comeback. Things like colors, patterns, and subject matter can also go in and out of style. And these are factors that can affect what your customers are interested in. I’m not naive enough to imagine that these wide general fads and trends make absolutely no difference. But I think the trick is is to figure out how to balance these trends without letting it change how you express yourself through your art. I guess the trick is is to find a medium that you love and with enough work, the right audience and the right exposure and lots and lots of patience, you’ll find your place. Ever since I’ve started making jewelry about 14 years ago, I’ve always worked in paper. It’s only in the past 5 to 7 years that people seem to be more accepting of what I do. Between now and then I’ve heard plenty of suggestions from well-meaning friends and colleagues;

“Try using polymer clay…it’s all the rage!”

“Start adding more gemstones and real gold and you’ll make more sales!”

“You know, those chandelier earrings are really popular right now, you should try making some of those!”

I’ve tried polymer clay and it’s fun, I’ve learned how to cast metal and set gemstones and those chandelier earrings are really pretty, the only problem is that none of that really interests me. And any attempt to incorporate something that doesn’t interest me won’t work. But I’ve stuck with the paper and continued to grow, and as I continued to grow, so has the interest from the public has continued to grow. And maybe one day I can grow up to be like Charla Khanna, sitting in an empty booth on the second day of the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair.

[tags]craft shows, jewelry, Charla Khanna, Art of War[/tags]