If you're like me, you spend time researching jewelry making techniques, advice on business, craft show success articles, and the like. As an artisan jeweler making your living by your hand crafted goods, this is a very necessary and recommended portion of your business life. By now, you've probably come up with articles that tell you to create "cohesive" collections, to be unique and all your own, to have a style that is yours and is recognizable. This is a great piece of advice, but the problem with it is that once we are told that, we try too hard to achieve it. Here's what I mean.
Remember To Breathe
Telling someone "Make sure you create jewelry that is your style alone and nobody else's" has a good intention behind it, but it's a lot like telling someone to remember to breathe. Well of course I'll remember to breathe. I breathe naturally; my body does it on its own without me having to focus on it.
Imagine, though, that just the suggestion that you should remember to breathe made you wonder whether you were really breathing or not, and you proceeded to spend your days, through all your activities, focusing very intently on breathing in, breathing out, and repeating. You would make sure that your breaths were even, that they were coming at the right times, that it wasn't abnormal, that you were, in fact, breathing.
The results would be devastating to your life. You would probably get very little done as you would be focusing so much on your breathing, you would come across as very unnatural to the people you met ("breathe in, breathe out" would be written on your face), you would make many mistakes during your day just trying to focus on this, and you would, most likely, make what would be natural breathing completely unnatural and maybe pass out by the end of the day.
This is exactly what happens to artists when we are told to do something that comes naturally. Of course you should create your own style, but the fact is, you already do!
Your Style Is Already Your Own
Take a look at your current collection. Now take a few of your favorite pieces, the pieces you really love to show off, the ones that almost break your heart to sell, and put them together, or cluster the photographs of them together.
Now, look at these pieces as a whole. If you saw these together on a shelf in a store, under a sign that had the name of the collection or designer, wouldn't you think they looked as though they had been created by the same designer? Your response is probably, yes! Because they were made by the same designer: you!
Having a style that is all your own doesn't mean that you only use one technique, or you only have one theme, it means that, overall, if you lump your items together, it looks like you made them. Someone who owns a piece of yours, or who saw you at a craft show, could go into a boutique where your items are sold and, without even glancing at the sign, know that they had seen your work before and, if they were familiar with you, recognize it as yours. It's a side effect of the creative process, not something that needs to be dwelt upon.
Cohesive Does Not Mean Carbon Copy
If you've ever watched the TV show Project Runway, you may have noticed that designers make the same mistake on every show. Tim visits them at their homes or studios before Fashion Week and says, "Your collection doesn't look cohesive enough." Then, when they show up back in New York to compete, they have 12 items in three colors and all the items look the same. That is not what is meant by cohesive.
Cohesive doesn't mean that you always make blue and white items. It doesn't mean that you only use sterling and pearls. It doesn't even mean that you always choose the same inspiration (nature inspired earrings and Paris inspired bracelets can be very cohesive). What it means is that when you look at the collection together, nothing jumps out at you and screams, "What am I doing here?"
If you're creating a bridal line, for instance, and you want to create a beach-themed line, you don't have to use coral, turquoise, and pearl through the entire collection. You can, but you run the risk of looking mute and flat when you present it. Using a variety of materials in a variety of colors that all say "beach" when you look at them, made with a variety of techniques, pulled from the same inspiration... now that's cohesive.
Don't Force What's Natural
Chances are, when you decide to create a collection, it's already going to appear cohesive. Equally, when you go to create anything, it's pretty certain that it will look like your line and your work, because it is. So don't spend so much time fretting over whether or not your pieces look like "you." They do! Always do the collection test: take a few items, put them together, and if it feels natural and comfortable to look at, chances are others will feel the same. If not, change it, but don't obsess. You have other unique items to make!
Have a great day and make something beautiful.
