Modern Heirloom® Fine Jewelry

As the holidays pass us by, I find myself looking forward to the new year and all it has to bring. 2012 has been an inspired year of creativity and personal artistic growth. The jewelry making world is such a fascinating community. In the past, we all existed in our various jewelry crafting bubbles too busy to venture out to connect with fellow jewelers. This often would leave me feeling disconnected from the jewelry community in which I work and slightly isolated by my craft. My favorite change over the course of this year has been the dynamic social networking has brought to the jewelry making table. It has been an amazing evolution to now connect daily with like creative minds and to show our creations to our collectors as well. The sharing of stories and techiniques bond us as we create our treasures . I have now managed to meet many of the greatest talents in each specialty within the jewelry and metalsmithing field from all over the world.It'sexciting to be...

I read an article in JCK which got me thinking...as I felt inspired to comment there I wanted to share my response with you all here as well.The article discussed how new technology is making it easier and easier to copy a design and reproduce it....here are a few of my thoughts on the challenge this presents us designers...;-) Of course, I agree that there is no replacing a good finish and technique but too often I am afraid the value of the earliest moments of conception can be dramatically overlooked. The price tag wins out with the majority of people and they don't even think of a knock off as "copyright" infringement ... This was proven to me recently at our custom jewelry shop ...I was speaking with a writer who had visited and I noticed the ring she was wearing as the design was recognizable. I asked if she got it from the jeweler I knew it from. She said she took their ad to a jeweler in Ny and had the design copied... Later in her visit, I was giving her demons...