How I Became a Silversmith

My love/hate relationship with making jewelry but mostly love but also a lot of hate

I got into making jewelry for the same reasons I got into making my own clothes. I love jewelry, I want to have a lot of jewelry, I cannot find much jewelry that is to my taste, and much of the jewelry I do like I could never afford, obviously I had to learn to make it myself. The initial thought that I might like to make my own jewelry marinated in my brain juice for a long time before I did anything about it. My early preconceptions were that making jewelry seemed too difficult, and that professionally taught classes through big name art or jewelry schools were way too expensive. Despite how scary and hard metal smithing seemed, I couldn’t shake the thought so I began to search for an affordable jewelry education. Two years ago in a moment of inspiration and an idealized romantical pursuit of knowledge, I entered my favorite jewelry shop in Zagreb, Croatia, got down on one knee, bowed my head to the owner and said, “I come to you but a humble jewelry lover, dear master, please allow me to apprentice at your esteemed bench,” and he said “hell no, bitch </3” but he DID tell me about an art jewelry studio in town that would occasionally take on students, so it ended up being a win, it never hurts to ask, folks.

The studio he recommended only accepted one student at a time, and they only offered classes if they had time, so I had to spend about six months on the waitlist before I got a call asking if I still wanted to take classes. When I came in for my first class we settled the tuition (600 euros for twelve 2-hour long classes over 6 weeks where I was the only student and there were two jewelers instructing me. A steal if you ask me, though I did liquidate all my dogecoin to be able to pay LMAO) After paying the fee, the old master pulled out a time-weathered little leather-bound notebook which served solely as a record of every student he has ever taught. My name and information were transcribed and I officially entered the annals as the 52nd student of my teacher, Lazer Rok Lumezi. I’m making this sound really romantic and mystical because IT LITERALLY WAS, I still get chills thinking about it. I love that my provenance as a jeweler is tied to my time in Croatia, and I love that there is a record of it.

The shop where I learned and a photo with my wonderful teachers Sabina and Mr. Lumezi

By the end of day 1 I was already soldering (the act of joining together pieces of metal with a torch) small jump rings. Every class added a new element of metal working. Soldering, sawing, annealing, sizing, pickling, filing, polishing, forming, texturing, engraving, patinating, stone setting, the list goes on. With every new technique and tool, jewelry fabrication was further demystified, and I fell asleep every night conceptualizing designs using the skills I had learned in class. I found it difficult to think about anything other than silver smithing.

The course culminated in a project of my choice, and I made a pair of matching simple tanzanite oval cabochon bezel rings for myself and my best friend Anna. I went into my course with an open mind, fully ready to never do metal working again if I decided it wasn’t for me. I was certainly not a prodigy student, I gained an understanding that the level of precision required in metal working goes directly against my nature, yet I finished the course feeling resolute that this was something I wanted to pursue further.

Matching tanzanite cabochon friendship rings forged in the fires of my love for jewelry and Anna

After my classes finished about 8 months passed before I sat at a jewelry bench again. This was a time of transition, I went home to Houston for a few months before moving to Chicago. The initial weeks I was settling in to my new apartment I could not stop thinking about and yapping about “where my jewelry bench will go” and “when I get set up to make jewelry” or “saving money to get started silver smithing again” The move was costly and it was also a huge cost of living adjustment going from Croatia to Chicago. After waffling for a few months about waiting for “the right time” to get set up and incur the cost of having a home jewelry bench I decided that it may be a long time before I felt good about dropping a few thousand dollars on tools and supplies and I decided to just send it and charge it to a credit card. I was painfully aware that the tactile skills I had gained were getting rusty, and I was ready to reaffirm to myself that this is an art form I am serious about honing—and eventually monetizing.

My workbench in post-project pandemonium and post-cleanup zen

Setting up a full jewelers workbench including a big-ass tank of flammable gas and a torch in my house was nerve-racking. I had no teacher to hold my hand, and hadn’t made anything in almost a year. It all went smoothly enough, and making jewelry was like riding a bike. I felt like I was back in the swing of things after a few hours, and I was mentally right back to where I had been during my course: unable to think about anything other than making jewelry. I started making pieces every day, trying out new ideas, and self-learning new techniques like flush setting and prong setting.

The first two rings off my home bench, practice pieces to thank Park and Kadin for helping carry up and assemble my bench

It is a challenge to balance making jewelry with running my knitting business as well as being a professional musician, not to mention daily exercise plus the thousand hobbies that are all precious to me. When I find myself with the time to devote to jewelry, it becomes all I want to do for a few days at a time, and yet, when I’m sitting at the bench for hours at a time I ALWAYS think “Wow I hate this,” and “I can’t believe I decided to get into this godforsaken craft.” I mentioned that the high precision required in metal smithing goes against my nature. I have always been a gestalt thinker and approach my art in the same way. I’m happy to look at the big picture and hate to get bogged down in the details. I’m not at all a perfectionist, its one of the reasons I’m not a better violinist and it’s also one reason I love knitting (a very forgiving medium). In metal smithing, you are rewarded for being as precise as possible.

Making a bezel for a stone should always look like this. The fit is so perfect that no light passes between the stone and bezel, and the stone can be picked up with the bezel without falling out. Make the bezel .02 mm too small and the stone won't go in.

On a good day bending a thick length of wire into a ring before soldering the ends together may only take a couple of minutes, on a bad day the same task can stretch to half an hour as you continuously bend, unbend, file, fidget, and beg the ends to sit flush while they just refuse. I have to laugh when I find myself regularly measuring and marking pieces of metal within a hundredth of a millimeter. I have never looked at or worked on anything on such a small scale and it’s changed the way I see the world. The first time I worked with a 3mm diameter stone it seemed like a grain of sand, and now it doesn’t seem so small, gemstones can be so much smaller than 3 millimeters.

Batch production of a set of 5 opal rings.

Making jewelry takes hours of high focus and high patience, I can’t believe I choose to spend my time that way. I love it, I hate it, it is exhausting and scary, and also extremely rewarding. It simultaneously demands physical strength and extreme delicacy. It is alchemic, unforgiving, and magical. There are a lifetime of skills I want to learn and I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface. I would never say it is an easy medium to work in, but it’s not as mysterious or impossible as I used to think. If metal working and jewelry appeals to you, I hope you get the chance to try it out. If you like my work, keep your eyes and ears open for the upcoming launch of my jewelry brand. It is slow going, but we are inching ever closer to fruition. Thanks for reading. Bye!