Robin McGauley ... Ontario, Canada

Artist: Robin McGauley
Business: RDMdesign
Web site: rdmdesign.etsy.com
Location: Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

What do you create?
I create little tiny pieces of wearable art – usually called jewellery.


Where and when do you do your creative work?
I have a room in my house that is called my "art room". It is a great little spot for all my silversmithing equipment and jewelers bench. I create on my time off from work.

Do you have another "day job"?
I am an Ordained Minister with the United Church of Canada serving as Coordinator of Adult Programming at an Education and Retreat Centre called Five Oaks. I work for three weeks in this job and then have a whole week off to spend in my 'art room' creating (my husband and I call it 'tinkering'). I feel really lucky to have such a wonderful day job that allows me time to be creative and pursue my other interests.


Where and what did you study?
I have a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Religious Studies from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. I also have a Master of Divinity from the Vancouver School of Theology. It was while I was doing my Masters that I really felt a yearning to be an artist and use my hands. I was on internship in Nova Scotia and found out about the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design where they offer Continuing Education courses in jewellery making. I signed up for a full year of courses, and was hooked. I decided that after I graduated from my Masters I would take a year off to take more silversmithing and art classes. Since then I have taken courses at the Vancouver Community College and at the Haliburton School of the Arts to gain more skill in my craft.


Where do you find inspiration?
I actually find the materials and tools themselves to be quite inspiring. I am amazed at what metal can do. I feel like I am just beginning this journey as an artisan and so when I get a new tool or some new equipment I usually spent lots of time being inspired by what it can do, and what it can add to my work.

What motivates you?
I often feel like I don't have a choice but to be creative. When I don't spend time using my hands I start to feel uneasy, like I have too much bottled up energy.


When did you start doing this?
I took my first course almost six years ago.

Do you remember getting into art as a kid?
I was a totally crafty kid. I did really badly in school as a child because instead of studying I would sit in my room and do arts and crafts. I used to make beaded necklaces all the time as a youth. It is funny though because I never took art classes, not even at school. That seems so strange to me now and I often regret that I didn't.


When and why did you decide to start your own business?
I really never envisioned selling my work. For a few years I just made on-of-a-kind pieces that I wasn't able to part with because they were so special to me. One day I decided that I had too much jewellery so I started making five or six pieces of the same design. I also started making rings that were too big for me so that I wouldn't keep them. I set up my store on Etsy because I had to get rid of these extra pieces somehow.


How did you choose the name for your business?
I actually wanted to be called 'Divine Design' but then I noticed that there is a TV show called that, so I had to come up with something else. RDM are my initials (Robin Donalda McGauley) – it just seemed to make sense and is also easy to stamp on to the back of my pieces.

What do you love most about creating your work?
I love how relaxing it is to create. I experience creativity as meditation – time when I feel most grounded and myself.


What's the most fascinating place you've been?
I lived at a Castle in England for seven months where I did my first year of University. It was called Herstmonceux Castle and was built in 1441. There was a moat and everything!

A book you love:
My husband and I read The Tao of Pooh to each other before bed over the course of several weeks – it was so great!

What is the most interesting thing about you?
Given that I am a United Church Minister, people are usually surprised to hear that I am also a silversmith. But I think those who will be reading this interview would probably be more surprised by the fact that I am a minister.


What achievement are you most proud of?
At this point I am so proud (and am still pinching myself) that my work is being sold in the gift shop at the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo.

What advice would you give women starting their own business?
Trust that magical things can happen when you are doing what you love and yearn to do.

What's the biggest challenge you face in your work?
Being original. It is really hard to come up with a concept or a design that hasn't been done by somebody already.


What do you love to do in your free time?
I spend most of my free time creating.

What are you working on right now?
A couple of weeks ago I spent quite a bit of time designing some new pieces – mostly pendants. These pieces have multiple parts, some hollow, some stone settings, some combinations of silver, copper and brass. I was feeling the urge to create some things that are more complex and interesting since so far my designs have been quite simple I think. I am also working on a series of hollow rings of various shapes. My impulse has always been to bring things to a high polish finish, so with these rings I am trying to create a lot of texture on the silver first and then fabricate the rings.

What do you hope to achieve next?
My next goal is to be in a craft show – I haven't done that yet.

The Noisy Plume ... Arizona, USA

Artist: Jillian Susan Lukiwski
Business: The Noisy Plume
Web sites: thenoisyplume.etsy.com and thenoisyplume.blogspot.com
Location: Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation, Arizona

What do you create?
I create jewelry from sterling silver, copper, brass, and precious/semi-precious stones. Lots of it.


Where and when do you do your creative work?
I work here at the Achii Hanyo Native Fish Facility (USFW) which is run by my husband (the head fish biologist). We live by ourselves on-station and I have a workshop outside in our gigantic Quonset. I have also claimed a room in our house for workspace. I am a night owl by nature, but Robert isn't so I usually work during normal 9-5 office hours so that we get to see each other at the end of the day.


Do you have another "day job"?
I quit my librarian position at the elementary school in town about 2 months ago to go full time with silver smithing. I miss reading books to the wee kiddies but can now see very clearly that I was living a high stress life when I was splitting my time between jewelry and the art of librarianship. I am much happier now. Perhaps healthier too?


Where and what did you study?
I attended the University of Saskatchewan in my hometown of Saskatoon, Canada but not long enough to finish an English degree since I decided to marry my man and moved to The States. That old scrap of paper documenting my intelligence haunts me constantly and I'm yenning to finish it up! I also attended a community college in Lake Havasu City, Arizona for 4 semesters to learn a few silver smithing basics as well as lapidary techniques. In terms of my craft, I am largely self-taught.


Where do you find inspiration?
I find plenty of inspiration in the stones I use in my pieces. I consider myself rather lucky to have studied silver smithing in the Southwest where more often than not, a piece is designed around stone, silver is allowed to be brightly polished to a blinding sheen, and color is paramount. Southwest style is right up my alley. When I find a big free form cut cabochon in an amazing color, or struck with a fantastic matrix... I can't help but be flooded with inspiration. I'm also inspired by shapes I see in nature, the work of other jewelry designers, and other times the inspiration simply finds me. Sometimes I sit down with a few pieces of metal and a stone and the piece just builds itself slowly and steadily as though the design is being breathed into me as I work. It's a really great workday if such a thing happens.


What motivates you?
Selling 20 pieces on a weekend and having to make them all lickety-split so I can ship by Monday afternoon is quite motivating! Also, when I have a new design idea, it's difficult for me to tear myself away from my workbench, I want to stay there until the moon is high and all the desert critters are sleeping. I really like to finish what I have started in one go. The thought of seeing a finished piece of jewelry brightly polished and ready to photograph really elevates my pulse! When a piece is nearing completion I am bouncing off the walls with excitement, practically breathless...my voice turns into a high-pitched squeak. I'm sure it's frightening and ghastly to watch, but it sure feels great!


When did you start doing this?
I started silver smithing in 2005 when I was taking classes in Lake Havasu. It took a while to actually get set up at home with the right tools and start working independently of the workshop at school.

Do you remember getting into art as a kid?
I was a funny blend of jock and art-geek when I was younger. My father fostered the athlete in me and I must thank my mother for cultivating my creativity when I was a youngling. She enrolled me in piano lessons as soon as I was out of the womb, as well as playing violin and trumpet for a few years; she also popped me into drawing classes with a local Saskatoon artist. She taught me to sew (she's a master seamstress). I was really into photography and graphic arts in high school and took a few semesters of painting as well. I used to stay up until 3am on school nights making beaded jewelry in my bedroom. I was continually crafting.


When and why did you decide to start your own business?
Last summer I took a trip to Europe with a girlfriend of mine and whenever we met someone new in a hostel she would introduce me as her friend who was “a maker of fantastic jewelry.” I thought about that title a lot while on that trip and realized I didn't want to make a liar out of my friend and I had best get serious about making jewelry. Looking back, I think it was really a sort of quarter-life crisis in that I didn't really love being a librarian, and was in desperate need for a creative outlet. At any rate, I came home and told my husband I wanted to open an Etsy shop and make and sell jewelry. We drove to town to buy a digital camera, photographed some of the pieces I had already made, and opened my Etsy shop that very same afternoon on July 18, 2007.


How did you choose the name for your business?
I actually picked three words and said them over and over to myself to see if the sound of them falling off the tip of my tongue was pleasing to the ear. It was.
Also, no one on the planet earth has ever been able to correctly pronounce my last name on the first go, so I thought I would spare you all fumbling your way through "JillianLukiwskiDesigns". Blah. That last name of mine is a Ukrainian mess. I confess.


What do you love most about creating your work?
I love that all of it is mine. From the start, each component that builds a piece of jewelry is designed by me, sawed, cut, dapped, formed, forged, sized, set, buffed, and polished by me. This work is MY work, no one else tells me what to do. It comes from my heart and my soul, and is crafted beneath my furrowed brow with joy and obsessive attention to detail. I really make exactly what I want to make. I don't worry about whether or not the item will sell. I just make the things that are in my mind and trust that someone, somewhere shares my taste in jewelry. If I wouldn’t wear it, I don’t make it. My art is really the epitome of selfishness but I have to feel like a design is true to my ideas and my style. I have turned down a few commissions in the past because I wasn’t willing to be untrue to my style. For example, I don’t “do” Celtic jewelry… I do what I want to do. I love feeling like I have appeased my need to create at the end of the day. Anything that jeopardizes that feeling is not allowed in my workshop.


What's the most fascinating place you've been?
I need to give you five:
1. A glow worm cave in New Zealand (Rob and I collected a nalgene bottle full of the little guys to make a romantic sort of flashlight).
2. Every inch of the 230 miles of the John Muir Trail.
3. The Havasupai Falls below the remote Supai Indian Village on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
4. Alone.
5. The chain lakes, and river systems of Northern Saskatchewan… in a canoe.


A book you love:
Good grief! I really adore books. Books have always been such good friends to me...here are some of my favorite authors/poets instead: Gene Stratton Porter, Diane Ackerman, Annie Dillard (swoon), Willa Cather, Roald Dahl, Chaim Potok, Zane Gray, Leonard Cohen, CS Lewis, Flannery O'Connor, Madeline L'Engle, Rilke – each one of them continues to change my life and widen my eyes.


What is the most interesting thing about you?
My lifestyle. I grew up in the National Parks of Canada doing backcountry patrols by horseback with my dad on the weekends (sometimes on school days too). I know how to chop wood, fly fish, paddle a canoe, start a fire with wet wood, and clean a horse's hooves among other things. I am most at home in the natural world and prefer the freedom and simplicity of the country life.

What achievement are you most proud of?
Knowing at the young age of 25 exactly what I want to do with my life, and doing exactly that. Every day.


What advice would you give women starting their own business?
Just start. If you try to get everything organized perfectly from the very beginning you probably won't ever begin. Don't be afraid, just go for it. It's ok to start small and build your way up into a bigger and better business. It takes a lot of courage to put oneself and one's art out into the world for all to see, don't ever doubt the courage that lies inherently within you. It's there. Draw on it.


What's the biggest challenge you face in your work?
My dial-up internet is my greatest challenge. It's positively medieval. I can't get a faster connection because of where we are situated on the reservation. We are lucky to even have a telephone! My internet speed makes me crazy and drinks up a lot of my spare time and workshop time. I used to have to do all of my uploading for my Etsy shop from the library in town a couple of times a week, but I bought a new computer and am able to do all of my work from home now. What a nightmare it was.


What do you love to do in your free time?
I love to bake. I bake my own bread once a week. It's a happy thrill every time I see it rise up.
I also sew, rock climb, walk my dogs, do a heap of yoga in the living room, garden, run, explore the desert, collect honey from the wild bee hive in the bulldozer, play my piano, make zines, write poetry, and read. I am also a member of "The Letter Writers Alliance" and write many, many, many letters to friends and family.


What are you working on right now?
As soon as I finish this interview, I've got to polish up a few pieces of jewelry which were ordered over the weekend and ready them for shipping. This afternoon I am working on a few pieces featuring Alunite cabochons. In the larger scheme of things, I just completed my wholesale catalogue for 2008 and am going to be posting those out to a few different boutiques in Alberta, Canada and Oregon.
Interestingly enough, I'm just working hard at being me.


What do you hope to achieve next?
I'd love to live someplace where I could apprentice a goldsmith. How I would love to get my little fingertips on some gold and dip my small hands into buckets of faceted gems. I'd also like to write something worth publishing someday. I'm much more into short term goals as it's difficult for me to see past lunchtime.

Shannon Tudyk ... Oregon, USA

Artist: Shannon (Sam) Tudyk
Business: TudykDotCom (or tudyk.com)
Web sites: tudyk.com, tudykdotcom.etsy.com
Location: Portland, Oregon

What do you create?
Big messes – and artwork in between. My work is usually a combination of materials, oftentimes including acrylic, pencil, tea and rice paper, machined top-stitching thread, sand paper – all ending up mounted on wood as a wall hanging in the end.


Where and when do you do your creative work?
In my one-bedroom apartment, I've taken over the living room and dining nook. The big chair recently got pushed into the tiny kitchen to make more room. I also use a friend's garage for wood cutting and framing up work. When? The creative idea work happens all of the time. I could have an idea for a project in the middle of a conversation about top soil. And the actual doing happens sometimes at night when I get home, every once and a while right when I wake up before I trek to my day job, but mostly on the weekends, when I have a long stretches of time to work fresh and undisturbed. I can easily work for 15 hours straight, three days in a row when given the chance.


Do you have another "day job"?
I haven't yet left the steady paycheck life; I get too stressed out not knowing when and where the money to pay the bills is coming from. I worked part-time at a letterpress greeting card studio (Egg Press) for the past three and a half years, doing an assortment of jobs – the most interesting being web project manager and product photographer. However, this month I will be leaving that job and moving to my next chapter in life, as a full time studio artist at a hugely respected advertising agency (Wieden + Kennedy). Very exciting!


Where and what did you study?
I had two majors at Savannah College of Art and Design – Illustration and Graphic Design.

Where do you find inspiration?
Everywhere! Magazines, books, the internet, found objects, patterns in a building's shadow... I think I have been loving art for so long, my brain sees everything as inspiration now. I also have a love for paper and a healthy addiction to office supplies, especially vintage. Old accounting ledgers, receipts, labels... I've been working to translate those inspirations into my artwork for the past few years. I am also currently obsessed with the golden ratio and fibonachi series, Egyptian art, sigils and symbols, and typography.


What motivates you?
Deadlines! I must have deadlines. And reminders of deadlines. Seeing another artist's exhibition can motivate me too. Or having an inspiring dream or vision.

When did you start doing this?
I think I have always been interested in making art; it continuously grew as I grew. I remember having good ideas before having good execution back in middle school. My brain has always been ahead of my hands with art. As far as creating art for people to view in a public space, I have been doing that since 2002.


Do you remember getting into art as a kid?
I do remember getting into trouble over art in kindergarten on a field day (art outdoors!) ...there were long rolls of paper stretched out on the sidewalk for the whole class to all draw on. I was punished for painting on myself rather than the paper. Silly teachers.

When and why did you decide to start your own business?
I guess I don't consider it a business really. I do feel responsible for getting artwork made for people and shipping it safely to them... but that's more just the finishing result of a passion that I do for myself. Although it does feel like a business when it's time to do taxes...


How did you choose the name for your business?
I think I put more thought into naming my teapot, Tiwi, than naming my shop tudykdotcom. I was anxious to get to posting and see what it looked like and really only had in mind the desire for people to link back to my main website, tudyk.com... And tudyk.com came about with the hope of memory for my name. We all want to be remembered, don't we?


What do you love most about creating your work?
Feeling an idea "click." Sometimes it bings – that's really great. I love coming up with an idea that I feel no one has had or no one has done quite the same. And I love hearing the different responses from viewers; it feels very powerful to create a sensation in another person through something that came from inside of me.


What's the most fascinating place you've been?
I have been to a lot of amazing places... A Masai tribal village in Africa; inside an Orthodox Church in Serbia; an archery bar in Spain! (Yes, alcohol was served and bows were handed out!) ...I hope to keep collecting more.

A book you love:
The Power of Limits: Proportional Harmonies in Nature, Art & Architecture by Gyorgy Doczi


What is the most interesting thing about you?
Maybe that I changed my name (unofficially). For the past seven or so years I have gone by the name Sam rather than my given name, Shannon. It seemed to be a stronger name and more memorable. Introducing myself as Shannon (which I do in some circles) feels awkward now. It's fun to confuse people too. I respond to both, but I only like to say the name "Sam."

What achievement are you most proud of?
In 2004, five pieces of my artwork were published in Communication Arts Illustration Annual. It was a very exciting month for me.


What advice would you give women starting their own business?
I don't know that I'm qualified to give advice on that... but I believe that if you work hard enough at what you love, something good will come out of it. You have to be willing to make sacrifices for it. Positive thinking goes a long way too.


What's the biggest challenge you face in your work?
How can I obtain an 8' x 13' piece of artwork when they don't sell appropriate sheet sizes...? and how will I transport it? Also, what to do with the ideas that seem to only be fit for installations? (I guess have an installation is the answer, but how does one get into the installation business?) Mostly, the biggest challenge I face is gaining financial security to push everything else aside to make it happen 100 percent.


What do you love to do in your free time?
Free time... hmm... that sounds familiar... I like to go and see art out in the world, follow art and design links online, take hot baths, and eat cookies. And travel as often as possible.

What are you working on right now?
A 6' x 3' commission piece, a show deadline, and three other small commission pieces. And very soon I'll be working on finding a balance between a new full time creative job and my own artwork.


What do you hope to achieve next?
I've always wanted to fall into some sweet deal with Chronicle Books and become a household name. I would love for my passion for making things to work into a consistently paying, dependable job somehow.