Ashley Akers ... Texas, USA

Artist: Ashley Akers
Business: Ashley Akers Jewelry
Web sites: ashleyakersjewelry.com, ashleyjewelry.etsy.com, ashleyakers.blogspot.com
Location: Fort Worth, Texas

What do you create?
Hand-fabricated jewelry with a modern, organic aesthetic. Mostly utilizing sterling silver, semi-precious gemstones and pebbles.


Where and when do you do your creative work?
Ideas are always brewing. When I come up with a design or even a component I have to sketch it. I have books full of sketches for jewelry designs going all the way back to my beginning jewelry class in college. Of course many of those have never come to fruition, so looking through them provides more inspiration. My studio is in my home and I work seven days a week and anytime of day based on what needs to get done. I do get up at the same time every day and get to work about the same time. I am a very much a schedule and habit-oriented person.


Do you have another "day job"?
I worked for seven years at a charming local garden shop, Home to Garden. I just got up enough courage to quit that job this past December. That move was one of the most exciting and scariest things I have ever done and I have absolutely no regrets. I do continue to work part time on my husband’s and my other endeavor, which is a landscaping and lawn care business.

Where and what did you study?
I studied at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas under master metalsmith and enameling genius Harlan Butt. I majored in jewelry and metal-smithing, and minored in anthropology, graduating with a BFA in 1999.


Where do you find inspiration?
My design process is very much informed by my materials. I will play around with gemstones and pebbles until I find a pleasing combination. The metalwork usually plays a supporting role to whatever material I employ for color and texture. I also get excited about trying out new materials like fiber or polymer clay. I feel like I gather inspiration from all around. I am a very visual person and cannot help but be inspired by my surroundings. I am attracted to pattern, both natural (plant structure, pebbles on the ground and wood grain) and man-made (textiles, recycled metal, and architecture). Color is a huge inspiration and ingredient in design for me. I love creating and surrounding myself with color combinations of all types. I have a love of mid-century modern design and I think that is reflected in the simplicity and organic lines of my metalwork.


What motivates you?
Motivation goes hand in hand with inspiration. I thrive on design challenges and definitely work better with deadlines, such as submissions for exhibitions.

When did you start doing this?
My first jewelry class was during my sophomore year of college in 1994 and I have never looked back. Wow, so 14 years ago.


Do you remember getting into art as a kid?
I don’t remember a time of not being interested in creating things. My mother is an art teacher and fiber artist and my father is a talented wood worker. I always loved to paint and draw as a child. In high school I took watercolor classes and already knew that I wanted to learn to make jewelry.

When and why did you decide to start your own business?
I worked part time after graduating from college, but always did jewelry on the side. Before discovering Etsy I was selling at local craft fairs and to friends and family. I started my business out of a need to create and wanting to love what I do for a living.


How did you choose the name for your business?
I just used my name. I feel like it is important for my name to be associated with my work.

What do you love most about creating your work?
Gathering inspiration, designing, and the finished product. I enjoy the actual process of creation as well, but many jewelry-making tasks are quite tedious and unglamorous. The more enjoyable pieces for me to make are more complex and involved designs.


What's the most fascinating place you've been?
Definitely Mexico. I spent a month in Xalapa, Veracruz for a college anthropology course and was able to travel to Oaxaca as well. I love the indigenous crafts, the colors, cuisine and the warmth of the people in Mexico. I also aspire to travel throughout Latin America.

A book you love:
Rain of Gold by Victor Villasenor. I particularly like novels based on historical fact.


What is the most interesting thing about you?
I am a plant-oholic. I can peruse public gardens, cool garden shops and gardening magazines endlessly. Even when I worked at Home to Garden I visited other garden shops while on vacation! I love succulents, cacti and agaves especially.

What achievement are you most proud of?
My college degree and taking the leap to quit my day job are my most proud achievements.


What advice would you give women starting their own business?
Don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek advice from your peers and mentors. Try to join a group of fellow artisans. I am a member of the Etsy Metal street team, and I have learned so much in the past year and a half from my fellow Etsy Metal members. Their knowledge has been invaluable to me.
Also, be prepared to balance many different aspects of your business and do everything yourself in the beginning. You must serve as an accountant, marketer, customer service specialist, photographer, web designer, as well as designer and maker. Sometimes the creation part comes last, unfortunately.

What's the biggest challenge you face in your work?
Staying on task and off the computer!


What do you love to do in your free time?
Spending time with my husband and two dogs. Going to the bookstore to read magazines. Visiting the weekend flea market and local antique mall. Watching travel and food shows, preferably with the two combined. Favorites include Mexico One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless, No Reservations with Anthony Bordain and Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmer. Seeing live music. Traveling, but don’t get to as often as I would like. Ditto for camping and swimming.


What are you working on right now?
I’m working on three trades with fellow Etsy Metal members. I am really enjoying building up a collection of jewelry by friends. I feel like these pieces will become heirlooms and each has a story behind it. I’m also working on several more involved pieces to enter into exhibitions.

What do you hope to achieve next?
Not so much one particular thing as the big picture. I hope to continue to be able to grow my business and be a self-supporting artist. I want to learn new techniques, improve my skills and have a successful lifelong career as a jewelry artist.

Lauren Urban ... Virginia, USA

Artist: Lauren
Business: Lauren Urban
Web site: laurenurban.etsy.com
Location: Alexandria, Virginia (just outside Washington, D.C.)

What do you create?
I am a fused glass artist who primarily focuses on jewelry and house wares. My most popular items are sushi dish sets.


Where and when do you do your creative work?
I have a studio in my garage and can be found creating something nearly every minute I am at home.

Do you have another "day job"?
Like many artists I have dreams of leaving my "real job" to work for myself, but the truth is that I also love my career. I am an engineer who specializes in automobile safety testing. I spend my days crashing cars and working with child safety seats.


Where and what did you study?
I have a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Throughout college and afterwards, I supplemented all that left brain education with as many studio art classes as I could take. One of those classes was a one-day glass fusing workshop in April of 2005, which served as the foundation for my current endeavor. Besides that I am largely self-taught.


Where do you find inspiration?
I actually get a lot of it from the glass itself. I also obsessively monitor high fashion and home decor design and love trickling those concepts and trends down into my pieces.


What motivates you?
I love to create things, obviously, so that is a factor. I've been pretty strong-willed and independent since I was a kid, and I love the feeling of seeing something through from start to finish. I find that's about all the motivation I need!


When did you start doing this?
I have crafted all my life, but I began glass fusing about three years ago, in the spring of 2005.

Do you remember getting into art as a kid?
My mother is extremely artistic, and we were rather poor growing up. Lots of our childhood games and activities revolved around egg cartons, toilet paper tubes, pipe cleaners and crayons. She always came up with the neatest ideas; she is the #1 reason I am a creative person.


When and why did you decide to start your own business?
I officially started a business in April of 2007. It was a combination of trying to offset the cost of my hobby as well as demands from family and friends. At the time I also had an abundance of product that I didn't have any room for... a girl really can have too much jewelry! Once Etsy was created I knew that would be a great solution for me and it has just gone on from there.


How did you choose the name for your business?
Unfortunately my real name is rather common; I also have to share it with a teenage Canadian actress. In an effort to better distinguish myself on the Internet, I decided I had to come up with a "stage" name and liked the rhythm and feel of "Lauren Urban". I also think it reflects the modern feel that a lot of my work has.


What do you love most about creating your work?
I love ending up with finished products, of course, but I also find working with glass very relaxing – scoring, breaking, arranging, stacking, grinding – I actually find the monotony to be kind of Zen.

What's the most fascinating place you've been?
London, hands down, though Vancouver is a close second.


A book you love:
I love The Stranger by Camus, as well as The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

What is the most interesting thing about you?
People are often surprised to hear that I was born and raised in Brooklyn.

What achievement are you most proud of?
I am most proud of learning to love and listen to myself. It sounds so corny, but it's really true.


What advice would you give women starting their own business?
Seek out your local small business association! I took a number of business start-up classes and the majority was either free or cheap. They are an excellent resource.

What's the biggest challenge you face in your work?
Time! Glass fusing is a lot of hurry up and wait… It can take up to eight hours for a single dish to cool properly.


What do you love to do in your free time?
Fuse glass! I also love bad television, cooking, sewing and traveling.

What are you working on right now?
I’m working on quite a few sushi sets, as well as earrings and bracelets, which are both kind of underrepresented in my shop right now.


What do you hope to achieve next?
I’d like to hit 100 items on Etsy in the next few months, and I always think about incorporating soft goods into my shop as I’m also an avid seamstress. We'll have to see, though – I feel overwhelmed sometimes as it is, but I really wouldn’t have it any other way!

Nectar Jewelry Designs ... Pennsylvania, USA

Your name: Sharon Fiorini
Your business name: Nectar Jewelry Designs
Your web site: nectarjewelry.etsy.com
Your location: Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA

What do you create?
Jewelry – sterling silver, polymer clay, and a combination of both sometimes.


Where and when do you do your creative work?
I work at a tiny jeweler's bench in my living room. Since I work full-time and have a family, I create when I can fit it in – usually late at night and on the weekends.

Do you have another "day job"?
I'm also a graphic designer during the day.


Where and what did you study?
I was an art major in college concentrating on printmaking and sculpture. I think that now that I'm doing jewelry, with some of the techniques I use, I'm combining both of those areas of concentrations, just on a much smaller level than I had in the past.


Where do you find inspiration?
I find inspiration in looking more closely at things. I want people to notice the fine details in my work. It's kind of my motto regarding people – don't judge by looking too quickly. Notice who they are, not just what they look like. I like to concentrate on kind of the hard outer shell but there's so much more if you look inside.

What motivates you?
What motivates me is a need to create. If it was painting as a child, drawing, sculpture, papermaking, printmaking, photography, graphic design or jewelry.


When did you start doing this?
I actually started doing jewelry only about 4 years ago when I was pregnant with my son. I started with stringing beads, graduated to wire-wrapping (I did a lot of that), and now I've moved on to metal and more of a mixed media technique when I also use polymer within my metal designs.

Do you remember getting into art as a kid?
Yes! I used to draw on the floor of my parent's basement with glue. They loved that!


When and why did you decide to start your own business?
As I started to do wire-wrapping, I was wearing my jewelry. People were noticing it. So I would bring it in to work and I would also have jewelry parties.

How did you choose the name for your business?
You know, I don't even remember. I think I saw a commercial on TV, Nectar popped into my head and that was it.


What do you love most about creating your work?
I love every aspect of it. When I'm at my day job, I'm constantly sketching new ideas. I have tons of Post-its and pieces of paper with drawings on them of designs I'd like to create. I love the challenge of creating that design that I first saw in my head. And I love that people seem to really like my jewelry – that they find it unique and new and beautiful.

What's the most fascinating place you've been?
I haven't travelled all that much, but I'd have to say that I love San Francisco and NYC.


A book you love:
With my day job, my family, my jewelry, and Etsy, there's no time left to read. I think the last book I read was Night by Elie Wiesel. But mostly, I'm reading books to my son.

What is the most interesting thing about you?
Hmmm, it's maybe not the most interesting but I'm actually pretty shy until I get to know people. I think that's where my inspiration comes from. People sometimes tend to misread shyness as arrogance. I'm totally the opposite – I'm extremely down to earth.


What achievement are you most proud of?
I'm most proud of the fact that I have learned jewelry making completely on my own. Of course, I'm always striving to learn new techniques. There's so much out there!


What advice would you give women starting their own business?
Don't settle and don't give up. If someone tells you they're not interested in your business, keep trying and striving. Listen to your instincts regarding business opportunities. If your instincts are telling you that something doesn't feel right, listen to it. And market, market, market. It's tough out there. You need to keep getting your name and your craft out to the public. I'm always working on that.


What's the biggest challenge you face in your work?
My biggest challenge is finding time to create.

What do you love to do in your free time?
Free time? What's that?


What are you working on right now?
I'm working on a new line of jewelry – mostly sterling. But it doesn't involve soldering at all. I'm trying to find new ways to attach and join using my little "pins". It's always about the details with my jewelry.

What do you hope to achieve next?
I really hope to have my jewelry take off so I can give up the day job. Jewelry is my love, my obsession, my creative outlet. It's what I need to do.

Fabrications ... Illinois, USA

Artist: Mary Laskey
Business: Fabrications
Web sites: marstinia.etsy.com and www.fabrications.net
Location: Chicago, Illinois

What do you create?
I work primarily with copper and silver to create art jewelry and small dishes with kiln-fired glass enamel designs.


What is involved in enameling?
Enameling is the process of firing finely ground pigmented glass onto metal in a kiln. It is an ancient process that can be traced to ancient Byzantine times. It was quite popular in the the US as a hobby craft in the 1950s and 1960s, but has since become something of a lost art that not many people are familiar with.


My glass enamel designs are created on copper or fine silver with multiple layers of different colors of glass enamel powder and require a series of firings (three to six on average, sometimes more). My kiln is quite small so each piece is fired individually, not in batches like ceramics.

The glass enamels I work with are ground to the consistency of powdered sugar. I apply the glass powders to the metal surface by using small sifters and sifting on an even layer of enamel, then I fire it in an electric kiln at 1500 degrees Farenheit. A firing usually takes about 2 to 6 minutes depending on the size of the metal piece. The powdered glass granules melt and fuse together to create a glossy solid layer of glass which is fused permanently to the metal base.


Where and when do you do your creative work?
I share a studio space on the north side of Chicago with my husband, Grant, who is an artist and photographer. When possible, I generally spend my evenings and weekends in the studio. I also have a work room at home where I can assemble and finish pieces. There are so many hats to wear when you have a business that it seems like I'm almost always thinking about some aspect of my work.


Do you have another "day job"?
Presently I work during the day as a digital production artist for a large Euro Design home furnishings company.

Where and what did you study?
I have a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art) in Photography from University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. I also spent a year studying abroad, doing Visual Studies at Oxford Polytechnic in Oxford, England.


What inspires you and what motivates you?
I'm super attracted to mid-century modern designs 1950s-70s, so I'm really in my element with all kinds of mod stuff being back in style! I especially love the space-age and futuristic designs of those eras. I also love looking at nature and often find organic themes to incorporate into my work, especially textures and patterns one finds in plants, flowers, pods and the like. In the realm of art, I'm most inspired by the work of Alexander Calder, Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miro, Barbara Hepworth and June Schwarcz.


When did you start doing this?
I started making jewelry in 1990. I became a full-time metalsmith and enamelist in 1998.

Do you remember getting into art as a kid?
I have always loved art projects, drawing and making things at a very young age. I still have a little quilt that my mother helped me sew when I was five years old. It's made from fabrics that my grandmother used to make clothes for my sister, brother and me.


When and why did you decide to start your own business?
I've always loved jewelry and have a large collection of costume jewelry. When I meet people, I have a bad habit of noticing what jewelry they are wearing before I register anything else about them. I started making my own jewelry for fun just after I graduated from college. I didn't have any training at all, so I recycled vintage jewelry and reused the beads to make my own pieces. I would wear my creations to work and some of my co-workers liked them so much that I began to sell my jewelry to them from time to time.


I quit my full-time job in 1996 to become a freelancer and have more time for my own creative projects. I took a one-day enameling workshop at a local art center and totally fell in love with the process. I also started taking metalsmithing classes. I met several people there who were artists successfully selling their jewelry at art fairs. I was inspired by them to try it myself. In 1998, I launched a website and my business, Fabrications. I've been extremely fortunate to have tremendous support from my family and friends and as well as some very loyal customers.


How did you choose the name for your business?
One of the definitions of the word fabrication is to construct or manufacture something made of metal. I also frequently imprint fabric textures onto my metal pieces to add texture, so there a sort of play on words involved.


What do you love most about creating your work?
Some of my best designs have just popped into my head, out of the blue. I love it when that
kind of spontaneity happens. Also, enameling is often quite unpredictable – I never know exactly what's going to come out of the kiln. I guess you could say that I love surprises! I've always enjoyed working with my hands, and there is just so much basic satisfaction in creating things.


What's the most fascinating place you've been?
I know I should say someplace exotic... and I've been to some fantastic places: Peru, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico. I love to travel, but there are so many distractions that I feel like I can't really get to know a place unless I spend a lot of time there. So truthfully, some of my favorite places to go are rather mundane. My favorite haunt at the moment is a prairie meadow near where I work. There are walking trails through it and I go there almost every day because it's different every day – new plants growing or blooming, different birds, animals and insects. There are constant changes and shifts in light, cloud patterns, sounds and smells. I
love it there because I feel like I can recapture the curiosity that you have as a child, when everything around you is fascinating and you can spend hours playing in a puddle.


A book you love: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

What is the most interesting thing about you?
I don't think of myself as a mystic, but I once had an out of the body experience. I was about five years old and I was running down the stairs at a neighbor's house and I tripped over a vacuum cleaner that had been left on the stairs and tumbled headlong down to the bottom. As I was falling, for a split second I was also standing at the bottom of the stairs watching myself
fall, as though the momentum of the fall actually carried me out of my body briefly. Luckily, I wasn't hurt, but that is probably the most bizarre thing that has ever happened to me. I think that experience has made a lasting impression on me.


What achievement are you most proud of?
I'm very proud of running my own business and doing what I love for nine years.

What advice would you give women starting their own business?
Always be confident and optimistic – especially when you're unsure of yourself. Positive qualities attract positive reactions from other people and will reinforce your goals.


What's the biggest challenge you face in your work?
Keeping up with the flow of ideas. I can't always drop what I'm doing to work on a new idea at the moment it occurs to me, so I always make sketches and notes about new designs or ideas, so I can revisit them when time allows. My sketchbooks are a great source of inspiration when I feel like I'm in a rut.

What do you love to do in your free time?
Take nature walks or hikes, ride my bike, play tennis, ski (if there's snow), read, take pictures, watch old movies with ridiculously naïve plots, spend time with Grant and our spoiled cockatiel, Sprout, and our families and friends.


What are you working on right now?
I'm working on a completely new line of jewelry pieces that combine my two of my favorite things: color and texture. The new pieces will have brightly colored geometric enamel shapes and mixed metal pieces that have a lot of hammered texture. I'm really enjoying the interplay of the geometric and organic qualities.


What do you hope to achieve next?
Besides having a clean house and a great summer, I'd really like to start a website or a blog about enameling. It's a wonderful process that deserves more recognition and I think it's overdue for a revival. There are many marvelous artists out there working with glass enamel and creating the next wave.