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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Overworked, underpaid and happy


I have been killing myself lately with work. I have been working seven days a week since the beginning of February to keep up with things, with the exception of one three day weekend in New York (to see my wildly successful artist son who I am so, so proud of and to visit my parents as well) and I am so exhausted. But you know something, I truly love what I do. I really enjoy the fact that the pieces I make are so important to so many people for so many different reasons. I really don't make jewelry anymore, I make memories; and that is something that means so much more to me than just making jewelry. Whether it is an engagement ring that commits you to your significant other for a future together, a wedding band that signifies your undying love for each other, or even just a custom pair of earrings that represent your love and gratitude for what another person in your life has done for you or means to you; what I create with my poor, bruised hands means something. And that makes me happy. Admittedly I try to make memories that are well made and last you for a lifetime but isn't that what memories are?

I also really enjoy the fact that I still actually MAKE jewelry. With MY hands. Using techniques that go back thousands of years in some cases. This is what I offer my customers and hope that they love.

As always, as you know, I am going somewhere with this. I recently had a very nice young gentleman come in and place an order for my currently best selling ring (which I have mentioned before and can be seen at the top of the page). He asked me if I would be willing to take pictures of the piece in progress. I agreed because, after all, my job is to please and he had explained to me that he was making a photo book that he could present to his fiancee with the ring. I'm not a great photographer, but hey, I have a new phone having finally stepped up into the smart phone market (and yes I would highly recommend the Motorola Atrix that I got)and I figured I could use it to take pictures with. So I basically took a photo after every soldering/setting action that I took. I made an attempt to post it here on the blog but for some reason the system would not allow me to get the photos in order no matter how much time I spent trying (2 hours in fact). But my customer put it together into this very cool book that is available on line and then gave me permission to allow you all to see it (after he proposed of course). As seems to have always happened with a Daniel Spirer ring, she said yes (I swear it's the rings that really make them say yes!!!)and I can now direct you to the link for the really spectacular book that he created here. The final pictures of the finished piece were taken by the customer. It was an 18k palladium white gold version of the ring.

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