Thank you for this! It’s so important to have more open and honest conversations about what it looks like to be a working artist and grateful to you for creating the space to do just that.
I cannot with how gorgeous these earrings are. They're simultaneously contemporary and rooted in fundamental shapes and ideas. I know what I want for my birthday (in two months, lol) now.
I had been waiting for this interview! I have bought around 4 sets of Irene’s jewelry (for my sister, mom, and most recently for myself when my husband and I eloped last year). They are beautiful pieces and reading about her story and process makes me want to purchase another -- not for the consumerism of it all, but because each piece is so distinctly beautiful and makes me want to have a little piece of history + industry wherever I go! Thank you Anne Helen for being the one to put me on to these earrings over a year ago ❤️
"I am not here to persuade anyone to buy my work. I am here to make it available if my work speaks to you." - thank you both for the interview. Helpful to witness the balancing art & making a living with integrity 🙏🏻
Beautiful story. There's something very special about a love letter to a friend or family member and giving that person a chance to share their story in a forum defined primarily by care and support. It helped me at least see this artist through quite a special lens. One of my family members is a jeweler from this generation and it makes me so happy to see an independent female jeweler's story elevated, not least given how the domain shot through with patriarchal landmines (e.g., the boy's club of the diamond district; the stereotype of jewelry as the trophy wife vanity career, etc.).
I'm late to commenting on this and probably everyone has moved on but I don't want to let this go by without really acknowledging HOW MUCH WORK it is to maintain a creative business. I appreciate that AHP has shined a light on the *work* part of creative work. If you look back where Irene describes the over-a-dozen tasks she does in a typical month, only 2 of them are creating! The rest are the tedious but necessary parts of running a business: marketing, accounting, order fulfillment, sourcing supplies, social media, public speaking and events, and on and on. If this were a bigger company, there would be teams of people with specific expertise doing all this.
I'm highlighting this because I'm living it (to be clear, on a very much smaller scale than Irene) - having discovered well into midlife that I am a creative person and started making jewelry. Even as a very small etsy seller, the same challenges exist. This is so well-put: "I wanted to think more about the labor and balance and consideration that goes into the creation of her art — the business-of-Instagram side, the integration-with-the-rest-of-her-life side, the compulsion-to-keep-creating side." At one point, I was so consumed by trying to figure out the mysteries of the etsy and instagram algorithms that I went weeks without creating anything and became an unhappy person in the process. (I went back to creating, and still haven't solved for the rest.)
I'm so happy that Irene has figured out a way through that works for her - her work is gorgeous!
The Just Trust Me… I’m suddenly aching for that “band hall” feeling. The weird carpet smell, the acoustic panels and metal instrument cages, familiar stickers and sweatshirts strewn about, dog-earred practice books and racks of metal stands that are always inconveniently placed. The sense of safety and borderline zen in that space was magic to me growing up. The spirit of Christmas could not compare to band, and it’s an impossible community and mindset to recreate as an adult outside a legitimate cult, and even then, I’m convinced it would fall short or I would’ve joined one by now (although I was a Hamilfan for a long while, that was close).
I feel the urge to make a pilgrimage to my high school to just sit in the quiet of that sanctuary and give thanks for what it gave me.
I have 2 holes in each ear that I have let mostly close up (I think I could re-open them by jamming some studs through myself though) since my early-20s. Earrings have seemed pointless to me, personally, for at least 20 years because if they're bigger than studs, my hair will get tangled, if they're studs nobody/not even myself will see them anyway, so...? How do other people deal with this? (I don't ever really wear my hair pinned up, so it isn't like earrings would work on specific hairstyle days.)
Thank you for this! It’s so important to have more open and honest conversations about what it looks like to be a working artist and grateful to you for creating the space to do just that.
I cannot with how gorgeous these earrings are. They're simultaneously contemporary and rooted in fundamental shapes and ideas. I know what I want for my birthday (in two months, lol) now.
I had been waiting for this interview! I have bought around 4 sets of Irene’s jewelry (for my sister, mom, and most recently for myself when my husband and I eloped last year). They are beautiful pieces and reading about her story and process makes me want to purchase another -- not for the consumerism of it all, but because each piece is so distinctly beautiful and makes me want to have a little piece of history + industry wherever I go! Thank you Anne Helen for being the one to put me on to these earrings over a year ago ❤️
"I am not here to persuade anyone to buy my work. I am here to make it available if my work speaks to you." - thank you both for the interview. Helpful to witness the balancing art & making a living with integrity 🙏🏻
Her work reminds me so much of another jewelry artist I love, David Aubrey!
I loved the band room article too! I sent it to my high school band teacher (who I’m still in close contact with more than 15 years later)
Really enjoyed reading this. Thank you.
Beautiful story. There's something very special about a love letter to a friend or family member and giving that person a chance to share their story in a forum defined primarily by care and support. It helped me at least see this artist through quite a special lens. One of my family members is a jeweler from this generation and it makes me so happy to see an independent female jeweler's story elevated, not least given how the domain shot through with patriarchal landmines (e.g., the boy's club of the diamond district; the stereotype of jewelry as the trophy wife vanity career, etc.).
I'm late to commenting on this and probably everyone has moved on but I don't want to let this go by without really acknowledging HOW MUCH WORK it is to maintain a creative business. I appreciate that AHP has shined a light on the *work* part of creative work. If you look back where Irene describes the over-a-dozen tasks she does in a typical month, only 2 of them are creating! The rest are the tedious but necessary parts of running a business: marketing, accounting, order fulfillment, sourcing supplies, social media, public speaking and events, and on and on. If this were a bigger company, there would be teams of people with specific expertise doing all this.
I'm highlighting this because I'm living it (to be clear, on a very much smaller scale than Irene) - having discovered well into midlife that I am a creative person and started making jewelry. Even as a very small etsy seller, the same challenges exist. This is so well-put: "I wanted to think more about the labor and balance and consideration that goes into the creation of her art — the business-of-Instagram side, the integration-with-the-rest-of-her-life side, the compulsion-to-keep-creating side." At one point, I was so consumed by trying to figure out the mysteries of the etsy and instagram algorithms that I went weeks without creating anything and became an unhappy person in the process. (I went back to creating, and still haven't solved for the rest.)
I'm so happy that Irene has figured out a way through that works for her - her work is gorgeous!
The Just Trust Me… I’m suddenly aching for that “band hall” feeling. The weird carpet smell, the acoustic panels and metal instrument cages, familiar stickers and sweatshirts strewn about, dog-earred practice books and racks of metal stands that are always inconveniently placed. The sense of safety and borderline zen in that space was magic to me growing up. The spirit of Christmas could not compare to band, and it’s an impossible community and mindset to recreate as an adult outside a legitimate cult, and even then, I’m convinced it would fall short or I would’ve joined one by now (although I was a Hamilfan for a long while, that was close).
I feel the urge to make a pilgrimage to my high school to just sit in the quiet of that sanctuary and give thanks for what it gave me.
I have 2 holes in each ear that I have let mostly close up (I think I could re-open them by jamming some studs through myself though) since my early-20s. Earrings have seemed pointless to me, personally, for at least 20 years because if they're bigger than studs, my hair will get tangled, if they're studs nobody/not even myself will see them anyway, so...? How do other people deal with this? (I don't ever really wear my hair pinned up, so it isn't like earrings would work on specific hairstyle days.)