So You Want To Be A Jewelry Designer: Merging Your Voice With Form

SO YOU WANT TO BE A JEWELRY DESIGNER

You make jewelry. That is what you do.

But when you think jewelry and speak jewelry and work jewelry, this is what you have become. This is your purpose.

Becoming a Jewelry Designer is exciting. With each piece, you are challenged with this profound question: Why does some jewelry draw people’s attention, and others do not? When designers turn to how-to books or art theory texts, however, these do not uncover the necessary answers. They do not show you how to make trade-offs between beauty and function. Nor how to introduce your pieces publicly. You get insufficient practical guidance about knowing when your piece is finished and successful. In short, you do not learn about design. You do not learn the essentials about how to go beyond basic mechanics, anticipate the wearer’s understandings and desires, or gain management control over the process.

So You Want To Be A Jewelry Designer reinterprets how to apply techniques and modify art theories from the Jewelry Designer’s perspective. This very detailed book, by jewelry designer Warren S. Feld, reveals how to become literate and fluent in jewelry design.

The major topics covered include,
1. Jewelry Beyond Craft: Gaining A Disciplinary Literacy and Fluency in Design
2. Getting Started
3. What Is Jewelry, Really?
4. Materials, Techniques and Technologies
5. Rules of Composition, Construction and Manipulation
Design Elements
Color, Point, Line, Plane, Shape, Form, Theme
Architectural Basics
6. Design Management
7. Introducing Your Designs Publicly
8. Developing Those Intuitive Skills Within: Creativity, Inspiration and Aspiration,
Passion
9. Jewelry In Context: Contemporary Jewelry, Fashion, Taste, Style, Cognition,
Sexuality, Self-Care
10.Teaching Disciplinary Literacy In Jewelry Design

For Warren Feld, Jewelry Designer, (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com), beading and jewelry making have been wonderful adventures. These adventures have taken Warren from the basics of bead stringing and bead weaving, to pearl knotting, micro-macrame, wire working, wire weaving and silversmithing, and onward to more complex jewelry designs which build on the strengths of a full range of technical skills and experiences. What excites Warren is finding answers to such questions as: - What does it mean to be fluent and literate in design?- What are the implications for defining jewelry as an object versus as an intent?- Why does some jewelry draw your attention, and others do not?- How does jewelry design differ from art or craft?- How do you judge a piece as finished and successful?In 2000, Warren founded The Center for Beadwork & Jewelry Arts (CBJA) as the educational program for Be Dazzled Beads-Land of Odds in Nashville, Tennessee. The program approaches education from a Design Perspective. There is a strong focus on skills development. There is a major emphasis on teaching how to make better choices when selecting beads, other parts and stringing materials, and how to bring these altogether into a beautiful, yet functional, piece of jewelry. There are requirements for sequencing classes - that is, taking classes in a developmental order. His pieces have appeared in beading and jewelry magazines and books, including Perlen Posie (Gwynian Ropes Bracelet, No. 21, 2014), Showcase 500 Beaded Jewelry (Little Tapestries: Ghindia, Lark Publications, 2012). One piece (Canyon Sunrise), which won 4th place in Swarovski's Naturally Inspired Competition (2008), is in the Swarovski museum in Innsbruck, Austria. His work has been written up in The Beader's Guide to Jewelry Design (Margie Deeb, Lark Publications, 2014). He has been a faculty member at CraftArtEdu.com, developing video tutorials. He has been selected as an instructor for the Bead & Button Show, June, 2019, teaching 3 pieces - Japanese Garden Bracelet, Etruscan Square Stitch Bracelet, and ColorBlock Bracelet. In March 2020, Warren led a travel-enrichment program on Celebrity Cruise Lines, centered on jewelry making, beginning with a cruise from Miami to Cozumel and Key West.Personal style: multi-method, intricate color play, adaptive of traditions to contemporary design, experimental.Owner, Be Dazzled Beads in Nashville, and Land of Odds (https: //www.landofodds.com) (https: //www.landofodds.com ). He is probably best known for creating the international The Ugly Necklace Contest, where good jewelry designers attempt to overcome our pre-wired brains' fear response for resisting anything Ugly. He has also sponsored All Dolled Up: Beaded Art Doll Competition and The Illustrative Beader: Beaded Tapestry Competition.