Each year in January and February, people gather in Tucson, Arizona to buy and sell beads, gems, and other treasures from around the world. There are over 40 shows in different venues across the city, all with their own flavor. To me, the experience feels like part shopping adventure, learning experience, and family reunion. While I was in Tucson, I caught up with Lenka Bindzar, the owner of Raven's Journey, who has been traveling to Tucson to sell Czech glass beads for the past two decades. Show Notes can be found here: https://www.interweave.com/jewelry-artist-podcast/treasures-in-tucson-len ..read more

Jewelry Artist is a new podcast series about the art and business of making jewelry. In each episode, Katie Hacker will talk with jewelry experts about how they select and use tools, materials, and techniques. This first season will cover everything from studio practices, creativity, marketing,  making multiple streams of income from your art, and more. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices ..read more

“I should have been a business major!” Kate Richbourg was recently out of college and facing the classic artist’s dilemma. As she tells host Katie Hacker, Kate realized she needed a way of pursuing what she loved without living so close to the economic edge. Trying new things, she discovered that jewelry brought out her creativity best. Today Kate is well known in the bead and metal communities for both her inspiring lessons and designs. Her instructor persona is driven to explore the newest technologies for teaching, while the artist is more laid back, taking pleasure in vintage styles and&nb ..read more

We originally released this episode in August 2020, but the topic is more relevant than ever.  Katie Hacker speaks with Carrie Cleveland, Education and Outreach Manager for the Craft Emergency Relief Fund. The artist’s safety net for over 35 years, CERF+ launched its special Covid-19 response earlier last summer with one-time $1,000 grants for urgent needs. Find out more about its Covid program, its longstanding emergency relief, and its more recent focus on preparedness. Learn how CERF+ can help you now and help you manage better in the future – and how it’s probably easier than you thin ..read more

Known for his stunning jewelry designs featuring rough diamonds, innovative artisan jeweler Todd Reed has been redefining luxury and championing ethical sourcing throughout his career. Turning the notion of fine jewelry on its head, he is drawn to these uncut, unpolished diamond crystals for the quirkiness of their personalities. From the perfect simplicity of a single cube to a busy crystal cluster bristling with different shapes, he finds raw diamonds fascinating and provocative. He also loves the challenge of creating cus ..read more

Seeing nature’s treasures in their natural environments, never before seen by another human, is an amazing privilege, crystal and fossil hunter John Cornish relates. It can also be a little oasis of calm and refreshment anyone can enjoy or remember when life’s craziness gets to be too much. Join host Katie Hacker for this upbeat and down-to-earth exploration of the mineral kingdom with this consummate collector. Hear how John’s passion for rocks has grown into his life’s work and a passion for sharing his own excitement, wonder, and knowledge with others. Go outside and look, he  ..read more

Prized for its blues, greens, and ever-varying patterns of distinctive matrix, turquoise is among the most popular of gemstones and has been for thousands of years. Think turquoise today, and Native American jewelry comes quickly to mind — and vice versa. Join host Katie Hacker for an exploration into these iconic treasures of the American Southwest with veteran fan and trader Pete Leyba. Pete has spent a lifetime in and around New Mexico in the jewelry business, soaking up knowledge of it all along the way. Listen in for tales of turquoise mining, trading, and jewelry making past and present ..read more

Sarah Cathcart hand fashions elaborate and arresting leather masks one at a time, an art that grew out of her experience as a theatrical costume designer. But, she tells host Katie Hacker, “Masks are so niche — or were until 2020,” she adds wryly. “Sort of face jewelry, but not something you’d wear too much.” So she drew upon her favorite medium and “hodgepodge magpie collection of skills” to produce handmade jewelry you’d wear more often, too. Hear what inspires this self-proclaimed “Renaissance Faire nerd” to create her extravagantly hand-tooled and hand-pa ..read more

It’s the challenge of making that interests Robert Lopez and drives him toward ever bigger and bolder jewelry designs. He thrives on figuring out the engineering of complex pieces, and sometimes develops his own tools to meet his particular needs. That’s today, but while teaching himself metalsmithing he used whatever was at hand: a construction hammer or a plumber’s torch, learning to make what he wanted however he could. Although he’s since discovered purpose-made jewelry tools (“a whole new world!”), his early need to learn on his own still serves him well. Listen in wit ..read more

Listen in with host Katie Hacker as artisan jewelry entrepreneur Kristen Baird shares her secret to success. The minute she learned about the Red Backpack Fund, she started her application, completed it that day, and became one of the first to be awarded a $5,000 grant. When Covid-19 hit, she’d already been improving her online infrastructure, then invested her award into making it easier to pivot from storefront to virtual business. Now she’s tapping in especially to the trend in repurposing heirloom jewels, a rewarding but challenging niche that depends on upfront, detailed communication wit ..read more