How I Became A Goldsmith (and how you can too!)

one of the most common questions that I get about being a goldsmith is how did you get into that line of work so this video I'm going to be covering two things the first is how exactly I personally got into goldsmithing and the second is going to be my advice for anyone who is interested in pursuing a career in goldsmith thing so there are certainly many paths to becoming a goldsmith there's not just one right way but I would say there is one way to rule them all you take a journey through Mordor the way that I got into goldsmithing was back in 2001 I was just a young spring chicken and I got a call from an extended family member and he's a goldsmith and he asked me hey Jordan would you like to come work for me as a polisher so after three years of working as a polisher I graduated high school and I moved away I took a hiatus a couple years later I was out living with my friends in a college town going to school part-time sort of living the dream if you will and my family member reached back out to me and said hey how would you feel about working for me full-time as an apprentice I'll never forget I was writing in the car that my brother kind of like going through the pros and cons and I specifically remember him saying he's handing you this career on a silver platter you have to take it you know he was totally right I was able to start learning more of the actual trade of goldsmithing out of sighs a ring how to tighten a stone how to straighten prongs how to solder rings together how to do chain repairs after doing that apprenticeship for a while I decided to move back to where my friends were because I'm like in my early 20s at this point and I was feeling like I was missing out on life you know kind of naively thinking that so I moved back and I was eventually able to land another apprenticeship so I guess the whole apprenticeship years is what I would call them was about four to five years so in total I was able to apprentice under three different master Goldsmith's it was truly an invaluable experience to be able to learn from them one on one and eventually the time came where I had all the skills necessary to go out on my own so from 2012 to 2016 I was starting my own business doing primarily jewelry repair for large corporations around 2016 I officially changed my name to modern goldsmith and I decided that I wanted to take on the more artistic side of gold summiting which was more custom work I really started to get more satisfaction out of not doing the routine sizings day in and day out rather building something from scratch working more with people to create like engagement rings or custom jewelry that was sentimental so yeah now I'm happy to report that it is I'm going into year 8 of being my own boss being at goldsmith and working for people all over the world doing custom jewelry and honestly I love my job so now I'm going to cover the second part of the video which is talking about how someone can get into goldsmithing I always tell people it's a good idea to get your feet wet a little bit goldsmithing equipment is very expensive to set up a bench it requires room to do that so the best thing you can possibly do to kind of feel it out is to take a class if one is available to you I actually took a jewelry making class at a college it wasn't like the best of the best as far as materials are concerned but you're able to do casting and you have your own little workbench and there's an instructor there that knows a lot about you know jewelry making taking a class is a really good option and if you're willing to travel there's actually a lot of different bench classes or I guess bench jeweler classes all around the country in the United States at least in other parts of the world and it can be either like a week-long course where you can kind of just feel it out or you can you know do something a little bit longer maybe like a three month course like during a summer and there's also actual jewelry schools that you can go to so you know learn as much as you can on someone else's equipment is my first piece of advice I would give one of the apprenticeships I got was actually just showing up unannounced to a jewelry store and just expressing my desire to work for this individual and if you just kind of show these Goldsmith's that you are eager to learn and that you are ready to work a lot of times these people have a need for help so you can at least kind of get in get your foot in the door kind of like I did with being a polisher and you can just learn from there be willing to make sacrifices I moved around a bunch for these jewelry jobs I was able to sacrifice you know some of my time with my friends to go work on you know learning the skills necessary to make this my career and it certainly wasn't easy at the time but looking back now it's obviously like one of the best decisions I made was to be willing to travel somewhere another thing you might have to be willing to do is to work in less ideal situations just try to find any opportunity one of my first jewelry jobs I ended up getting paid like diddly-squat it was like five dollars and something an hour and it was just absolutely atrocious but I was just happy to be there and I thought well if I'm not going to be getting paid well as far as like monetary payment I'm going to ask this person as many questions as I can and to try to get my and my hands-on experience on as many pieces of jewelry as I can so that way I'm like kind of making up for it and skill because the more skill you have the more desirable you are to potential employers and the more money you can make the last piece of advice I would give is to just be patient when it comes to finding a jewelry position it can be quite discouraging to be asking around for a jewelry job and no one's taking you in I guess however patience is very key and persistence there was one opportunity I had it literally took me a whole year to get the position and that was at a company called Jared's the gallery of jewelry it can only beat you you know so they had an apprenticeship position at Jared's and I had gone in there and there was four Goldsmith's that were working in this huge shop and I was just looking through the glass window and saying how awesome it would be to work there and the manager he was super nice guy he said man I really wish I could hire you but we only have you know for Goldsmith's working here you know once a position opens up I'll be sure to let you know and I just kept going back honestly and I hated it I seriously hated it because I hate being intrusive it was so hard to just sit there in the parking lot in my car kind of building up my my courage to go walk back in to the jewelry store and I wasn't doing it like every week but I was probably checking in every you know every other month each time I just kind of say hi I also ended up writing a cover letter that explained why I'd be good for the position and it literally took a whole year it was like a few days before Christmas and I get this call early morning saying a position had opened up and there was actually a lot of other people that had wanted to jump on that position but because I was so persistent over that full year the the manager just felt like I was the best candidate for the job and it totally paid off and I was so is so rewarding that's the the advice I would give is to be patient and persistent and if you do have a true desire to do this as a career there will be an opportunity for you you can find a way to do it it might require travel it might require you know a little bit of monetary investment but there is always a way to learn a trade if you are willing to put forth the effort I'm always here if you have any questions at all about becoming a goldsmith and someday hopefully I can bring some of these people into my shop which will be a little bit bigger than this and we can make some custom jewelry until then I'm Jordan this is modern Goldsmith and I'll see you in the next video [Music] [Music]

Channel: Modern Goldsmith

Views: 41,752

Rating: 4.9597182 out of 5

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Id: iArE5KrXfIM

Length: 8min 24sec (504 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 06 2020