This Creative Life

Anytime I launch a new collection of pieces (hint hint), I love sharing little tidbits of the process with you… and what the ups and downs of being a creative are like. It’s such an interesting, challenging and fulfilling process… all at once.

I often get asked what my favorite part of being a designer is. For me, it’s surely the creative design process – the part where I sit down, put pen to paper, and sketch and sketch and sketch.

When I’m in the studio by myself, there’s something about the quiet that allows my brain to flick on… well, on a good day anyway. This is part of the ebbs and flows of being a designer. I sometimes wonder what really turns the creativity on and off. To be honest, I’m usually driving or in the shower when my best ideas come to me… when there’s no sketchbook that I can easily grab (doh). What I’ve found is that the more consistent I am with my solo studio time, the more likely that the good ideas can actually come to life. It’s a crap shoot sometimes, but I keep pushing forward whether I’ve got new ideas or not. I like to call it the creativity roller coaster… you’ve gotta stay on and just keep riding.

As much as I sketch, we’ve got to take it to the studio and start testing the design ideas. Sometimes what I think to be my greatest ideas don’t end up working out the way I had envisioned, or they’re not successful from a production standpoint. Running a jewelry production company, I do need to make sure that not only each design is beautiful, but that it can be created well (and fairly easily) by every member of my production team. Luckily, I have a pretty talented bunch.