FLUENCY IN JEWELRY DESIGN: Essential Questions

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS ABOUT JEWELRY DESIGN WORTH ANSWERING

As you work your way through the chapters in this book, it is important to recognize and understand the larger social and professional contexts within which jewelry design is but a part, and your place in it. Towards this end, I have formulated some essential questions every designer needs to have answers for and have deeper understandings about. Another way to look at this is that answers to these questions become your evidence for determining whether you are on the right track for becoming fluent in jewelry design.

(1) Why are there disciplinary conflicts between art and craft, and between art and design?

(2) How do you resolve tensions between aesthetics and functionality within an object like jewelry?

(3) What is jewelry, and what is it for?

(4) Is jewelry necessary?

(5) What does it mean to be successful as a jewelry artist working today?

(6) What does it mean to think like a jewelry designer? How does this differ from thinking like an artist or thinking like a craftsperson?

(7) How does the jewelry designer know when a piece is finished and successful?

(8) How do you place a value on a piece of jewelry?

(9) How do you introduce your jewelry into a public setting, either to wear or to collect or to buy?