This is the question I start with when I think about marketing. I hate marketing, it is very difficult for me. Marketing is relentless and using my income as a judge , I am lousy at it.
As you may have suspected I will now try to answer my question with out seeming too self serving. That is why marketing is so difficult for me, I don’t want to SEEM to be self serving. I want to be above that. I am not above that and need to figure out a way to tell the reasons why I make the jewelry that I make in a way that I feel comfortable.
I have decided that jewelry is important, I used to think jewelry was frosting on the cake and frivolous. Being an avid lover of history and having the 3 generation perspective on my family’s work I wanted to know why people thought jewelry was important. Fashion is important not just as a way for a people to define themselves at a distance but, as an industry. Art is important as a historical record and refuge from everyday life among other reasons. Jewelry as an art is perhaps the most personal art. My jewelry is worn and has to function on a human body ( in my opinion) , it tells a story, it defines a fashion, it has value more than it’s intrinsic value in it’s emotional value and it is fun and fun is important.
Now that I have defined why jewelry in general is important, for myself, why would my jewelry be picked by someone to spend their hard earned money on? I make my jewelry with a definite point of view. I cannot describe to you what that point of view is except to point to my body of work and let you see for yourself. I often will ask a perspective client to look at my portfolio to see if they like my work and will steer them to other craftspersons if they seem to want something I won’t do. I don’t do everything in jewelry and I don’t pretend to. For someone to even come to my studio or to ask one of my galleries to pull a piece of my work out of the show case to seriously look at takes a level of trust. Trust in the gallery and trust in me as an artist. My work has intrinsic value in materials. My work has been tested over time as far as artistic merit. Artistic merit has been granted to me by the Smithsonian, Tucson Museum of Art and many collectors. Without artistic merit my work is worth scrap value which is less than market value for any of the materials.
So to concisely answer my own question, artistic merit which I have gained over time adds value to my work and is interesting to clients and potential clients. The idea that they are the only one who owns that piece, not a duplicate of that piece, is also very attractive. I, as an artist, have a short time to produce work and the time for a client to be able to obtain my work during my lifetime is finite. Many of the materials I choose to work with are rare. My work is pretty and distinct and won’t need repair anytime soon.
There , I feel better, now buy some of my work, would ya?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I own jewelry by your grandfather, your father and pieces by you that are influenced by both or are strictly your designs. My answer to “Why…” is tandem in the following order – design and quality of workmanship with quality of workmanship sealing the deal. Regardless whether I like a design, I know you ALWAYS deliver on quality of construction and for that reason alone I highly recommend people commission work from you. The perquisite of following your work is I am introduced to new designs. In that respect, I am challenged to open my mind, expand my tastes, and consider the tastes of others. When all is said and done, I ask myself regarding my Sam Patania jewelry, “How long will the novelty last?” Or put another way, “Will I always be thrilled to open my jewelry box and see the jewelry you created?” Like your grandfather’s timeless and enchantingly designed 50 year-old bracelet I recently acquired, I will say, “If I last another 50 years, I will still be enchanted by your creations.”
Hi Sam I think your work is great I love the boldness of it. I can tell it is yours when I see people wearing it. I was sitting at Lavernas cafe at the bar and the waitress was wearing a great bangle and a pendant and I could tell it wasnt inexpensive run of the mill silver you dont see many people wearing stuff that expensive and of great quality, I commented that I liked her bracelet and she said her boyfriend made it and I started thinking is there someone in town I dont know and she said Sam and I went oh no wonder the stuff looked so good. If you need any tools I would trade you for anything you want my wife loves your work. I wish I could just buy it from you but I seem to have the same trouble.
Easy answer…Because it is unbelievably great.
Tradition is hard to overcome. When I was doing a lot of making and selling my steady clients were really stuck on the style I was doing. Most of them really didn’t like it when I decided to do some stretching, sales plummeted. It was at this time I also moved from jewelry scale to sculptural scale work, I went big! I did this for a number of years, great mental fun, low income disaster. In art one must follow the desires of the mind and heart over the whims of the buying public to be mentally happy doing it or (how to say it without offending or getting stoned, literally) an idiot. Almost anyone can start making a line of jewelry that the public will buy but only a true jewelry artist seeks to create an object which can be held, felt, observed and worn by the client in great appreciation. What you are doing is not just knocking so many of this out and so many of that out but solving and evolving a solution to a problem. Sometimes it sells and sometimes it left for posterity, or the scrap metal dealer.
Any artist struggles with producing what they consider salable (vs) what art work they want to make. I have found that my father and grandfather both had the same struggle. All three of us made things which were instant classics and things which sit in showcases. I have never found out why that is, I have tried to out guess the market for years and gave up. I wondered why anyone would want me to make “traditional Patania” jewelry since the traditions were from previous generations. Why would someone want a Frank Patania Sr. design done by Sam Patania? It never made sense to me from a collector standpoint or from an artistic standpoint. If Picasso’s son kept producing Pablo’s designs, would it sell or be artisticly authentic?
I do make things which to me are “traditional Patania” and I love that kind of work but I also am compelled to stretch my mind and designs. I have many different influences other than my grandfather and father but, they are my primary influences. I think they as artists would be dissapointed in me if I just made their designs. Besides, my dad’s “tradition” was much different from his father’s so when does the tradition begin? Thank you for the comment, very thought producing.
“now buy some of my work, would ya?”
Have you ever wondered if they are buying Sam’s work or Sam’s interpretation of his grandfather’s and father’s work? Could sales be slumping not only from a stagnant economy but from a change of course that Sam hast taken away from the family tradition? Perhaps some are feeling that while his workmanship is equal to or better than his grandfather’s and father’s, he has not remained true to their traditions? Several years ago when I redesigned some of my work, I lost a large part of my following. It wasn’t that my level of skill had changed but my style had changed, I was now producing an art form they didn’t feel comfortable wearing, same skill, wrong form.