Practice Makes Perfect

20mm diameter - Mosaic gold in sterling silver

$165 USD

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While I was visiting my stepmom earlier this month, she asked if I could fix a piece of jewelry that I gave to her years ago, as she felt it wasn't showing off my work to it's best advantage anymore. I probably made the piece about 14 years ago. Taking stock of the situation, I decided I should simply remake the piece.

The old piece (left) has been truly well loved, and worn very frequently. It has had regular water contact, though at some point I believe I suggested she stop wearing it in the hot tub, as the adhesive I used back then—Weldbond—is only water resistant. Yet except for the top protective glass layer of the mosaic gold flaking off a couple pieces, and so therefore the 24k gold leaf also disappeared, and a few chips, there's really not a lot of damage. But it definitely looks old. 

Part of that is, well, quite frankly, my work has vastly improved over the years. It was wild viewing the new and the old side by side. I've been pretty focused on the jewelry side of mosaic for about 10 years now, and with that type of focus comes ever increasing ability, though I now finish pieces at a much slower pace to get this level of quality!  The old saying "practice makes perfect" comes to mind. 

So if you are a mosaic artist, or really anyone trying to get better at something, no matter what it is, keep going. The gains often happen so slowly you think you're getting nowhere, but when you look back later, you will see that you've actually come a rather long way. 

If you want to learn to make jewelry from me, and learn all the tips and tricks I've learned along the way instead of starting from square one, I've got a number of upcoming mosaic jewelry workshops with space in them:

Feb 8/9: Adelaide, Australia
Feb 10/11: Adelaide, Australia
Feb 16/17: Perth, Australia
Mar 17: Canberra, Australia
June 9-15: Santorini, Greece