Second Anniversary
On April 19th Lori Aks Jewelry celebrates two years in business! It is a joy to think about all the art jewelry that has flown from my bench into people lives and I thank each customer for taking a chance on me. It is a nice feeling to grow a following and I am especially grateful for repeat customers. I plan to keep making interesting jewelry that will tempt you to say why not treat myself.
I have experienced so much in this past year. What stands out the most are in person events. At the shows it is so interesting to meet customers and hear what they need and how they feel about the jewelry. It is wonderful to see how many men are drawn to wearing jewelry these days. That is so cool. There are no rules. My next pop up show is coming up very soon on April 29-30th in Soho, NYC. Get details here.
I loved having work displayed at Mad For Hoops in Chicago, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey Members Show, Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Fair (red ribbon winner!), the Los Angeles County Psychological Association Mirrors of the Mind exhibit of mental health professionals that are artists and for NYC Jewelry week SG x SG at a gallery in Brooklyn. Getting feedback and meeting industry professionals was so great! Check my events page to see what I’ve been doing and what is coming up!
I launched the Secure Attachment collection this past fall and continue to add pieces as I finish them. This collection epitomizes the marriage of my psychologist and metalsmith identities. To learn more, read my newly rewritten Collection Stories page here. With this collection launch I began making donations of 10% of all sales to NAMI, the national alliance for mental illness. Giving back to community mental health and using my jewelry instagram to share positive mental health messaging will continue to be an essential part of Lori Aks Jewelry values.
Always learning is my motto. This winter I learned to make wax models for rings, casted them in silver, and added flush set diamonds with my drill tools. I also am deep in the process of making mixed metal sheet called lamination, a time intensive process that produces unique metal to create one of a kind jewelry. I also took a still life jewelry photography class in NYC to learn how to use my Canon DLSR camera. I am pleased to report I am using manual settings and light shaping tools to get interesting shots of my jewelry and am finding this to be a very exciting hobby. To be perfectly honest I am not yet getting the hang of Photoshop, but I will keep trying and see if I make headway this coming year.
On the subject of photography I had the pleasure of working with a local photographer, Lee Seidenberg and his assistant and model, Rowan. After much help from makeup artist Norah Salazar, I ended up with some great headshots of myself. Rowan modeled my jewelry and the wonderful results are all over my website and instagram and it feels like you can see my tagline, Art Jewelry for your unique voice, embodied in the photographs. I was so excited to be able to show how your personality can shine when you wear handmade art jewelry. That will continue to be my mission in the next year of Lori Aks Jewelry. Thanks for joining me on the journey.
Thank you for supporting Lori Aks Jewelry for two years!
xoxoxo Lori
