SPOTLIGHT ON ... DESIGNER
August 2009
Our featured designer for this month is Alexandra Griswold
I live in Sonoma, Ca with my husband Bob and our yellow lab mix Tempest. Tempest is three and a release dog from Canine Companions in Santa Rosa (but that is another story). My education and work experience had absolutely nothing to do with design; I graduated from college with a B.A. in Sociology and spent my working career in banking. My creative side came from my parents. My mother was an avid stitcher and was wonderful at all crafts. My father was a designer, a landscape architect by training who loved his work with the National Park Service and designing homes and landscaping for our family and friends.
I introduced myself to jewelry design in 2006 when I retired from a career in banking. I have always loved different and unique jewelry and would buy my girl friends jewelry for birthdays and special occasions. I purchased many of the pieces from a jewelry designer I met at a Farmer's Market in Kona, Hawaii. After talking with her (a bit) on a couple of different trips, I thought maybe it would be something that I could do someday. After I retired, I realized that I had the interest and the time to explore design, and would not have the money to buy all my friends nice jewelry.
My very first piece was a bracelet I made for a friend's birthday. Soon after I finished that piece another friend mentioned to his future daughter in law that I was making jewelry. She asked me to make bracelets and earrings for her bridesmaids and a necklace and earrings for her to wear on her special day. From the moment I watched the bride walk down the aisle, I knew I was hooked!
Then during one of my weekly visits to Sonoma to see my father I was glancing through the local paper. I saw an ad for the Soft Flex Art and Bead Festival. I spent both mornings, before visiting my father, at the Soft Flex show buying tools, beading wire and beads from Soft Flex and other vendors at the show. I use Softflex beading wire exclusively now and look forward each year to their show in Sonoma.
Since then I have introduced my jewelry to friends through the gifts that I give them and through jewelry parties that I hold in their homes. I even have had a spring and fall party at my brother and sister in law's home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That meant carrying a large bag of jewelry on the plane, and on the most recent trip, it was very fun to watch 2 ladies that work for TSA at the San Francisco Airport go through my big bag piece by piece. The ladies were even giving me tips on how to market my product. I don't think that a couple of guys would have looked so closely at each piece!
I recently developed my own website (with some expert help) as another avenue to market my jewelry. The project has been tedious but I have enjoyed the process. As my husband reminds me, if I don't market what I design and make, I won't be able to keep designing and making more jewelry. In the not too distant future I hope to experiment with creating my own lampwork and polymer clay beads. I also want to say thank you to all the people at Soft Flex Company for their support and encouragement, especially Shelley.
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