Hi all,
I hope you’ve had a Happy Easter and managed to have a break!
For me these past couple of weeks I’ve been off from my day job and turning my main focus and attention to my craft in jewellery. I’ve blogged about the status of ‘change’ being ‘just around the corner’ before and I am taking those small steps slowly but surely to reach my goals. It’s a continual process!
As a creative person, I often sit and make ‘one off’ pieces that are often so time consuming one large piece can be an epic journey! The techniques I employ range from initially hand drawing patterns and or engraving, hand dying silks, silk screen printing silks, slip casting in bone china or porcelain, hand forming silver & metals and applying decoration to these surfaces and enamelling to create various components for my pieces. Then jewellery pieces are individually constructed each piece is unique and one of a kind.
Ethereal Statement Neckpiece – Kathryn Partington
So with this in mind I think its high time I become a bit more strategic in my approach and make my pieces more accessible and readily available.
As business does not come naturally to me I’ve had to seek help to examine this area and have done so by attending several workshops and mentoring sessions. I’ve been working with Rickie Josen who has a wide portfolio of skills and expertise to help creatives, small businesses and entrepreneurs with business support in a whole host of areas such as marketing, promotion, business planning and social media. Here is a short review I wrote on some of the services offered:
On workshops – Always fun, interactive and inspiring. I always learn something new, practical and actionable, not only that but realistic and achievable for my business.
On one to ones – Encouraging, motivating and also inspiring. Tailored and specific to my area, helps me to maintain focus, refocus, reinforce and re evaluate on a continual but evolving basis.
Online workshops – Top tips, interactive and highly insightful.
My experiences of working with Rickie have been really positive and she always follows up with a summary and key points to work on. I would recommend highly for business support, training and advice!
Are you a small business needing support and help? If so check out ‘Showing You How’
As a recent member joining the British Jewellers’ Association I’ve also attended my first mentoring session with Simon Rainer Chief Executive of the BJA who has specific knowledge and experience of the jewellery industry.
Mentoring is offered to members as one of their dedicated services and is something I have been interested in accessing since attending a BJA seminar entitled ‘Growing your business’ last year.
I will be posting my new developments as I work towards moving my business to the next level.
My next business training session is from The Design Trust with American jewellery experts Tracy Matthews and Robin Kramer of Flourish & Thrive, a special FREE webinar and online Q&A next Monday evening 28th April at 8pm (UK time). Are you a jeweller who wishes to ‘focus on creating the jewellery business’ you ‘have always dreamed of … where you have more time and money?’ For more info and to register click here
So I’ll sign off for now, thank you for reading & any questions, comments or feedback, please feel free to post below!
KATHRYN PARTINGTON DESIGN 