When people talk of fantastic contemporary handcrafted works of startling beauty and incredible value, they’re often referring to exquisite (and “exquisite” is about the only appropriate description in this regard) pieces of jewelry by the likes of Joel Arthur Rosenthal (dubbed “the Faberge of our time” by Diane Von Furstenberg), Cartier, Bulgari and Buccellati, works of rare and wearable art that are weighed in carats and command prices that would do any poor little rich girl proud.
But not everyone has a spare $300K lying around to throw at a new necklace for next Friday’s dinner and a movie, and not every independent metal and/or gem worker has either corporate financial backing or an old family fortune to grant them access to the kinds of stones and metals necessary to attract the attention of Saudi oil tycoons, Wall Street banking CEO’s and Russian billionaires. But this doesn’t mean that there’s not intriguing and high-quality work going on at levels that are a whole lot more down to Earth.
Take Betsy Bensen, for example. Originally born in the U.S. Midwest but relocating to the West Coast after graduating from college with a degree in art history and a minor in studio art, Bensen has been designing and crafting her own metal and stone pieces since establishing her Betsy Bensen Jewelry business in 1987.
Now based out of Portland, Oregon, her simple yet finely detailed designs can be found at local galleries like The Real Mother Goose and David Frank, she’s a member of the Creative Metal Arts Guild and she also maintains an online boutique at Etsy.com where she was recently invited to become a member of the Artisans Gallery Team, a juried collection of independent artists chosen for the high quality of their work along with their reputations for excellent customer service.
Betsy’s work is mostly sterling silver metalwork in a variety of hand finishes, embellished with either polished glass, freshwater pearls or non-precious stones like agate, fossil coral and boulder turquoise. This keeps her prices from skyrocketing while also lending her work an understated appeal.
“I’m drawn to interesting jaspers, agates and fossils that I find so appealing in their own right that I don’t want to detract from them in any way,” she said, explaining her near minimalist approach. “So I tend to keep things clean and not too fussy, though I do pay attention to the details. The textured and oxidized finishes involve a good amount of attention, but I enjoy doing that kind of detail work.”
Blue glass and sterling silver ring with hand-textured finish and cut-outs
I gave Louise a pair of Bensen’s silver and freshwater pearl earrings to test-drive at a weekend party with relatives in New York, and at a dinner table of CEO’s, financial investors and art collectors, their clean design and subtle detailing drew admiring glances, especially from an art appraisor who works for Sotheby’s South African office.
“This is terrific craftsmanship,” he exclaimed, as Louise obligingly removed an earring so that he could examine it more closely. He singled out the way the surprisingly plump freshwater pearl was carefully pierced and set so as not to detract from its intrinsic value. “Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing.”
I forwarded this piece of praise to Betsy, and I swear I could see the glow of pride from several hundred miles away, which is part and parcel of the joy of purchasing goods from the actual creator rather than a department store counter. In much the same way as indie perfumers like Mandy Aftel and Andy Tauer enjoy their interactions with customers and fans, a personal relationship is established and communication can continue even after the point of sale with any artisanal producer.
“I love having contact with my customers,” enthused Bensen, “and you can still make that connection online, which is fun and satisfying. My selling on Etsy has opened up a whole wide world of new customers, and I’ve had some sales to some really far flung places . . . I’m presently studying French, and I occassionally get to practice it!”
Speaking of Etsy, I asked Bensen how in the world one independent craftsman can get his/her work to stand out from the tens of thousands of other artists peddling their wares on the biggest online portal for handcrafted goods. For example, I typed in “jewelry” under the “handmade” section in Etsy’s search engine and came back with 1,560,813 results, a staggering number for any consumer who’s merely looking for a nice, handmade birthday gift. It’s enough to make a trip to Macy’s sound attractive.
But Betsy explained that, while Etsy can be a daunting experience for new sellers, as well, once you build relationships with other sellers and pieces get purchased here and there, a snowball effect takes place: “The more people who discover your shop, and that builds slowly at first, the more treasuries your work is featured in” — a “treasury” is a page put together by other Etsy sellers to showcase their own work plus the work of other sellers they like and admire — “and the more treasuries your work is featured in, the more chance there is of Etsy management choosing one of these collections to feature on the front page of Etsy for a one hour slot.”
Louise in a pair of Betsy Bensen freshwater pearl and sterling silver earrings
These one-hour front-page Etsy features can be the difference between thriving in a crowded marketplace or languishing in obscurity. It’s a brutally unforgiving system, especially for the thin-skinned (“But WHY doesn’t anyone else like my work enough to feature it?!!”), yet arguably less brutal than leasing physical shop space on a downtown side street, stocking the shelves with merchandise and then sitting behind a cash register, waiting for random foot traffic to come tromping through the doorway.
But Etsy still has some image problems to overcome with consumers who are in the market for high-quality merchandise, as it’s known primarily for being an “arts and crafts” portal, and the word “crafts” has a tarnished reputation.
“The word ‘craft’ . . . still appears not to have broken away from being lumped in with poorly executed and amateur things,” states Sarah James, Director of The Contemporary Craft Fair in Devon, UK. “Handmade is a stronger and more positive description . . . but has a long way to go.” Then added, “Regardless of other issues, I think it’s a very exciting time to be a maker, and I think that handmade has massive potential.”
Ms. James mentions that the current recession has negatively impacted the private gallery movement, upon which a lot of independent designers and makers previously depended to showcase their goods, but that this has fueled an upswing in artists offering their works directly to the public, sans the galleries and boutiques.
And with a growing number of consumers disenchanted with the standard retail model of marking prices way up only to slash them way down three months later, the buying public is just as eager to dismiss the fickle middlemen and deal directly with the artists themselves, many of whom have personal blogs, Facebook accounts, Flickr pages and Twitter feeds that offer the kind of relevant, transparent and up-to-the-minute information the 21st century consumer craves.
As TrendBriefing puts it: “Savvy, streetwise consumers … are bored, if not downright distrustful of the conventional consumer-producer relationship, and now look for brands and products that are more authentic, more human, and quite simply more mature.”
Because if we want cookie-cutter goods assembled by unknown factory workers and pitched by anonymous marketing flacks, we can just go to Macy’s, or Target, or H&M, or Wal-Mart, or TopShop, or Nordstrom, or Bloomingdales, or Neiman Marcus, or . . . oh, you get the gist!
***You can find Betsy Bensen’s e-shop here: Betsy on Etsy
*NEXT: Part 2 of the Betsy Bensen interview, where we discuss the introspective artist in a hyper-connected world, the impact of the volatile metals market on an independent jewelry designer, and more.
*CORRECTION: Betsy Bensen emailed me to let me know that my portrayal of the Esty Front-Page Treasuries isn’t completely accurate: “Those who make them really aren’t adding their own work, it’s mainly to showcase others work; and even if the treasury doesn’t make front page, you get seen by a number of people. But to get into treasuries, you also have to have really good photos and Etsy provides lots of tutorials for sellers to help with that. So the Front Page isn’t the end all to success on Etsy, especially if you’re promoting yourself in other ways (like Facebook, blogs, etc., as you mentioned) but it’s certainly something that most Etsy sellers aspire to!”
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