The reason custom jewelry costs so much more than the limited edition pieces on my site is that, in custom jewelry, all the production necessities of a run of maybe thousands in the jewelry production factories must be worked out for a single piece of jewelry never to be reproduced. This is alot of work, designing, thinking and engineering. I may even need to invent techniques for some of the custom pieces I produce. Jewelry is the most technical of all the arts. It is, or can be, very machine intensive. Jewelry is so technical that many people involved in the production of jewelry specialize in various areas of the craft.

    Custom jewelry is, by definition, handmade by a jewelry artist for a specific customer. It can be made using what we call "flat stock", which is precious metal sheet and/or wire. This is usually the simplest way to make custom jewelry and is always one of a kind jewelry. The jewelry artist "simply" takes her jeweler's saw and cuts out the shapes, solders them together, and polishes them; setting any gems after the polishing is accomplished. This is called "fabricated jewelry". Of course, fabricated jewelry may also use advanced techinques such as repousse, married metals, etc.

  Metal stock used      Hard Carving Wax Blocks

    Then, there's what's called "the lost wax casting process". This process is what is used in foundry casting of large bronze statues, only this is on a minature scale. In this jewelry process many techniques and sophisticated equipment is used. But the basic is the carving of a "wax master model". Many techniques can be used to produce this model. But I generally carve directly into a wax block. This process is most easily adapted to "production" or mass-producing jewelry. Mass-produced jewelry is NOT custom jewelry and many pieces of the same jewelry can be reproduced. Many custom jewelers use this method also to produce their work in either one of a kind jewelry or "limited edition" jewelry. It stands to reason that a single jeweler, working alone is not going to mass-produce any design!

    I use the lost wax casting process primarily, along with cutting-edge technology to produce either my "limited edition" work on my gallery pages of this site or, to produce one of a kind jewelry for specific clients. I do all the work myself; a rapidly dying skill which incorporates extensive knowledge of the complete "lost wax casting" and fabrication jewelry making process entire.

    Many people don't view custom jewelry as an "Art". This is a patently false attitude based on the belief that jewelry is a "women's' bauble, or vanity. Such hubris! Jewelry has been worn and used as amulets and evidence of rank since the earliest peoples populated the earth. When I produce a custom work of art in precious metal, the same amount of artistic talent or more goes into the piece as any painting I have ever done. I never reproduce or in any way offer that jewelry again to another client, unless we agree in writing that I may.