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Hi my name is Preston
Reuther and I am a self-taught jewellery designer who specializes
in wire sculpted jewellery. I design hand-crafted gemstone wire
jewellery in a small shop in my home with a few simple jewellers
tools, homemade wire twister and wire cutters. It has taken me a
lifetime to develop my "GOLD WIRE SCULPTING SYSTEM".
I have used some of these
techniques since I was ten years old. At twelve I won my first award
"The Mr. Bingle Christmas Ornament Award" in New Orleans La. over 39
years ago. BOY! A lot has changed since then. The art of making
jewellery from wire is nothing new. Man has done it for thousands of
years.
But I have taken my
particular method of wire sculpture with my copyrighted designs and
have turned it into a
Complete Home
Business that anyone can start and run right from their kitchen
table in their own home.
Let
me tell you my story...
"You won't believe how it all got started"
Ten years ago I spent three months in a psychiatric hospital
for a neurological condition (I'm a
manic depressive).
I lost my job, my family, and was financially devastated. There I was
in a mental hospital with no future in sight. Believe me, there is not
much demand in the work force for someone with mental illness. While
in the hospital, I was asked to attend occupational therapy, which
consisted of ceramics, art, and jewellery making.
I went to the class but refused to do
anything. But as the hour passed I began to get a little bored and
started making jewellery from some kind of plastic. To my surprise I
found myself really enjoying it. It was really fun and relaxing and I
really got a kick out of all the crazy designs I could come up with.
As the days turned into weeks, I wanted
to go further in the jewellery making process. I bought tools, a torch
and a jewellers saw and jumped in with both feet. I was going to be a
silversmith or maybe even a goldsmith. Oh, yea, this was it. I finally
found my niche.
Something I could do from my home with my illness and make a living
my
own home business.
The very second day I
accidentally stuck the jewellers saw into one side of my hand and
out the other! I'm not exaggerating here----- it was pretty ugly!
Next, my shirt caught on fire from the torch (I forget that
it's on --I have short term memory loss) and while trying to put the
flames out, I threw the burning shirt outside and it went under my
truck, right under the gas tank!!!!
Almost blew my truck up and nearly
caught my house on fire! At that point, I realized I had no skill
in using specialized jewellers tools, torches and other sophisticated
equipment. It was one of the lowest times in my life!
Realizing I needed some training by
real jewellers I sent a resume to 54 regional jewellery stores and
offered to work in their shop for FREE 40 hours a week ---I would
sweep, clean toilets anything if they would just show me how to use
the tools.
I will never ever forget it. "NOT
ONE SHOP EVEN RESPONDED EVEN FOR FREE LABOUR"... I
know what it means to be DOWN. It seemed that I would spend the rest
of my life in mental institutions. No one would hire me for
anything... not even without pay! A few days later I got a 2 day pass
from the hospital and went to the French Quarter in New Orleans and
was...
Introduced to a simple way of making jewellery from wire.
I watched a street vendor in the flea
market making little rings from silver wire. I noticed he only used a
few pair of pliers to make his jewellery. No torch. No saw. No
expensive machinery. I also noticed he had about
ten people
waiting in line with money in hand. I said to myself:
I can do this! I then
bought every
book and video
I could get my hands on and started to practice, practice,
practice----I went back to the Psychiatric unit and started making
jewellery from brass and German silver wire. AND actually my new
designs weren't bad.
One day a nurse came to me and said
“How much do you want for that pair of earrings you just made?” I
said, “Gee. I don't know. How about $5.” ... she bought the earrings
and wore them to the cafeteria. Ten minutes later another nurse came
in and bought a pendant. Then another nurse and so on and so on.
By
the end of the day every nurse in that hospital was wearing a pair
of my hand-crafted earrings or some little wire pendant! I made
over $200 right from my hospital bed
just charging $5 and $7 each. It
was then that I decided that this is what I wanted to do when I got
out of the hospital and nothing was going to stop me.
I was tired of the BIG BUSINESS life
and all the stress that came with it. I was fed up with 9 to 5, coats
and ties and bosses from hell! I just wanted my own little home
business with enough money coming in to pay the bills and feed my
family. This began to be my dream.
BUT I
soon found out it wasn't going to be that easy!
No one was going to teach me ANYTHING
about making wire jewellery and that was that!---I began
to look for information about this unusual art that few people knew
anything about. Ten years ago there were not that many wire artists
around and only a handful of people that were actually making any
money at it-----I bought every book and video I could get my hands on
and even studied the blacksmiths that made beautiful wrought iron in
the French Quarter in New Orleans---with this information I started my
career in hand-crafted jewellery.
Every weekend I would set up my little
card table at flea markets and festivals, anywhere I could create and
sell my jewelry.Many times I would not even have the money ($14) to
get a booth so I would wait until it was over at 6:00 p.m. and would
set up from 6:00 pm till 10pm just to make a few dollars to get next
week's booth money and enough to eat.
I was really struggling to make it but
I loved what I was doing for the first time in my life and I wouldn't
give up. I probably worked every flea market and festival within a 100
mile radius of New Orleans. ---------I had an old Datsun and I pulled
the back seat out and put all my jewellery, tools, and displays in
there and then I bought a steel rack and bolted it on the roof of my
car to carry my handmade table.
I made them from a piece of plywood and
4 aluminium fence posts that would fold up. BUT I never missed a week
end, not one. My small jewellery business began to grow and the money
actually kept getting better. I learned lots of tricks on the road.
What to sell, how to sell, how to display, how to negotiate,
discounting, how to never have a bad show!
BUT I
really wanted something a little more interesting than the typical
wire wrapping techniques that have been around for 100 years.
I wanted to create some really great
high-fashion gemstone jewellery just using my hands and a few small
tools. What I wanted to do was SCULPTURE-- the way Michelangelo
did-------Only
with wire!!! It took awhile and believe me I was no Michelangelo,
But I was improving all the time.
Slowly I started to develop my own
particular style of wire sculpture. It was rough at first but as I
worked all the little fairs and festivals around the state my designs
kept getting better. I wasn't using a torch and still don't till this
day!. After about two and a half years and over one hundred flea
markets and festivals, and a large spare room FULL with bent and
twisted wire, my jewellery began to take on a totally different look.
I called
this new look my
"GOLD WIRE SCULPTING SYSTEM"
rather than wire wrapping.
It was mostly formed by hand--I use
very few tools in my method and because of this each piece would come
out differently. ------The human hand is the greatest tool in the
world and is capable of over 1200 movements!!!_People really liked
this new method-------I would set up at a fair with some wire, one
card table, and 5 tools!!!
People couldn't believe I could
make all that jewellery with just a few pair of pliers and a wire
cutter. Each piece of jewellery I created looked
like a small sculpture and my new method was FAST. I could make a
little birthstone ring in less then 3 minutes!! I can sculpt a cameo
in about 5 minutes!!!People couldn't believe it. It was at that time
that my work really began selling! Customers loved the new look. It's
like they had never seen anything like it! Especially the ladies.
They went wild over the pieces that
were one-of-a-kind. Even I was surprised at the reaction. I couldn't
believe it. I could not keep up with the demand. And I might say
everyone wanted me to teach them how to do it! But I wasn't ready and
I was not about to show anyone what took me years to learn.
Tiny markets with revenues of about
$300 a weekend led to small craft shows with revenues of about $1,000,
then larger craft shows with revenues of over $2,000 a weekend, and
finally gem and jewellery shows with revenues from $5,000 to $10,000
for a four day show. If I had the health to work 35
shows a year the way I did years ago, I could do $100,000 a year no
problem. This is not an exaggeration-----there are lots of NEW wire
artists that have only been at it a year or so and are doing very
well.-----------a $2,000 week-end show is no problem!!
Now
you might be asking if I'm making so much money with my method, how
come I'm not doing these shows rather than selling videos?
Well, remember, I told you
that I was a manic depressive. With this comes the inability to get
around as much as I would like to. I'm not saying I'm totally disabled
but I just can't travel and do the work I did years ago.
Oh, I may do one or two
shows a year and a couple of wire sculpting bootcamps but nothing like I used to
work--25 or 30 shows a year. PLUS--I am still very active at my
trade--developing new designs,
on-line courses,
videos, new tools, new methods of fabrication, building this site and
publishing my newsletter
THE WIREWORKER.
I hate to brag but my home business course and internet site has
become so well known that according to
Alexa, out of over 380,000 websites in the world that mention wire
jewellery, my website is now #1! Plus, we have just completed building our new
Handcrafted Jewelry Mall for wireworkers.
It's a great project and a simple way for new jewelry makers to start selling online.
When I got off the road, I
did a little research on the #1 internet guru online (I always go to
the best!) Cory Rudl the best internet marketing course going.
It seemed that Cory Rudl had the best internet marketing course going.
It was an incredible value for just a hundred bucks or so, and I
learned how to sell my jewellery online. Today my little jewel
websites make about $30,000 per year with little effort thanks to Cory
Rudl's course. NOW I have taken my craft and sell my jewellery on the
Internet with two different on-line jewellery stores.
You might want to visit
and look around just to see what can be done with my course. Just
about all the designs were made from my course material. Take a
look-----cameojewelry.com and
masterwiresculptor.com
you will be able to do this also after you learn how to make the
jewellery. Most of my time is now spent around this computer and my
work bench. But I truly love getting people started in their own
HOME BUSINESS.
By the way, if you're
looking for more information about me before you make a decision,
check out the article about me in
Small Business
Opportunities magazine!
Whether it's part time or
full time... this business is a lot of fun, don't get me wrong you're
going to have to practice and put in some time at your bench or
kitchen table where ever you decide to start. And it does take some
time to get going so don't quit your day job just yet.
I'm totally dedicated to
helping people be successful and eventually starting their own
successful Home Business. If you need help or advice I'm here to help
you. I read every e mail that comes in here.
Good Luck!
Master Wire Sculptor
Preston Reuther |
Beads
