Sass and Sarcasm - Jewelry by Lori Gipson

Lori Gipson is a recent graduate of the Metals program at Kent State University and received a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Spring of 2013. She continues to teach as adjunct faculty in the coming year.

Metalsmithing and the forming of raised vessels is Lori's specialty. Her website Lori Gipson Metals includes a slideshow of her Masters Thesis Show entitled Anthropomorphia as well as this awesome video that demonstrates how her raised vessels are made.



But, Lori doesn't spend all her time raising these amazing vessels. She also has a line of production Jewelry that use the same technique.

Pink/Light Blue Medium Formed Copper Earrings

These awesome earrings are made with super thin copper, raised and formed in the same way her larger vessels are. Then they are colored using a super secret technique. This allows for the creation of incredibly lightweight and beautifully colored earrings. Her larger earrings measure over 3" long, but they don't pull on your ears or feel weighty at all! 

These earrings are available at her Etsy shop Sass and Sarcasm along with more humorous production jewelry including punctuation earrings. 

Pink/Yellow/Blue Textured Punctuation Earrings

This Valentines day for the Valentines day Jewelry Co-op Show she created these awesome earrings which are hip take on everyone's least favorite Valentines day Candy, with funny sayings. 

Eh.... I Guess Stamped Copper Heart

I bought one at the Sale that read "I'll need a drink first" which I've gotten great compliments on! 

Lori's Etsy site is just getting up and running, but she has lots of experience selling her work at shows around Kent. You can visit her site here SassAndSarcasm.etsy.com and check out her portfolio at Lori Gipson Metals 

Jessica Todd Studio

To begin my Artists Spotlights of local artists in the Kent area, I will begin with Jessica Todd who has influenced me in the creation of my own art, but more particularly the way I market my art on Etsy and the internet. Back in March she gave a day long workshop on creating an Etsy business which was open to Kent State and Akron U students, which has been extremely helpful marketing and promoting my Etsy business.

Jessica Todd is a graduate student in the Jewelry and Metals program at Kent State. She just completed her candidacy review solo show this semester and will be working on her Thesis work shortly. Her studio work is interactive and conceptual, and focuses on her unique ideas about contemporary culture. Her show Home focuses on ideas about how she was brought up in a middle class suburban area and how this upbringing shapes contemporary culture.

Jess Todd Studio

You can view an interactive slide show of her show Home here: Home slideshow (via flickr)

Jess also has a burgeoning business of production jewelry and accessories which she sells on Etsy. Her biggest selling pieces are her etched money clips.

Hand Forged Vintage Map Money Clip on Etsy.com

These pieces are made by etching the image using a special process using acid, and hand forging them into different shapes. She has been very successful selling these money clips, which she said surprised her at first. The key with selling money clips on Etsy is that there are not a thousand money clips on Etsy, hers are unique, handmade quality items, that are in demand. Finding this niche market is very important for an Etsy business to get started.

She also makes pieces for the ladies, including these etched earrings, etched with a map of Cleveland!

Earrings with etched map of Cleaveland, Ohio

These make great keepsake and gift items. I ordered my own pair of Kent, OH earrings which will always remind me of the great times I had in Kent OH after I move away to Indiana.

Jess makes custom jewelry, and these Items can be created using a map of nearly any town or image. Check out her Etsy shop for more great items, that make great gifts their owner will be sure to love. www.etsy.com/jesstodd

You can also check out her work at http://jesstoddstudio.com/ and her blog http://crafthaus.ning.com/group/mfaguidebook an MFA Guidebook for Studio Artists. And of course, be sure to Like her facebook page Jess Todd Studio!

MyCraftTools.com -- A Great Tool for analyzing your etsy shop!

Hey Guys, I thought I would share a great tool I found for analyzing aspects of your Etsy shop to help market better! MyCraftTools.com

This site allows you to see important information that goes beyond the shop stats provided by Etsy. One of their most helpful aspects is that by putting your shop name into their engine, you can see how well you are optimizing your item tags. By selecting "Tag Check" they provide helpful information to determine if you are using all your tags you possibly can. By this screen shot, you can see that I am not doing that as well as I could be.

Several of my items only use 1-2 category tags. This is important to know because when you select categories for your item (the first step in listing an item) these become the first three tags found in search. That means if you don't use all 3 you are missing out on tags that will get more viewers in your shop! The site also checks to see if you are using duplicate category and item tags, as well as not using all 13 tags for your items.

The next helpful aspect is the "Section Report". This goes and looks at the tags and key words in your sections. 

This is great because it looks at your items and sees how many of your items in a section have the same tags. If you sell a lot of very similar items like I do, then it is a good idea to diversify your tags so that you market to as many different viewers as possible. As you can see about half my items have the top 5 or so tags, the rest of my top tags belong to a lower percentage of my items, which is great!

MyCraftTools also gives you the ability to search for a tag in your items. This can be good if you find that a tag is no longer optimal for your items or think of a better or more searched term.  

This happened to me when I created Search Ads through Etsy, and found that a very high amount of my views were coming from the tag "Lolita". I still want to market my items to people who search for Lolita hair accessories, but because the word Lolita is not searched for often or not many people tagging their items "Lolita" were using Search Ads, my items were showing up a disproportionately large amount of the time over better tags like "Hair accessories". To fix this, I simply limited the number of my items containing the "Lolita" tag. But I had to go through every single item and look for the tags. With MyCraftTools tag search I could have easily searched and found the items I needed to change. 

I hope you find MyCraftTools.com as helpful as I did!

Kent State Jewelry and Metals Co-op

As a recent graduate of Kent State, I know what a wonderful art program they have. I majored in Art history and minored in Crafts and had the wonderful fortune to be apart of the Jewelry and Metals Co-op. The Co-op is made up of undergrads, grad students, and alumni who make jewelry and sell their wares 3-4 times a year. We have a sale after thanksgiving, for valentines day, for the end of spring semester, and this year we had a booth at the Kent Art and Wine Festival, of which we won best in show.

But the Jewelry Co-op is not just a once a semester gathering, we work hard all year to promote our sales, devise new strategies, and work together to create wonderful unique, affordable handmade jewelry and accessories that is in high demand.

Over the next several weeks I will be spot lighting some of the great artists who I have worked with over the years and their art work! I hope you enjoy it!

New Hair Clip Sets perfect for Weddings

Today I listed two new sets of hair clips that are perfect for weddings.

Set of 5 Hair Clips in Cream, Blush, Rose, Mauve, and Violet

This first set is of 5 hair clips in warm colors, ranging from cream, blush, rose, mauve, and violet. These would be great bridesmaid gifts, and would look beautiful in a ceremony, where the colors start at violet and then get lighter and lighter until the bride sweeps down the isle.

Wedding Hair Clips Bridal Set

This set is perfect for a bride and 3 bridesmaids. This set includes one large hair clip for the bride, and 3 small hair clips, one for each bridesmaid! These are available in custom colors to match any wedding theme. They make great gifts and are a great heirloom accent to your wedding ceremony!

New Large Hair Clips

I just posted my new large two tiered hair clips on my etsy site, CutieBink.etsy.com

These are a great size to make a statement. I love to wear large clips. They pull back your hair better than smaller clips, and look great in fancy up dos. Plus you can wear them with smaller hair clips!

I am going to make a listing soon for custom large hair clips soon! Custom large flower hair clips are great for weddings and special occasions. Keep a lookout for them!

Kent State Student Annual Art Show

This year the Student Annual includes a wide variety of media and shows what precisely the art program at Kent State is all about. The Student Annual is a juried show that happens every spring to give Kent State's finest artists a venue to show their work. This year the show was juried by Alex Coon Director of the Massilon Museum.

Immediately on entering the show you are dazzled by several large sculptural pieces, one an elaborate metal pulley system by Katherine Foote called A Study of Line in 3 Dimensions, another large than life Bouncy Horse by Hunter V. Elliot. Marchelle Simms sculptural wall piece entitled His Beginnings garnered the Graduate Best in Show award. One cannot miss the large sculptural wall piece by David Masters called There's Truth Beneath The Floor Boards, which won Graduate at Large award.

The show also gives a wide look at the metals program, including pieces from nearly every level. But all of these pieces stand alone against advanced level pieces, indicating the strength of craft in the program. Notable pieces include Marissa Racht Ryan's Interlocking Rings from Invisible Cities Series and McKensie Jones's Cameo Necklace both made in the entry level Jewelry class. Advanced students like Julie Deutschman with her Memento Mori necklace which includes real butterfly wings, and Jessica Mantheh who created an entire sandwich made out of metal and other found objects.

The show also boasts some beautiful textiles. Joanne Arnett wove a large piece made on the jacquard loom is woven with metal entitled Two Years and a Fine of $2, 000, as you walk past the work the image seems to change due to the way the light shines on the metal. Another piece by Kelsey Leib, made out of yellow and orange monofiliment glitters in the march sunlight that reluctantly shines through the gallery window.

Prints are a large part of the show this year, two of which recieved awards. One print by S. Birch Land is white on white, another by grad student Pamela Testa is a beautiful leaf design, another by grad student Veronica Ceci depicts an action commonly seen around campus: a man intently looking at an iphone screen.

Paintings are not to go without mention. From highly abstract concepts such as the work of grad student Shawn Watrous who won graduate runner-up, to a wonderfully painted image of a vacuum cleaner by Joshua Humm called Bachelor Pad Oppression,  to a cubist interpretation of the Kent Mills by Sarah Gretsinger.

The show is full of variety and gives a wide range of works big and small, in many different media. Furthermore it is a great showcase of the work of graduate students, several of which will be having their MFA shows the week after spring break. Lori Gipson, a metal smith has two pieces in the show, including a vessel which is a preview to her MFA show. Tim Stover also has a piece in the student annual, working in colored glass, will be something different to look forward to. It will be exciting to see larger collections of pieces from Joanne Arnett and Pamela Testa as well.

This is the last day of the Student Annual show. The MFA Thesis Show will start the week after Kent State's spring break, April 2-5.

--Caitlin Binkhorst