February 28th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Margot Potter
Margot has written three fabulous books to inspire women of all ages and levels to make jewellery with a difference. Her first two books -
The Impatient Beader and The Impatient Beader Gets Inspired offer a unique approach to jewellery making for the ‘time and technically challenged.’ Her third book - Sparkletastic is out this June.
Margot was also commissioned by Swarovski to create three designs for their Create Your Style book and world tour. She also teaches seminars on creativity for them in Tucson. This year, she spoke on trends in beading at the Craft and Hobby Association show.
As well as all this she is also a regular contributor to Simply Beads magazine and TV Spokesperson at QVC for the Suspicion Marcasite jewellery line.
Margot kindly agreed to answer some of my questions. She did so with a great amount of careful thought, enthusiasm and depth to inspire us all
1) You talk about becoming your ‘authentic self.’ Has your path always been clear to you? Is it hard to stay on track or would you say it happens naturally?
My current path was never really clear to me until quite recently, I drifted
around a lot for a number of years. Mostly because I loved so many things
and I was good at so many things I had trouble focusing on just one. A lot of amazing things happened during the drifting, to be clear. Every experience in my life has brought me to this moment.
When I say it’s good to become your authentic self, I mean it’s good to find your passion and talent and to follow your bliss. It’s good to embrace all of who you are without judgment. That means not concerning yourself with how other people view you and it means being clear about what you are both good at doing and love to do. It’s not enough to be good at something if it isn’t feeding your soul.
When you do what you really, really love and are really, really good at doing, everything unfolds for you. I think the best most of us can do is to live in the moment with our eyes toward our goals. We have to allow for life to happen and be aware of the signs that are around us.
We can’t be so rigid that we aren’t flexible enough to move with the subtle shifts that unexpected opportunities might provide us.
It is always hard to stay on track. It is always hard to find your path and to stick to it. There are endless things that happen to us that pull us away from our goals. It is an effort to keep your eyes on your goals and it requires discipline and hard work. I think we have to be mindful of what is time wasting and what is real. The most important thing in life is love. When we are creating without filters, we are channeling love into our work. That’s the point.
2) Do you believe in fate or good luck, or being completely in control of your life?
I believe we are (mostly) in control of our lives. I believe that if we are moving in the right direction and staying open to the signs along the way we find synchronicity and serendipity happens with amazing frequency. I believe that fate or good luck is most of the time; a matter of being in the right place at the right time and being ready to accept the gift being offered to us.
I also believe that if one is always in the wrong place at the wrong time and not ready to accept the gift being offered them they won’t find any luck. This is all about the choices we make and where they lead us.
If we aren’t in control and paying attention to the signs, we won’t see them. I believe in free will and in steering your own ship. If you steer it into stormy seas, you won’t find much ‘luck.’ If you steer it towards calm waters, you will.
I also believe that there is chaos in the world and that this is something we cannot control. Chaos is lurking around the corner at every moment and we have to accept that it is there. I don’t believe that “shit happens.” I think Chaos happens and the shit is what the chaos leaves in its wake. People die, disasters happen, wars happen, violence happens, sickness happens. In between the chaos one can find joy, luck, love and success but that is entirely up to you.
3) Do you feel it’s important to have a natural artistic talent or is it something that is gained through experience?
Yes, to succeed as an artist or a designer, I think one has to have some
level of basic artistic talent. I don’t think everyone who picks up a bead
or a jeweler’s saw is going to be able to make that into a career. That’s
the part about figuring out what you are really, really good at doing. I
think also that everyone has a point of view and an eye, so with hard work,
experience, practice and discipline one can develop that eye. We are not
all Van Gogh. That’s reality. So you may not be the world’s next Miriam
Haskell or Elsa Schiaparelli. That’s okay. You can be yourself. You can
make jewellery because it makes you happy and it doesn’t have to be your
career.
4) What advice would you give to a new jewellery designer starting out that wants their pieces to get noticed?
Pay attention. Look at fashion magazines, TV shows, the red carpet, trends
in art, gals on the street and draw from those sources. Always, always have
your antennae out for new ideas, new techniques and new materials. Do not
copy anyone else’s work, be original. No one likes a copycat. You can
interpret a trend or an idea, but make it your own. If you do use someone
else’s idea or technique in your work, show them the courtesy of an acknowledgment.
Design is a dialog, but there’s a distinct difference between interpreting an idea and blatantly ripping it off. The more distinctive your work is, the more likely it will be to get noticed.
I am a firm believer in keeping it simple. Less is definitely more when it comes to jewelry design. Think about the person who will wear your jewellery, it should compliment their personality and not overwhelm them. I see a lot of amazing, bold and intricate design work, but I think to myself, who is really going to wear that?! Make jewellery people actually want to wear.
It sounds easy and yet…it’s amazing how few designers really get it.
5) In your book ‘The Impatient Beader Gets Inspired’ you encourage the reader to find artistic inspiration in every day life. What’s your personal best technique to get your ‘creative juices’ flowing if you have a mind block?
This is going to sound really annoying, but my creative juices are pretty
much always flowing. I have a queue of ideas in my brain at any given
moment all waiting for their turn.
I am constantly inspired by things I see and hungry for inspiration. If you start to view the world like an artist you never run out of ideas. If you can’t get the ideas to come, get out of your house and look at the world around you. Look at your garden, walk in the woods, go see a movie, walk through a museum…it’s everywhere, inspiration and it’s just waiting for your open mind.
6) In the early stages when you were starting out, what kept you going, what kept you enthusiastically creative and unaffected by societies restraints around you?
This career happened for me in an interesting way. I made beaded jewellery for myself and my friends for several years. I was in Pittsburgh going to graduate school and I wandered into my husband’s bead shop for some crimp beads. I asked him out soon thereafter and we eventually got married, moved to eastern Pennsylvania and opened our own shop. We sold fair trade handicrafts and beads.
After a while it became clear to me that I hated selling beads. So, I took them home. I couldn’t quite figure out how to sell my jewellery and compete with cheap labor overseas and I hate the repetition of production work. We closed our shop and I had a very long year of frustration at trying to figure out what to do next. It was a year of many false starts and disappointments. Absolutely nothing was working out for me. It was quasi-comical!
Then I did some designs for Beadalon and everyone loved them. I knew I was on to something. I had an epiphany one day and sent my husband an email. I told him I wanted to write a book called The Impatient Beader. I researched publishers and found one I liked, contacted them, presented my idea and within a week my book was accepted.
I had the right idea and the right time. That’s how it works. Since then everything has unfolded for me with absolutely serendipity.
My biggest problems are finding enough time to do the mountain of work that has come my way while juggling my family life. I also appear on QVC regularly as the guest expert with a private brand of marcasite jewellery I don’t design.
(This is the very part time job that affords me the ability to pursue my creative life.) I am good on camera because I come from the theater so live performance doesn’t scare me. I do freelance design and writing too. All of these things come together to make a career.
The only thing that wears me down is being copied or the competitive nature of other people in my industry. That’s frustrating. I don’t believe in that limited mindset.
There is room for everyone to shine. I pretty much do what I please and I love my life. I’ve never much cared what society told me to do or what other people thought of me. I highly recommend dancing to your own music. It makes for a far richer life. It took me 40 years to get here, but I’m here and it’s amazing.
7) Does your love of all things theatrical affect your jewellery creations in any way?
I would say yes, to a certain degree. I love to either keep things very architectural and streamlined which is not a very theatrical manner of design or I go to the other extreme and make very whimsical and kitschy designs. That’s my theatrical side. My architectural pieces are more organic and tend to be inspired by nature. I would say my love of cinema sneaks into my work often. If you look at my books you’ll see many of my designs are inspired by old movie stars or characters from plays and movies.
I also use a lot of visual puns and text in my work because I’m a writer and I love language. I find the many, many interests I have all filter in to my designs. That’s part of the endless creative well from which I draw I think. You can find inspiration in many unexpected places if you start to tune yourself to the world around you!
8
Since I don’t sell finished jewellery to the end user and I instead sell my ideas in books, advertisements for manufacturers and magazines, I have to work many, many months ahead of current fashion trends. That means I have to be able to be a bit of a soothsayer.
I’ve always been ahead of the curve and for most of my life it was a negative. I finally found a career in which it is a positive! I absolutely have to love my designs. I can not make things just to please other people if I think they are ugly.
That being said, I have to be mindful enough of what is happening in the design world that my work is fresh and contemporary. No one is going to buy a book full of ugly, out of date, unappealing designs.
Luckily, there seem to be plenty of people who like my work. My work is eclectic enough that it appeals to a wide audience. That’s a good thing and it’s intentional. It works for books but might not work as well for a line of retail jewellery.
If you want to do that you should have several collections each season that all work to a specific theme. I think it’s easy to get stuck in a rut and keep making the same things, but it’s crucial for success that you are always improving, growing, shifting.
9) For the non-business minded of us jewellery designers, do you feel a business course is important or is learning as you go best?
Yes! There are an awful lot of people who lose their shirts in a creative endeavor because they have not a clue how to handle the business aspects. You have to know how to promote your work, sell your work, bill your clients, do your taxes and keep yourself on track and organized.
I never studied business, but I did study the business. I am constantly thinking of new ways to promote myself and my books. I work every week day from 9-5 and often beyond.
I never really leave my work, because I work for myself. It’s a ton of work and it is not all fun and games. If you want to succeed, you will have to learn the business and learning as you go is not always the best route to success. If you aren’t a quick study, I’d suggest that you study business before you start. You’ll be very glad that you did!
10) What is it about creating jewellery that you enjoy most?
I love the idea of making something that will make someone look and feel beautiful. I love inspiring other people to find their own creative voices.
I try when I’m designing to picture the person who might wear each piece or how it might excite them to make something of their own. Every design is a challenge for me, it’s a lot of problem solving and bending the laws of physics. It’s a lot of play and exploration.
Every design is a birthing process from concept, to gestation, to labor…to birth. Even when I make something completely craptacular, I learn something from the process. There is a seed of something beautiful even in the ugliest creation. I love my job!
Find out more about Margot HERE at her awesome website!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 5:52 pm and is filed under Interview.
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Just wanted to say I love your informative site. I linked over to it from Margot Potter’s recent blog post. I am going to post a link to your site on my blog www.catcancook.com. I hope to start doing more of the beading/jewelry making on my own site, it’s just finding the time that’s the problem!
Again, keep up the good work!
All the best
March 2nd, 2007 at 8:42 pmCatherine
Hi,
First, finding your site so helpful, clarified quite a few things for me as newbie to beading.
May 30th, 2008 at 2:20 pmSecond, so glad you did interview with Margot - have picked up her book
‘Impatient Beader’, and finding it inspirational.
Good luck,
Lin