Manifestation Part One: How to become a Jeweler

How to become a Jeweler

Nearly four years ago, I had the good luck to work on an amazing project for Disneyland Tokyo called "Mythica".There were at one time 6 model makers, 3 mold makers, a few co-directors, Scott Schaffer being one of them and the lead designer, Richard Improta , working on making this thing happen.

It was a very “gooey” project, filled with many details and little items to sculpt.


At one point, Laurie walked past as I was working on a very tiny piece, a dragons head the size of a penny.


She asked me if I had ever done jewelry. I said no, but I had always wanted to. She walked on.
Later that week, after I had dropped my son off for Saturday morning bowling, I ran into a whole neighborhood having a community garage sale. Justin and I went off to see what fabulous junk was for sale.

I lost Justin in a matter of minutes and as I came around a corner, there he was, yuckking it up, wearing a cowboy hat and a leather vest, with two old dames who had already cracked open the 2 Buck Chuck . He looked like a little boy playing dress-up and had the ladies in stitches. I asked one woman how much for the cowboy? She laughed and took a sip of her chardonay saying, "He’s not for sale, Honey". We all giggled at that and suddenly I spied a sign, deep in the garage, “Jewelers Bench For Sale”. It was the sign I had needed to go forward with learning the jewelers trade.

I learned that the bench belonged to Audreys past husband. He had gone 3 years before and she was finally ready to part with his tools and bench. For $100 I bought that bench, a buffer, hand tools, books and some scrap silver. It was all so overwhelming....for the most part, I was set to form metals and gems into jewels!

To this day, I believe this is what some call manifestation. I wanted something and someone pointed out how skilled I would be at it and voila! the means to take that course is presented.