Pendant by Sam Patania
This pendant was made for the same client that I wrote about yesterday. I made it last year, 2007, when her husband came in to commission a piece for her Christmas present. She has received my work as her Christmas gift for many years. She knows my work is coming but she never knows what, exactly.
The Christmas tree idea came to me when he was thinking out loud to me about a Christmas pendant. I have made other thematic work for him so his requirements were a piece she would wear every year for the Christmas holiday. Her holiday signature piece. I had never sold this client anything but turquoise, it became almost a joke. He and his wife have other places they went to for diamonds and colored stones. Like my family’s work, they had preferences and allegiances for different types of work. They come to me for specific reasons and that suits me fine. I stopped trying to be everything to every one a while ago. It is too hard for a business to run that way. I have my specialties and I refer to other businesses and craftspersons for other styles of work.
Often clients will stretch me to do things that I normally wouldn’t do , like this pendant. But the design was my idea. I like to push myself in the craft so I do uncharacteristic pieces despite being told for years about having a “point of view” which can be identified with me as an artist. I think that kind of thinking is good for sales and future collectibility but it always seems stifling to me as an artist. I think at this point in my career I have a point of view but that point of view must change over time, I just don’t know how much time the market needs to catch up with me. I don’t worry about it much at all, I do have galleries which sell one type of my work better than other types. So it goes.
I also got to sell him colored stones. I set the tree with ruby, sapphire, pearl and even a diamond. The presents were made of turquoise, lapis and coral. I made the mounts for the inlayed presents and inlayed the stone from the back after all the soldering was finished.
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