Originally Posted by
SiouzQ.
It took a couple of years and a bit of grieving over it, but I am finally starting to sell my metalsmithing/jewelry tools. Since K. also used to silversmith, we ended up with many duplicate tools when we moved in together. I am finally ready to sell the excess/duplicates that are mine. I will still be able to fabricate jewelry in the future if I want by using his tools if I somehow make a miraculous recovery, but I am not holding my breath on that anymore.
I am currently waiting for my neighbor to come over and purchase my jeweler's bench. Yesterday another friend bought my Foredom Flexible Shaft grinder and a polishing set. I still have an acetylene tank for sale, plus various hand tools, stones, beads, display stuff and what-not. It feels good to let these things go. When I think about it, I accomplished every thing I set out to do when I moved to New Mexico and entered a market saturated with silver jewelry. Over the years I got myself in several galleries (even a hoity-toity one on Canyon Rd. in Santa Fe) and was quite successful. I still have the remainder of my work in a friend's gallery in our little town but sales have been very slow this year.
I feel like in letting go of what once was, I am more able to open my mind to finally move onto doing other creative things. I have been trying to teach myself how to paint for the past year but it admittedly has been slow-going. It's so very different in all ways from being a silversmith and is quite the learning curve to deal with a completely different medium but I have already sold 4 small paintings in the past few months so that feels very validating.
With the money I earn from this sale I will be able to set myself up with a lot more space in our studio for painting and doing my found object collages. I'll be able to buy more paint, canvasses and other stuff to make this transition be more "real" for me.