NCEC in the News!
Susannah Ravenswing
Researched and written by Tai Caldwell
Walk into Susannah Ravenswing’s home, and there is no doubt you have entered the realm of an artist. The walls are decorated with Native American craft, and the magazines on her coffee table aren’t your average Time or People, but things like Ornament: The Art and Craft of Personal Adornment. Personal adornment is her stock and trade; Ravenswing is one of the Triad’s most well respected jewelers.
She prefers “goldsmith.” “There are a lot of people who call themselves jewelers,” she says, “who are really just assemblers.” Anyone can string a beaded necklace; what Ravenswing creates is wearable art.
Of course, she certainly didn’t begin her career casting custom pieces in precious metals. As a senior at Albermarle Senior High School in 1970, she began creating what she dubs “generic hippie forged jewelry” and selling it to small, eclectic clothing and art shops in the area. After a year of college, Ravenswing dropped out and then had the opportunity to attend Penland School of Crafts in the Blue Ridge Mountains for several sessions. Being around professional artists changed the way she thought about her craft, and she began pursuing displaying her pieces in galleries and upscale art stores. A “desire not to starve” and a drive to perfect her craft drove her to become not just an artist but also to start her own business. She wanted to be able to work for herself and have the freedom to create pieces of art that “really touched people on some sort of core level.”
Ravenswing initially sought a traditional European-style apprenticeship in goldsmithing, only to find that such a thing did not exist in 1970s America. On top of that, there were very few schools offering metalworking programs. As a result, she is mostly self-styled. “I really am one of those from the ground-up, from the seat-of-the-pants kind of people,” she says with a laugh. She looked for training and advice wherever she could find it, bought books, and taught herself whatever she could to improve her art.
Her two big breaks came in 1974. First, several of her pieces were selected for a show of up-and-coming regional craftspeople at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. Soon after, she was juried into Piedmont Craftsmen. At age twenty-two, she was the youngest member ever invited to join the crafts guild. Being a part of Piedmont Craftsmen has helped mainly though the prestige related to membership, she says. It also gave her a venue through which to display and sell her work, both at the annual Piedmont Crafts Fair as well as their gallery on Trade Street in Winston-Salem.
Because her introduction into the art world happened somewhat piecemeal, Ravenswing never had a large injection of money into her operation and therefore never codified a business plan. She has been forced to learn and adapt as she’s gone, and her business has literally grown one tool at a time. “It’s been very organic and very much driven by what was in front of me in the moment. Not necessarily the best way to build a business,” she cautions, attributing some of her success to luck. Luck means nothing without skill, however, and as Ravenswing’s skill has increased so has her exposure. She was featured this year in ArtView as the cover artist for Winston-Salem’s West End Association’s ArtFest.
Ravenswing’s latest endeavor represents a dramatic shift for herself and her business. Until now, she has worked mostly on commission, taking individual jobs for specific people. Lately, however, she has begun crafting university regalia and has just completed a Chain of Office for Emory and Henry College in Virginia. She has made similar chains for the University of Mary Washington and Wake Forest University. Most schools turn to large-scale manufacturers such as Balfour (who make class rings) to create these ceremonial pieces, but there is growing interest in custom-made works, and Ravenswing is preeminent in the field.
Ravenswing sees most pieces she creates from the initial planning stage through the final polish, but she has begun subcontracting many phases of regalia creation to other jewelers and metalsmiths who specialize in certain fields. She will design a piece that will then move to a caster, a plater, an engraver, and so on, until the final product is ready. This manufacturing process frees Ravenswing to focus on designing her next piece. In addition to its efficiency, creating university regalia is a more profitable and secure business venture than working solely on individual commissions. Schools have more financial stability that does the general populace. This will ensure continuous work for Ravenswing no matter the economic climate. All of her work for schools up to this point has been word of mouth; but over the next year, she plans to begin actively marketing herself to colleges and universities. She enjoys the freedom this sort of work affords her; she used to take every commission that came her way simply to make a living, but now she can pick and choose which ones she takes without worrying about finances.
Another reason for making this change is the increasingly competitive nature of jewelry making in the area. Ravenswing fears the field of moderately priced handcrafted jewelry might be becoming saturated. For instance, at the Piedmont Crafts Fair two years ago, almost one quarter of the craftspeople were jewelers. “It’s very hard to compete with that many people when you’re going after the same dollar,” she states. And, as with many businesses today, Ravenswing is also contending with inexpensive imports from Southeast Asia. With that in mind, her advice to anyone interested in metalsmithing is to find and take advantage of any resource available. There are more today that when she set out in the early 1970s, she says. There are online communities such as Orchid where jewelers of all skill levels can come together to share advice and tips as well as give and receive feedback on each other’s work. She also recommends Eastern Carolina University’s metalsmithing program and the metalworking classes at the Sawtooth Center in Winston-Salem.
In Ravenswing’s opinion, there are plenty of places these days to learn the craft but not enough to learn the business. She had to feel her way through the dark when it came to keeping books, sorting through taxes, and tracking inventory. She proposes UNCG offer a Small Business for Artists course, one that would focus on such basics of business, but teach them in such a way that they are understandable and accessible for the right-brained. Learning this before setting off to become a craftsperson could be the difference between success and failure. “It’s a long, bumpy, dirty, challenging road,” Ravenswing warns. “That being said, I can’t imagine myself doing anything different.”
This case study was conducted in November 2007 by Tyler "Tai" Caldwell, a Media Writing major in the Media Studies Department. Her work was part of an undergraduate research assistantship funded by the Office of Undergraduate Research, under the directorship of Dr. Mary Crowe.
These case studies were compiled and archived as part of the former BELL (Building Entrepreneuruial Learning for Life) Program's Entrepreneurial Innovation in the Arts (EIA) initiative to provide a library of examples of how artists in many different fields have achieved success. The cases were researched and written by UNCG students.