I focused my interview choices on jewelry, a field I am interested in and one that I have experimented with a little bit. The first person I interviewed was Karen Nolen. She is my aunt and she runs a beaded jewelry business from home. She mostly uses ceramic beads, but she also uses glass beads. During the interview she told me many times that patience and self-motivation is key. The patience to get though the small details. The self-motivation the get the product time in a timely manner. She conveyed that no real training after high school is needed, if you have the drive to do it you can do it. Over the past couple of years she told me that she has had more requests for more elaborate and tiny pieces. The best part of her job is that she …show more content…
She is a jeweler, engraver, gemologist, accounting, repairing, and working with alternative metals. She continuously told me that apprenticing early is key to being successful. In 2008 she told me there was a big change in the business. People started to bring in old pieces for repair more than buying new pieces. She switched her business over to repair more than creating new pieces. She went on to tell me that other mom and pop jewelry shops in the area that didn’t switch over went out of business quickly. The best part of the job she told me was saving pieces, learning what makes pieces special to people, the stories of pieces, and that she is always learning. The worst part of the job is the mean people and the patience’s required. She told me a story of a man that came into her store an started to yell at her over something not that big and she stood up for herself and he left. He came back later and she was dreading a repeat of earlier, but he came and apologized. Said his dog was hit by a car earlier that day and he didn’t realize he was yelling at everyone he came across until she said something. On that day she told me that she learned that people are always angry for a reason, that people are inherently nice (especially in Michigan) and that they are hurting. Her overall advice was to apprentice early and do a lot of bench …show more content…
I choose Lindsay Adler a fashion photographer. Although she is not in jewelry she has a job in the fashion industry that I find interesting. Throughout her interviews she seemed to be a humble and nice person. She started young with her career, at around 15 she picked up a camera and started to take pictures of pretty things and people (Smith, Colin Smith Interview with Fashion Photographer, Lindsay Adler, Part 1). Soon she found that she loved taking pictures of people more than things because they have more emotions and gestures. She said that people skills are super important for her job to be able to effectively communicate what is need of the model and what she wants the model to look like to her team. She said that her creative team is key. That without the hairdressers, make-up artists, contacts, and wardrobe that she would be nowhere. And her pictures wouldn’t turn out as good as they are without them (Johnson, An Interview with Fashion Photographer Lindsay Adler ). The biggest challenge of the job is to create a unique style that screams Lindsay Adler that isn’t boring. She stressed how important it was to keep a portfolio fresh, to have at least 15 photos but less than 30 (Photography, Fashion Photographer Lindsay Adler Vancouver Interview ). The advice that she had was to never be afraid to act, try new things, and do not give