{"id":14699,"date":"2012-04-16T08:51:14","date_gmt":"2012-04-16T12:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.com\/?p=14699"},"modified":"2012-04-18T09:29:48","modified_gmt":"2012-04-18T13:29:48","slug":"laura-lobdell-shop-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/2012\/laura-lobdell-shop-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Designer’s Studio with Laura Lobdell"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We want to give you an exclusive look inside the minds of our uncommon artists. Our second artist visit features Laura Lobdell, who makes our Sterling Silver Guitar Pick Necklace<\/a> and Kiss Ring<\/a>. Trained as a fine artist–she holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC and studied Chinese calligraphy in Hong Kong–Laura has a beautiful, tiny shop in Greenwich Village, where she sells her exquisite and utterly original jewelry.\u00a0For Laura, there is no real division between her shop and her art; it all comes from the same place in her imaginative mind. Collections of objects which seem to have drifted together out of their desire to express Laura’s poetic sensibility share shop space with pieces of her art–and of course, her jewelry.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\nWhat are your most essential tools?<\/strong>
\nMy most essential tool is actually a state of mind. Being present, open to ideas and creative moments. That\u2019s a way of being able to have more creative ideas, for me. Of course, that\u2019s the struggle–ideally, we\u2019re all always present and open, right? In New York, it\u2019s a great city because if you\u2019re open and present when you\u2019re on the subway you can see something or experience something in these banal moments that become really good inspiration for something creative.<\/p>\n

For example, once some friends of mine were playing in their band. And they\u2019d lose their pick and call out, \u201cDoes anyone have a quarter or nickel?\u201d And just kind of being present and open, I thought, \u201cOh, I could make them something\u201d and that\u2019s what led me to make the guitar pick<\/a>, which is something that could be worn or played with.<\/p>\n

As for physical tools–I have a pair of pliers that I particularly like. They\u2019re not really very special, except for me they just work really well. The tip is really pointy so they\u2019re great for wire wrapping and just holding things, forming things. And the grip is really nice; there\u2019s a little bit of texture on the rubber handle. It\u2019s funny that something so simple it makes such a big difference but it does.<\/p>\n

And my calligraphy brushes. Having studied Chinese Calligraphy in Hong Kong, I love calligraphy brushes in general; he natural fur bristle, I just love the way they hold the pigment. And also that they come to a really fine tip, so I can shift the line weight really beautifully. I use that for my illustration.<\/p>\n

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Where do you find inspiration within this\u00a0<\/strong>space?<\/strong>
\nThe color of the walls. I use in my studio as well. It’s “Skylight” by Farrow & Ball<\/a>. I love it. It\u2019s a really old formula of paint. It doesn\u2019t have synthetic pigments in it, it\u2019s mineral based. It\u2019s very calming, and it changes with the light of the day, the way the sun is hitting it. The light plays across it because of the minerals in it, and it has an ambient effect. It\u2019s a really beautiful paint and I think it fits me. It\u2019s also a good, neutral color to see my work against.<\/p>\n

What advice would you offer the you of 5 years ago?<\/strong>
\n1) Trust your…call it guts or your intuition or whatever. The voice of your instinct can get crowded out by all these other things. But it\u2019s usually right. And trust in that can keep you out of a lot of the other troubles.
\n2) Get a credit card machine! Although now, I\u2019d say, get a Square Up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nWhat are some new skills you are trying to acquire to perfect your craft?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m learning how to work with precious stones, because they\u2019re beautiful, and knowing more about them opens up a lot of possibilities. Stones are a way to bring something unexpected, some color, and of course sparkle and luminosity to the work. Like for example, with a cigarette butt, setting it with orange sapphires creates an embers glow, bringing that piece to life. It\u2019s pretty cool without it, people like it; but it\u2019s a whole different piece when you essentially ignite it with the orange soft fires and leave it smoldering, it\u2019s a really nice piece of jewelry.<\/p>\n

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Where does down time fit into a day in the studio?\u00a0And how do you recharge your creativity?<\/strong>
\nI definitely always feel better when I have made the time to do yoga or exercise. And cooking and talking to friends. Seeing art is really important to me. \u00a0But it\u2019s definitely challenging. My shop is open 6 days a week, officially 1 to 7, but I try to get here a little bit earlier. And I\u2019ve usually been working in a studio in the morning. Then running around the city, I go get supplies and silver and, you know, go to the engraver and go over projects and go to pick them up. So, I\u2019m constantly recharging. The year before last, I wrote a little survival guide to myself to get through the holidays, and it really applies all the time.<\/p>\n

Holiday Survival Guide for LL to stay clear and energized (circa 2010)<\/em>
\nYoga
\nKeep Store Hours 12-7, Sun 1-6
\nBe discerning about events to attend
\nStay in at least one night per week
\nBe in bed by midnight Sunday to Wednesday
\nTwo Cocktails on weekend nights
\nOne glass of wine other nights – unless it\u2019s just the best party on the planet.
\nDrink Water<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
How do you set goals for yourself?<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/strong>I write a lot of stuff in my little Moleskin book. It usually start with a little bit of a notebook-ey, thinking, drinking some tea kind of process. I use occasions to look at where things are in progress: at New Year, my birthday in June, and back to school…seasons and occasions are good times for me to get the notebook out and start to think about things.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m planning events I do a timeline. For other things I don\u2019t necessarily put dates because, I think you can spend too much time planning, and I think that that in that becomes, I think, a barrier to accomplishing the goal.<\/p>\n

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How and when do yo<\/strong>u decide to celebrate a\u00a0<\/strong>victory?<\/strong><\/div>\n
One of the nice things about my mom is that she really celebrated pretty much everything and so I take a page from that notebook. When something good happens, I try to appreciate it, because it\u2019s a way to stay motivated and\u2014why not? Why not celebrate something that\u2019s positive, like you get an order from a store that\u2019s really exciting, or I ship my bracelets to St. Barth. So, you know, call a friend and have a glass of Prosecco, or maybe make something especially nice for dinner. It doesn\u2019t have to be anything crazy, but I think it is really nice to acknowledge these moments.<\/div>\n
\nThat\u2019s kind of the whole point of the champagne and the champagne rings, the idea of champagne every day, celebrating. I mean that not necessarily literally in terms of champagne every day, but that feeling of trying to celebrate something in every day. And then that ties into my work, too, about the everyday objects that aren\u2019t essentially celebrated, by transforming them into precious metal. The jewelry is jewelry, but it\u2019s also the idea of celebrating and making people happy–that\u2019s what I do. I guess that\u2019s kind of what gives my work meaning, is that I do something that makes people happy even in a small way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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We want to give you an exclusive look inside the minds of our uncommon artists. For Laura, there is no real division between her shop and her art; it all comes from the same place in her imaginative mind. Collections of objects which seem to have drifted together out of their desire to express Laura’s poetic sensibility share shop space with pieces of her art–and of course, her jewelry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":14757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[743],"tags":[548,40,37,910],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}