Once Off vs Mass Produced

She (Susan Cohn, Melbourne) chaired a session at the conference on the same theme, ie: 'Jewellers and metalsmiths (indeed all craftspersons) may argue that, since industrialisation, roles have changed. Things for day to day use are now mass-produced. The industrial designer develops the ideas and the objects are made by machinery. So, craftspersons, whose role is confused, have tended towards one-off 'art' production. Do they need to? Isn't it time to do some refocussing, to rethink the market and cultural production. The selected members exhibition Production/Reproduction attempts to address this issue by posing the question, 'Can production pieces have the same value, relevance and impact as the one-off piece?' (extract from JMGA conference brochure, 1995).

Power House Museum

I agree with the above statement. I feel that we have to compete with mass produced jewellery from overseas which is often a lot cheaper than handmade once off pieces, and because of this many independent jewellers are now doing "mass production" of their own pieces but on a much smaller scale. I am not saying that there isn't a market for once off jewellery pieces, there is, but it is a much smaller market. So in order to make money producing jewellery I feel that the bread and butter would be your own "mass produced" range and then once off pieces should be made to demonstrate your skills.