We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dawn Muscio a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dawn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
Clients seek out my talents to bring a vision to reality, often involving family heirlooms, so every commission has its own unique success story. However, the story of this project imprinted strongly with me. My client was cleaning up her mother’s estate after she passed away. As is so often the case, the estate had many cherished items, but so many things had fallen to disrepair. After experiencing this “sorting and cleaning” process firsthand she vowed to herself to not leave anything to her children that was broken and in need of repair. Amongst all the jewelry she found an antique mourning brooch. This is where our journey began. She initially brought it to me to see if we could repair it. Nearly immediately I knew it would be impossible to match and replace all the missing stones and repair the metal framework holding it together. She wondered what the alternative was, and I suggested we could unset all of the stones and design a suite (necklace, earrings and ring) with design elements from the original and era of the brooch (late 1800’s), while adding some modern twists. The suite was intended for her to wear to formal affairs that she frequented with her husband and eventually would be split up between her three children. My client and her children were absolutely thrilled to tears with the finished pieces! We were able to perfectly enfold the sentimentality of her mother’s broken jewelry into new pieces that she can wear. Her children fell in love with their grandmother’s “new” jewelry and have already expressed which piece they would like from the suite to be passed on to them.
Dawn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Upon graduation from high school I attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn with the ambition of being a graphic artist. On my very first day of class my drawing professor told the class of approx. 30 aspiring artists that only 10% were going to be able to call ourselves “professional” artists and make a living doing what we love. This made a huge impact on me, I wanted to be that 10%. At the end of my freshman year I declared my major in the Communications dept. (graphic design, art direction and illustration). My drawing professor was hosting the end of year get-together for all of the Foundation Art Dept. He asked me to work the door and after I could join the party and eat. As a cash poor college student, all I heard was “free food.” Needless to say I was all over it, not even thinking about the education through conversation that I might receive. This was the evening the really shaped my career. Of course, everyone asked me what my major was and what I wanted to do as an artist. The advice I was given by multiple professors I admired was that if I wanted to differentiate myself in the communications dept. I should major in fine arts to develop my own style and minor in communications to be a well rounded artist. This made a tremendous amount of sense to me. I immediately changed my major to Fine Arts with a minor in Communications. Then just to fill out my schedule I took an elective jewelry studio course. My thinking was if I was going to be a freelance illustrator my side gig in between contracts and while building my portfolio I would be to sell jewelry on the street of NYC, instead of being a waitress or bartender as many illustrators were. When class started the fall of my sophomore year I fell in love with the jewelry class and was less enamored by the communications classes. In that moment I became a jeweler at heart. While dabbling with various styles I began to develop my own aesthetic. I also realized that creating the same lines of jewelry all the time could be boring. In order to work in finer material than I could afford as a college student I would do commissions for friends, family and administrators as part of my semester portfolio. I found challenge and inspiration in creating custom commissions. I love the custom process from start to finish. At the studio we can source and supply the entire project, or we can re-use items a client already owns and restyle. Taking clients inherited, broken or sentimental pieces and making them into cherished items to fit my clients personality and lifestyle is one of my favorite things to do, and where I have found a niche in the industry. With it comes a set of challenges that can make a project much more difficult, making restyling a service that many jewelers do not want to offer. The first difficulty lies in working with family. heirlooms that are irreplaceable should something go wrong. The value is not necessarily monetary, but the sentimentality makes them priceless. Secondly, in heirloom pieces the stones that were used are not always well matched. When I do sketches I do not unset any client goods until they are ready to proceed. Sometimes I cannot get exact measurements. When we unset them we find the stones we thought were all very close to the same size are actually not. Sometimes this may alter our design. Also, it is very time consuming to lay out the stone for the design very specifically. For the best quality setting, I have to be mindful and careful with each stone and its placement. If we are supplying the stones we can pick out very well matched goods within strict tolerances of size, allowing me to move more quickly with the design, and the setting and finishing process. In addition, if you are not careful and skilled, just the act of removing and unsetting the heirloom goods so they can be reused takes great care and time to negate the potential for damage. These are the challenges that I face and must overcome by being highly skilled in my craft, but ultimately it is my creativity in solving the puzzle of incorporating clients goods and maintaining the sentimentality of their jewelry into something new that sets me apart as an artist in the jewelry industry. Whether it is inlaying a mother’s wedding band inside their new ring with the engraving intact or creating a dragon fly that represents the logo of the restaurant where an engaged coupe had their first date, these are the types of ideas that make a piece that much more special and encapsulates their story in the piece.
I love at the end of the process when there are tears of joy. Sometimes just the beauty of the finished piece elicits that emotion, sometimes it is the process of bringing the sentimental pieces full circle to create something beautiful that brings that joy. I’m really proud that our pieces become a part of a person’s signature, part of their story, something they talk about every time someone makes a comment about their piece. The pieces become cherished heirlooms that other family members now attach even greater value to because when they think of that loved one, they think of that ring (or bracelet, or whatever) that person always wore. Helping with that is what I am most proud of.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
Our next client is a friend of a current or past client. So we intentionally go to and sponsor events that allow us to connect with those leads. We get to know our clients very well because our process is so personal, so we are often invited to events and parties they host. In those situations being introduced to our clients’ social circle in combination with the story and experience our client recants about their experience in making a custom piece help to introduce us and leads to connecting with new clients. Twice a year, we sponsor Sip & Savor: A gemstone experience. This is an invitation only event for current clients to attend. We host a lapidary artist to bring their newly cut one-of-a-kind gemstones for a private preview party. We encourage our current clients to bring a friend with them to introduce to this extraordinary experience with gemstones that they may have never heard of before.
We also have current interested clients host a private “Friends of D. Muscio” party for charity with their social circles as a way to connect to our next best client. These parties may be a gemstone experience, or an introduction to our studio through restyling pieces, recycling precious metals, or educational Q&A.
If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?
D. Muscio Studio offers our expertise in design, Computer Aided Drafting (CAD), Computer Aided Modeling (CAM), fabrication and setting on a consulting basis within the jewelry industry..
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dmuscio.com
- Instagram: @d.muscio
- Facebook: @dmuscio
- Yelp: www.yelp.com/biz/d-muscio-fine-jewelry-atlanta-2?osq=D.+Muscio