We were lucky to catch up with Clayton Stewart recently and have shared our conversation below.
Clayton, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I learned CAD based jewelry design by trial and error. Having a good bit of computer experience and CAD experience from a prior job, the biggest hurdle was learning how to design jewelry that would actually be able to be produced and be wearable. I had to work closely with our in-house jewelers to make sure I was designing in such a way that they could finish and set what I was designing.
To speed up the process of learning jewelry design, I could have gone to formal training classes offered by the CAD software company. This would have advanced my knowledge of the software in a quicker time frame.
Specific to CAD jewelry design, computer skills, general CAD knowledge, and the desire to learn something new every day was the most essential to the learning process.
The biggest obstacle to learning was not having any prior goldsmithing experience or training.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Clayton Stewart. I am 47, a husband and father. I was working for an industrial software company for more than 8 years when they fell on financial problems and closed. About that same time a good friend of mine who owned a jewelry store, Dempsey’s Jewelers, was looking into adding CAD jewelry design to their service offerings. Since I had quite a bit of CAD experience, I thought this may be a good fit. I have always been creative minded and this would blend two things I liked in to one, computers and creativity.
We provide one-off custom designed and manufactured fine jewelry primarily to our local market, but have designed pieces for people from all over. We create custom pieces using sentimental family jewelry as well as one-of-a-kind bridal jewelry.
I am most proud of the past 15 years of continuous learning it has taken to be able to efficiently and expertly design a piece of jewelry for manufacture. When making a custom piece for a client, we make sure the longevity and wearability of that piece are at the forefront. We have the capability to design, 3D print, cast, finish and set a custom piece 100% in-house. Not many retail jewelry stores can do this, especially a small family owned business.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I have had to pivot twice in my professional life. During college, I was a professional wedding and portrait photographer. My goal was to be the best photographer I could be. However, my business skills were lacking and I found myself in a position where I had to fall back on my college degree and get a job with a software company. After working in the industrial software field for over 8 years, the company I was working for went out of business. This forced me to make some decisions and I pivoted once more into jewelry design. I love being creative, and this field allows me to use computers and technology to create jewelry.
Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
The blockchain is quite powerful in allowing you to see ownership and you have a payment method based on the blockchain. I know enough about this to be dangerous, but I think it will change how certain transactions and ownership of digital goods are handled. It could be another decade before it is all flushed out and a reality.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dempseysjewelers.com
- Instagram: dempseysjewelers
- Facebook: facebook.com/dempseysjewelers
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTd2VNUhEbsUI7iSDDFVG8g