Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jonathan Dritto. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jonathan, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I’d say my story is more of a series of risks that I’ve taken rather than one specific event. I was a risk taker as a kid but they didn’t make an impact in my life until the day they started to sync up with my passions. As a creative person my whole life I’d find myself in this dilemma of working the nine to five while dreaming of being home working hours on a project I loved. I did it and worked many jobs I was passionate about but in the long run no matter what I did I always wanted to be in the studio creating. I knew it was going to take a big risk to make it a reality. I burned the candle at both ends until I was able to leap out of my comfort zone and take the risk to go full time for my dreams. In 2016 I made the leap to leave my job and turn my once hobby of creating jewelry into a full time gig. “With risk comes reward” but not without a little failure and I was willing to risk failure to make the life I wanted a reality. “What’s the worst to happen? I go back to my nine to five?” kept running through my brain. At first risks are terrifying. No one wants to fail. I dedicated and fully committed myself to why I was taking those risks and I started to notice the power within risk taking. This is where the series comes into play. As I would take risks, I would gain a reward, and that reward would fuel my mindset to take more risks and stay within a flowstate. Embodying this has allowed me to push through failure towards the bigger goals while growing my confidence as a person, business owner, and artist. It allows me to continue taking risks to bring new unique designs to life, to continue learning more skills, and to continue growing. Taking risks allowed me to create more high end pieces, send my art across the world and reach a clientele I never dreamed of having before. Taking risks has brought me to where I am now, filled with self love, confidence, making a living off of my craft while riding the wild rollercoaster of entrepreneurial life. I wouldn’t be anything today if it wasn’t for taking that first risk to leave my job and make that leap.

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?

I grew up in New York and my parents would take me and my brother to the Museum of Natural History where I became infatuated with ancient artwork, Flash forward many, many years later, and my creativity steered me in the direction of jewelry. I gravitated towards an ancient technique called wire-wrapping where you intricately weave different gauges of wire together with no solder to form components that form a cohesive piece of jewelry. My goal is to constantly showcase mother nature and I specialize in one-of-a-kind, handcrafted jewelry that features sustainably sourced precious metals and rare gemstones from around the world. I am most proud of being part of such an amazing community of artists, the continuous support I’m shown by my supporters to help spread my art across the globe, and all of the custom heirlooms that I’ve made for clients over the years to cherish for a lifetime.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

I think NFTs are innovative and a space I’m currently working to drop some work in this year! As we move further and further into advanced technology it’s beautiful to watch art go digital and evolve. It’s also magical to see other artists finding their space in this specific art form to express themselves. I’m a firm believer that with any business you should be utilizing every possible platform that allows you to promote your product and find new customers and markets. It sounds exhausting but it’s all perspective. In business, you want to give yourself the best chance possible so by utilizing every platform you can collect data over time and see what works and what doesn’t for you. I personally think NFTs are going to be just as big as crypto and I rather get in earlier than later. Like everything, I don’t think this space is for everyone and like crypto, I think the people who are most successful are the ones willing to take the risks to push art into a new realm while following their sight of the current world alongside their vision of the future.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

A massive pivot happened in my life in 2019. I was recovering from shoulder surgery, exiting a relationship, and mourning family members passing away. My mental health hit a point where trying to maintain the world of being the artist, owner, designer, photographer, marketer, social media manager, accountant, and every other task that entrepreneurship entails was impossible. Everything just hit me like a ton of bricks and I lost all inspiration and creativity. A life without art for me brings many negatives but in reality that it is my way of earning a living so no art means no money. I was trying to force myself to be creative but that only led to more unhappiness. I decided to pivot when I was offered a job working for a company I did contract work for. I shifted my mindset and allowed myself to heal outside of the stressors of trying to force art. I just let life take its course by stepping back and allowing life to flow organically. As creativity came to me I gave it space to breathe and when it wasn’t there I held space for other things. I was living in Denver at the time and when the pandemic hit the government told us to stay inside and that’s when my creative spirit decided it was a spring flower coming to life. Taking the time to pivot and leave the coals of my creativity to smolder allowed me to come back to the pit, stoke the coals, and reignite a fire bigger than ever. I was diving into designs and creating at a whole new level. Despite the pandemic, I was thankful to receive heaps of continuous support from my clients new and old, I pivoted again and created pieces to apply to the new market. Pivoting is all about embracing adaptation and evolution. The more you embrace the current situation to adapt and evolve the more you will be able to create yourself a diamond from the coal. It all leads me back to where I am now. In the downtime, I realized that I could run my business from anywhere, and in 2021 so I moved back to NY to be closer to my family as I build a tiny home/studio to continue pushing the limits of my creation and evolve to new heights.

Contact Info:

• Website: JDrittoCreations.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/Jdritto_creations
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JDrittoCreations

Image Credits
Pats self on back.