We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ryan Murphy. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ryan below.

Hi Ryan, thanks for joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I learned jewelry making by just diving in head first. I was living in LA at the time, and I had heard about the jewelry district downtown. One weekend I headed down there and started checking everything out. It was a bit overwhelming, but I found myself in a big jewelry supply store. I started picking one of the sales man’s brains about how to get started, what tools I would need, and he set me up with some basics. It wasn’t much but he got me some basic wax carving tools, and wax blocks I could play with. I just started carving stuff. I decided to make a skull ring and see how it turned out. When I finished, I brought it back to the salesman, and asked him where I could get it cast in silver. He sent me across the street to his friend. About a week later, I got my first piece back. It wasn’t that great, the casters did a good job but my carving wasnt that great, regardless, I was hooked! I carved a better one, as perfect as I could get it. When that one came back I was so excited. Though it still didnt look right. I went back to the salesman and he set me up with some acid, polishing buffs and more stuff to really finish my piece. When I got that first piece really finished, that was it, I couldn’t stop! I kept carving and having them cast. Just learning and refining my process from experience, each piece got better and better. Then I went to see how the casting were done, and wound up with a mentor teaching me all about the casting process. A year later, I got my own kiln and vacuum casting set up and just built on it. Its been mostly self taught, reading through forums for proper temperatures, lots and lots of trial and error. That takes time doing it that way of course, but I didnt have the time or money to go to a school, until recently. I just finished a course in stone setting from the New Approach School for jewelers in Tennessee, all about stone setting, which up until now I hadn’t really done! I should have started that sooner for sure. All my pieces have been silver, no stones! What was I thinking!? I am a sculpter, but it was time to step into being a jeweler. I wish I had done it sooner, but I feel confident moving forward now.

Ryan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have a background professionally as a finish carpenter, so I’ve done lots of woodworking. As a young man I was a painter that was also interested in music. I had a band, made a few albums, had a blast. Since I am a lefty, it is hard to find cool left handed guitars, so I dipped into my carpentry skills and started making them. The one thing that I found is that most of the hardware is the same. Same finishes, same pieces, it got boring after I had built a few. Being a visual artist I wanted more! One day I had the idea to make some cool custom metal parts for my guitar, but had no experience with metal working. I was also attracted to cool jewelry, but could never afford the stuff I really liked. Eventually, curiosity got the best of me and I decided to just go look into jewelry making and see what I could find. Once I got started, the process is pretty much the same for making jewelry and making cool guitar parts, as far as casting, designing and finishing goes. So I made a few knobs, then tuners, then a tailpiece. It was too much fun! And they all worked on my guitars and sounded good! I had a few friends ask for some, and I started thinking with putting my passion into a viable company. I was getting burnt out on construction and making jewelry and cool guitar parts really sparked that fire in my soul! Well its been a long road and a ton of trial and error learning the craft, refining production techniques, marketing, pricing, websites and all that fun stuff that entrepreneurs find themselves doing, but I am making a living doing what I love now!
Along the way, I have been so fortunate to hook up with Metallica. James Hetfield asked me to make a Vulturus tailpiece for his custom ESP Vulture guitar, which has now toured the world many times! after a bit I was asked to design some cool merchandise for Metallica’s online store. 6 years later, and Im still making pieces for one of my all time favorite bands! I have made pieces for Johnny Depp, Brad Whitford of Aerosmith, and more.
My thing is doing it the old world way, with new technology. I still make everything that comes out of my shop. The hands that make pieces for James Hetfield, make the ring for that kid in Texas.
Its hard to say what sets me apart from others. I would rather relate to those of us that really take pride in what we do, and love our craft. The artisans whose art is not just in their final piece, but in how they create it. The ritual we go through with our craft. Hand making & molding our pieces, hammering, drilling and casting something that through that practice and initiation, the skillset we have acquired through late nights, getting burned, cutting our hands, fucking up so many times we have come to love everything we make, and love the process we go through to make it. That sets us specialty craftspeople apart from the mass produced in a factory overseas type products. The life force and energy of the maker is cast into that item you buy from us. And we are always so grateful we get to go back and do it again for someone else.
I know I am one of the few that make heirloom type pieces by hand the old way. And thats pretty damn special I think.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The first partner I got started with was one of my best friends at the time. I had been working at making some pieces, had gotten some press already, had a fairly big band playing with my guitar parts, I was on my way. My friend really wanted in, and kept bothering me about partnering with me. Finally I gave in and let him partner. He would be the business end and I would be the design end. Well before long, he had the trademark in his name, the bank accounts in his name, all the business paperwork in his name, website control, etc. I forget how it happened but he wound up with all my molds that allowed me to create all my pieces. Then it hit me, that if he wanted, he could walk away with years of my hard work and creation, and there would have been nothing I could do about that! Some fighting ensued and I would up getting my molds back. I was ready to walk away from it all and rebrand, start the business side over. I had my manufacturing molds, that was the most important part as that represented years of hard work. I would up finding some accounting discrepancies with his paperwork, and some other things that were off the rails, and I hung that over his head to give my company, trademark, web domain etc, back to me, and he was willing to do that, and walk away. Thank God! I almost lost it all to someone I thought was a dear friend. When money and greed get involved, you really discover who your friends are.
Sometimes it is good to go into business with friends, sometimes it is not! So get absolutely everything in writing!

I believe true resilience really comes from loving what you do ultimately. I have had so many pitfalls, bad partnerships, sleazy manufacturers or subs, you name it. But ultimately I couldn’t stop! I would still find myself in my shop creating my next piece, having fun doing that, loving the process. So really, I think resilience comes from that place. So really find what you love to do, then when you encounter any sort of issue, nothing will stop you from being who you were meant to be.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Sometimes I really think that it is ALL ABOUT YOUR MINDSET! I have been up and down, great sales, no sales. Been in crappy moods, immersed in bad news for weeks at a time, etc. But I find myself doing the best, when I feel good for an extended period of time. When I get rid of excessive bad news, bad or negative thinking, and bad personal habits. Im not entirely sure about the Law of Attraction, but there is something about being in a position of personal power that somehow greases the wheels. I have been getting more into some great books, mostly on consciousness and mind tools to keep my head in the right place. You can manifest what you want, it all starts in the mind. Not just thinking about how to go about your business, but the most empowering and love provoking and strengthening thoughts followed by actions throughout your day and as you fall asleep that will start moving things where you want to go. Thats a fact! Some books I would recommend are:
The Power of your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy
Power vs. Force by David Hawkins
Becoming Supernatural by Joe Dispenza
Million Dollar Habits by Brian Tracy

Also I would suggest learning about narcissism, and narcissistic abuse, because it is quite prevalent in this day and age, and it will wreck your dreams and mindset faster than anything if you have a narcissist in your life. So learn about it, and how to spot it in people, because it is no joke.

Contact Info:

• Website: silverluthier.com
• Instagram: Silver_Luthier
• Facebook: SilverLuthier

Image Credits
Last image of me in my shop: Photo by Bastille Murphy