We recently connected with Val Walis and have shared our conversation below.
Val, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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 pretty much everything I know about jewelry through trial and error. I stumbled a lot along the way, and maybe was a bit stubborn but I was always very determined to improve my skills. Jewelry started out as a hobby for me. It was something I had messed around with for a long time, but I really started spending a lot of time on it in early 2012 when I had just spent my first winter living on my own and teaching skiing at Hunter Mountain. After such a busy season, I was looking for something to keep my hands busy while living in a place that had just transformed into an absolute ghost town once the mountain closed in the spring.
At first I was just using random scrap wire and materials that were just around me. Once I started actually selling my work, I really got the confidence to keep moving forward with it. I saw there were certain things people were drawn to and excited about, so I kept making more.
In the summer of 2014, I made the decision to leave my summer job at a local restaurant and pursue jewelry full time (at least in the months that I wasn’t instructing) I had moved back home to New Paltz and after much indecisiveness on whether or not I wanted to continue pursuing a college degree, I transferred schools for the third and final time and landed myself at SUNY New Paltz as a visual arts major.
I took my first and only metals class in the fall of 2014. I really loved the work, but the class itself was very stressful and overwhelming. It felt like we really rushed through the basics and were expected to be creating thematically driven work while simultaneously learning how to do all these things for the first time. My final project for that class is actually my business logo, a brass Luna Moth which I had sawn and filed each nook and cranny by hand.
But I had gotten my first taste for silversmithing, which I loved. It took me 5 years to slowly gather the tools and materials necessary for soldering at home. Finding the funds to invest in all the necessities as a college student was definitely a challenge. Also establishing a work space when I was moving every six months was extremely difficult. It wasn’t until I settled down and lived in the same place for a few years that I really started building out my jewelry studio.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Val Walis and I’m the owner of Orion Jewelry Design, based in the Catskill Mountains in Upstate NY. I specialize in Sterling Silver and Gemstone Jewelry inspired by the natural world and landscapes around us, as well as the live music experience. I craft jewelry that captures the feeling of connection and belonging, using high quality materials with a meticulous attention to detail.
My greatest joy is gathering up tiny moments of connection and turning them into dependable, comfortable jewelry that feels like an authentic extension of ourselves and the ever changing seasons.
How did you get into jewelry making and vending professionally? What developments helped you grow?
Vending my first few music festivals were huge learning experiences, and really made me step up my game. I learned how to be organized with my setup and manage all of the necessary aspects of vending for multiple days, including the ever present possibility of inclement weather. Music festivals exposed my business to much larger crowds than I had ever encountered before. Interacting with so many people about my work was super exciting for me and really helped shape what I was doing professionally.
Over the years, I worked my way up to vending music festivals full time. I was also running a brick and mortar shop at the time, spreading myself very thin.
During the pandemic, I had to take almost two years off from vending. It was incredibly nerve wracking at first, but I had to pivot and adapt like so many other people at the time. I focused 100% of my efforts into being a fully online business with my very newly launched website. It was a huge adjustment going from basically living on the road, vending dozens of events each year spanning many states to not getting in my car and driving anywhere for weeks at a time.
The pandemic gave me the one thing that I definitely did not have in the years leading up to it- time at home to work. I had just started experimenting more with simple silver fabrication in early 2020, so I really took a deep dive into silversmithing during my time stuck at home. I also started learning the inner workings of my website, which was an entirely new world to me.
What types of products and services do you provide?
Aside from vending events, I also offer my entire catalog of jewelry on my website. I generally add new items to my website in smaller batches, but at times will drop larger cohesive collections of different types of items that are all tied together by an underlying theme or set of ideas as inspiration.
I’m currently getting ready to release a new collection, the largest I have released in quite a long time. It’s called the Seekers II Collection, and it’s actually a sequel to the Seekers I Series which is available on my website. These are both inspired by the music of my favorite band, Goose. These pieces incorporate influence directly from specific songs of theirs, utilizing particular colors and textures that feel like the song. Translating the experience of live music into a wearable piece has been on my mind for years, and I’m really proud of the evolution of this project over the years.
Seekers II Collection will be available on my website April 5th at noon. Subscribers to my newsletter will be getting exclusive early access to shop the collection, you can subscribe by clicking the link at the bottom of this article.
I also have a Patreon, where supporters get even earlier access to shop new collections. Patreon is a really wonderful platform where my supporters can directly contribute to my financial stability, which as most creatives know is a huge factor in being able to do what we do. In return, my Patreon supporters get to see content that no one else does, like early glances into new projects and all the processes that go into each aspect. They get to contribute their feedback and ideas into what I’m doing, which is really special.
What are you most proud of?
One thing I’m really proud of is being a self employed small business owner who also deals with multiple chronic illnesses. It’s taught me so much patience and resilience to keep going. It’s so incredibly difficult when my mind and body are not on the same page. My brain absolutely adores a good hyperfocus work session, like deep dive all in and explore every possible facet of this idea before we even think about taking a break or eating lunch. But now my body can’t really keep the pace with what my brain wants to do, and it requires a lot of rest and down time after any type of exertion. It’s really frustrating and difficult to manage, but I’ve learned to really listen to the signals that my body gives me and adjust my plans accordingly. Sometimes I have to switch gears completely, like if I’m not feeling well enough to be on my feet, I’ll cozy up at my desk and focus on more of the computer/backend work (which there is always more of that to be done)
Right now, I’m just grateful for whatever my body can do. I know what it feels like to have to completely step away from work for extended periods of time. I’m just coming back from over three months away from my work, so literally anything I chip away at or finish feels like a massive win to me.
What makes your work so unique?
One thing that sets me apart from other jewelers is my background in the art world, specifically oil painting and woodwork. My borderline obsessive attention to detail definitely comes from my wood working days in college. I learned how to properly sand to perfection at that time, and I applied those skills to silver. This level of attention to detail is what sets apart mediocre work from great work. I’m confident that my pieces will hold up over a long period of time and stand by the quality of my work.
My background in so many different mediums has also influenced my processes in jewelry making and helped me forge totally new techniques. Approaching jewelry from a painter’s perspective has enabled my success with landscape jewelry, in particular my layered mountain pendants. Through a lot of trial and error, I developed a texturing technique by moving back and forth between the reduction process and polishing process countless times to achieve the look of realistic mountains. There are a lot of artists out there making mountain jewelry, but none of them look like mine.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For me, the most rewarding thing about being an artist isn’t even the work itself that I produce, but getting to see the people absolutely light up when they find the perfect thing for themselves or a loved one. One moment from last year really stands out in my head. A little boy, probably around 6 or 7, came up to the booth with his dad. It was absolutely downpouring that day, but the boy was all smiles, fascinated with everything on the table. He obviously wasn’t much of a jewelry connoisseur, but he was really into gems and crystals. He had picked out one of my Seamless bracelets, which is solid black Onyx with one single Labradorite accent. Once he decided, I restrung one of the bracelets to fit his wrist and he was SO EXCITED to put it on. The whole rest of the day, every time I saw that boy, he was wrestling a little with his raincoat, pulling up his sleeve so he could stare at the bracelet. That right there is the most rewarding feeling in the world.
I do a few events year after year, and the best part is having people run up to the booth so excited to show me the bracelet or necklace, or whatever it was they had bought the previous year and telling me they haven’t taken it off since getting it. Sometimes I’ll do a little maintenance work for returning customers, like restringing a bracelet they had bought years prior, or shining up their silver charm necklace. At that point, it doesn’t even feel like a seller/customer type of exchange, it feels more like a family reunion. It’s a really special feeling knowing how many friendships that have grown over the years all starting with me doing what I love the most.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I started selling my jewelry back in 2012, I was 18 years old and terrified to put my work out there, especially with a price tag on it. I would sit at farmers markets sometimes for the entire four hours without a single sale. All my work was priced around $10-$20 at the time. I would rearrange my table a million times, wondering if that’s the problem. Did I have to talk more to people? Or less? I kept trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.
Over the last 12 years, my business has evolved and matured, and I have too. I really have to work hard at unlearning that voice that was always in my head, even today. It’s constantly saying things like “people won’t want to pay $XXX for *just* a bracelet!”
Pricing in the jewelry world, and really any creative field, is a CONSTANT battle with that voice saying our work isn’t worthy of that price tag. I’m always referring back to my checklist of factors to figure out pricing.
How much does it cost to make this item?
Including tools I’ve gathered over the years that were necessary for it?
How long did it take to make it?
Am I paying myself an appropriate wage for the skill level required for this piece?
Okay, how much time did I spend researching materials to find the very best fit for my vision? Days? Weeks?
How much effort goes into stringing up this bracelet to make sure it’s up to my standard?
Oh yeah, I am indeed picking up every single individual bead and holding it to the light to assess and sort by quality, clarity, consistency in shape and color, any potential manufacturing flaws, etc and only use the best beads.
Am I going out of my way to make sure the fit will be perfect for this person?
Yes, always.
Did I provide necessary information about how to care for this specific piece?
Oh yeah, I did.
Will this bracelet last a year?
Of course.
Five years?
Yup!
Ten years?
I’ve seen it happen!
Did I include beautiful packaging and an extra handmade gift with this purchase?
Sure did!
OKAY- maybe I do deserve to charge what I need to get paid accordingly for my efforts. Rinse and repeat, all the time! It’s really difficult to automatically feel
Contact Info:
- Email: orionjewelrydesign@gmail.com
- Newsletter: https://orionjewelrydesign.
com/newsletter/
Image Credits
First photo – Emily Walis