Making Sour Beads Into Lemonade

Believe it or not, there is at least one similarity between being a jewelry designer and a super model – we both have to deal with rejection on occasion. Rejection is probably one of the most difficult issues to deal with for anyone. As they say, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” which is another way of saying that jewelry (just like someone’s physical beauty) tends to be very subjective.

I wrote recently about losing my groove, and I had decided to clean up my office and get organized to help snap me out of my holiday daze. While I did manage to locate the top of my desk (at least for a few hours), what really snapped me out of my daze was a package returned from a magazine with a nice letter that said, “Your work is beautiful, but…”

I remember the first time I was rejected. I had approached a gallery about selling my jewelry. While they didn’t flat out reject me, they gave me some criticism and asked me to come back. I actually cried on the way home! Boy, was I green. I had no clue about what to expect as a jewelry designer. I took every comment, good or bad, personally.

Things sure have changed. Instead of taking the magazine’s letter as a personal attack on my ability, I stopped cleaning my office, repacked the jewelry pieces, reworked the articles, and packed those puppies out for my next mail run. The groove was back!

I’m not saying I wasn’t a little hurt that they didn’t take my jewelry, but I now have enough confidence in my ability to know that just because one magazine (or one person) didn’t like or find use for my jewelry doesn’t mean another magazine won’t.