For the Love of Jewelers: A Jewelry Journey Podcast Presented by Rio Grande

As a young girl in Iran, Mehrnoosh Ganji could not fully express herself. Now based in Melbourne, Australia, she creates bold jewelry fueled by the intermingling of cultures and influenced by her lingering love of geometry after years as an industrial designer. Her intricately-engineered “Prospect Palace” won first place in the Silver/Argentium® Silver category of the 2019 Saul Bell Design Award. ...

While working on his iconic volume, The Complete Metalsmith , Tim McCreight imagined, “What if silver was writing this?” In 1985 he started Brynmorgen Press to provide practical, bench-tested textbooks on metalsmithing and design. Decades later his experiential approach to research led him to co-found the Toolbox Initiative, which delivers new and gently-used tools and silver to jewelers in Africa...

Karin Jacobson confesses to screaming when she learned that she’d won a Saul Bell Design Award. She compares entering contests to “throwing darts and hoping one is going to stick,” and believes in embracing and learning from failure. In this episode Karin shares her competition experiences, ponders hiring an apprentice, and remembers her own teenage jewelry apprenticeship. 

As a designer, Rémy Rotenier “loves collaborating with good hands.” His own education as a bench jeweler began at age 19—“too old” by the standards of the École de la Rue du Louvre in his native France. During his first time at the bench he drove a diamond bur through his finger, an experience that influenced his decision to “stick with design.” That, and looking through the iconic Tiffany Blue Bo...