We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karen Edgerly. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karen below.
Karen, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
My resilience comes 100% from my mother. She had many challenges and faced them head on and always found the good through the bad. Can’t say I’m exactly like her, but there are qualities I have learned from her and resilience in one. Over a decade ago, my life took a big turn, I was hit with a health issue that rocked my world. Looking at my mortality made me realize I needed to make some big life changes. I quit my teaching job, stopped overloading my plate until it overflowed; work, kids, family, travel, and socializing. I started to say no and really took a look at what I needed and not what I thought everyone else needed. And the biggest thing I did was follow my desire to be a full-time silversmith. I took a scary situation and turned it into such a wonderful one, I am now following my passion of being a silversmith and constantly looking at how to keep my life in balance.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I have been making jewelry since I was a teenager in San Francisco. I took my first silversmithing class at the DeYoung Museum and after that I was hooked. I continued to take silversmithing classes all through high school and college. I have followed several different paths in my life. In college, I majored in art and science. After college I pursued my goal of becoming an environmental geologist and continued to work on silversmithing. I then became a teacher and was one for 20 years. Twelve years ago, I went back to my love for silversmithing full-time. My interest in geology is clearly shown in my jewelry with its emphasis on precious and semi-precious stones. What sets me apart is my jewelry embraces both the scientist and the artist in me. I understand the chemistry behind the science of metalsmithing and the artist in me loves the creative part where you let your mind wonder and come up with a design. When designing a piece, I always look for a way to make it slightly different. I want people wearing my jewelry to feel they own a unique piece, and one that feels like is has been especially made for them. My jewelry embraces the find craft of silversmithing using various techniques and plays with mixing silver with gold and always adding the sparkling aspect of faceted stones. I call the style organic classic.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three important qualities and/or skills in my journey have been: 1. enjoying interacting with people; 2. having technical skills; and 3. the curiosity to always learn. While you work alone designing and creating, you sell your work to people and make custom pieces for people. At art shows, you want to meet people, talk to them not just about your work, but learn about them as individuals. I love meeting couples and making wedding rings. It’s a process and you get to know who they are and what they are about. In order to create and design you need to have the technical skills to work with silver or gold. Practicing those skills for hours while working on pieces, redoing, reworking and finally getting something to where you want it is key. And the last skill combines these two: people interactions and technical skills, which is learning from people both taking classes in your field and learning other skills from people like how to run a small business. These qualities and skills have gotten me to where my business is today and I hope to take me further in the future.
Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?
I read a lot during my first year of learning how to live with a chronic health condition, books on health, fear, self-help books, etc.. And one book that really struck me was “Your Heart’s Desire” by Sonia Choquette. The book is set up as a workshop. So, you are answering questions and thinking about your life and where you want to take it throughout the book. It helped me launch myself from a science teacher to a silversmith. As I look back on what I wrote in the book, I was still in the process of figuring out how to leave my career as a teacher and allow myself to be a full-time silversmith. In the end it was my principal who gave me the go ahead. I had a very hard time letting go. A nugget of wisdom from the book is “the principle of surrendering any and all attachment to the outcome (of your heart’s desire): It means letting go and allowing the Universe to do the magic in its own way and know that the Universe’s magic is always better than your own.” Once I finally let go of my teaching career, my silversmithing took off in a very organic way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.karenedgestudio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karenedgestudio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karenedgestudio
