Why Wait?

“Why wait?” we ask ourselves, when asked to stand in line anywhere. Why should I have to wait all this time (several seconds usually) for this file to load? Why wait for anything? Increasingly, we are a culture of instant gratification. We need, yes, really need people and doors and machines and circumstance of all manner to respond to our whims with a mere wave of our hand or short verbal command.
But wait…is that always what we really need? Think about it. Why wait for a train to cross the intersection before crossing on foot?

Why wait for the right weather to go sailing, or mountain climbing. Why wait for your partner to slowly walk to the alter, pausing to smile at your friends as she passes? The answer is simple, we wait for these things because they are either lifesaving or life-affirming. In these cases waiting adds quality to our lives in ways that can mean the difference between life and death, or can become hard to measure in their subtlety…and they are all important.
So why wait for Custom Jewelry Design? Why not just go pick something off a shelf somewhere, probably last minute, ‘cause it’s close enough, right? I posit that, in many cases…wrong.
I read somewhere in my anthropology studies that body adornment, (jewelry) has been utilized by every known culture, both living and historical. This may tell us something about the importance of jewelry to our sense of being human. Certainly, jewelry can be whimsical and flamboyant and irreverent. And tattoos have recently come to be a personal symbol of choice for many people.  But for many people in many cases, jewelry remains how we choose to symbolize some of the most important parts of ourselves and share it with others. We give a ring in marriage, we acknowledge friendships and important occasions with jewelry. Does this symbol, this memento really want to be one of thousands of mass-produced items? Or made soullessly by formula? I’ll let you answer this for yourself.
Here is one of my favorite passages from an email exchange I had decades ago that sort of puts the time it takes to make fine custom jewelry into perspective…
The following is a brief excerpt from the piece by Susan Crowell, writer, and (probably former at this time) ceramics instructor at U. Michigan, Ann Arbor:
“Craftsmanship is the central, qualitative element of craft, and it is at the heart of one maker’s response to the work of another…and in seeking a unified theory of craft, not a unified aesthetic, we need to focus on the act of making, not the object itself.” She discusses the writing of anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake’s in her book “Homo Aestheticus”, who describes “ART” as the task of “making special”.
Susan goes on to say…….
“For craftspeople, this making special emphasizes both the making and the special. Reversing the terms – special making- rings even truer when speaking of craft, for which the process of handwork is an essential component. As our perception of time becomes more precious and the time-intensive nature of craft increases its value, craft may even come to represent the preciousness of time itself, embodied in an object.”
And I’ll close this out by saying, “Why wait? Get started on your meaningful custom project with Gary Dawson Jewelry Design today!  I promise to make your jewelry worth the short wait for me to make it perfect for you.
​

This mother/grandmother pendant took a little time to make and became a treasured family heirloom! See some of my other custom work that each comes with a story!