S5-01: Ben Claus: Divine Feminine Rising

Kicking off season five, our For the Love of Jewelers Podcast co-hosts, Paulene Everett and Shane Hendren, chat with the 2023 Fall Design Challenge Winner, Benjamin Claus. Tune in as they discuss the concept and inspiration behind his prizewinning design, Divine Feminine Rising. They discuss his path to jewelry making, the joy of connecting to other creators and clients through social media and the value of taking risks on one’s journey to self-actualization.

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):

You are listening to the fifth season of Rio Grande for the Love of Jewelers podcast, a celebration of jewelers, the jewelry community, and the art of jewelry making. In this new season, we are excited to announce that there will be a rotating cast of Rio Grande Jewelry tech team members hosting the show. We will share our love and knowledge of jewelry making, along with interviews featuring industry leaders, educators, and fellow jewelers in the community.

Speaker 2 (00:32):

Hello, I'm your host Shane Hendron, and joining me on today's show is my co-host Pauline Everett. On today's show, we are excited to visit with Ben Kloss, winner for the love of Jewelers Fall design Challenge. Ben is an incredibly talented jeweler who wowed our team of judges with his divine feminine pendant. We're looking forward to learning more about Ben, his inspiration for the design, and more about his company Rise Designs. But before we get started with our first segment, Pauline, would you like to share a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:04):

Yeah, so I've been on the tech team for I think about three years now, but I've been with the company for about five now. I actually got my background in jewelry making from the local CNM bench jeweler program. One of my instructors actually works through Rio, and so it was kind of like a cross sectioning of working with people who I learned from. So I've kind of taken that love of wanting to share education with others in the industry. I've been metal fabricating in steel for a really long time. My dad was actually a steel fabricator, so I had the previous experience of working with steel, but took it to a smaller scale once I got into jewelry. Yeah, I think I've just kind of been fully immersed in metal working for a really long time, and what I really love about my current position is I get to share so much knowledge with everybody else and people who maybe have been in the industry for a long time, or maybe people who are new to the industry, everybody can learn something new every day, and I love sharing that knowledge with people. What about you, Shane?

Speaker 2 (02:10):

It's a lot the same. I mean, ultimately I'm just a ranch kid that started out pounding metal at the ranch and then I fell into jewelry when I was in college. I've been doing it now for over 30 years. I came to Rio Grande, I guess a little over six years ago and joined the tech team. It's been one of the most fulfilling things being on the tech team because I get to share all the knowledge and expertise that I've developed over the years. It goes hand in hand. I'm also a professor at the Institute of American Arts where I'm teaching sculpture, so I have a lot of balls in there. I'm always juggling.

Speaker 1 (02:41):

Right. It seems like the jewelry making follows in with the jewelry teaching. It seems like we really can't keep our knowledge to ourselves.

Speaker 2 (02:47):

Well, for me it's really cool because when I got into this business, nobody would share anything. Nobody would share anything. Nobody would tell you anything. And that's one of the reasons why I loved Rio Grande, because I could walk into Rio Grande and there was always somebody there that would answer my questions. And as far as I know, they were the first company to have a tech team. One of my good friends, Sen Durham, who actually taught me in college how to do moko magne and marriage and medals and stuff, he was one of the first people that they hired exclusively to be a quote tech team person and answered the customer's questions.

Speaker 1 (03:18):

Right. It's funny because coming from having the CNM background and working with Mark and kind of knowing Rio as an entity, you don't think that the tech team never existed, but I have very much the same experience where it's like I came in, everybody wanted to answer my questions, everybody wanted to make sure that I was getting the right answers, and that's kind of how I got onto the team to begin with is nobody said no. I've never really experienced, maybe in some cases, but I've never really experienced somebody saying, I don't want to share information with you. And I think I'm in my own little bubble of Rio because everybody's always so happy to share information. But yeah, it might be secular, but that's something that really benefits me or benefits everybody. Everybody wants to share information.

Speaker 2 (04:01):

I think that's a company-wide kind of thing with Rio Grande. I think that's one of the things that really sets us apart, but So tell me, what's your new favorite tool on your bench?

Speaker 1 (04:12):

Well, right now I'm actually working with the Zap welder. This is Zap Plus, and this is a welder that is fairly new to Sunstone, which is actually our sponsor, but they are a new line of the Orion welders and it is a small welder with an advanced A DL, so auto darkening lens, and it's adjustable versus the old options of the ADLs. They were a little bit more stiff. The Zap itself goes from one to 30 watt seconds, so it's not a lot of power, 30 watt seconds, maybe not everybody in the jewelry world uses, but it goes really low, which is really beneficial. So I've been using it for fabricating. You can use it for permanent jewelry, which is kind of what it was intended for, but I was really surprised with the amount I could do with it, even though it's just an increment of one watt second. It's not something super, I would say complex to use, but it is really easy to use. And so that's something that I've really liked using and I actually fabricated a gold ring with it. So yeah, it has a lot of power to put out for something so small. What about you? What kind of tools have you been working with lately?

Speaker 2 (05:22):

Well, first off, so what you're saying about this welders, you don't have to have a welding background to use

Speaker 1 (05:26):

It. No, not really. I think the one benefits of a lot of Sunstones products is that their pieces are industry or their equipment's industry wide, and so they're very easy to use. You kind of just plug and play with them. Some of the larger welders, like the one that we actually was a prize for our interviewee, that one has videos that you can actually watch on it and it gives you tutorials, and they're very intuitive for people. With the one that I have, I've, I've played with all of them and every different power range and size, but the Zap plus, it's just very basic, not basic in the way that it's bad, but basic in how to use it. So you can just plug it in, clip your piece in, turn it on, and then just adjust the power as you need with a dial. And so it's easy to learn how to use and you can expand further into other welders if you wanted to, but I don't really think you need to. It's actually very intuitive. I dunno. I had a great time using it.

Speaker 2 (06:27):

That's amazing that you're talking about this welder. I just spent a week with Kyle Kenyon from Sunstone Art of the Cowgirl. He was down there demonstrating the welders and everything. He actually had that welder. And you're right, it really is a fantastic piece of equipment and that's why I wanted to talk about the Lindsey Bench Jewel Art Graver because I was down there for I think five days doing demonstrations, and I had a lot of people who had never picked up an engraving machine before, and I taught them how to engrave. In fact, a couple of people from the company got the chance to use the tool. But the reason why I like the Lindsay Bench tool, graving system is because it's probably the simplest engraving system for somebody to get into. It's the handpiece and it's the regulator and two hoses and plug it into an air compressor and you're ready to go. I mean, I'm kind of oversimplifying, but when it comes to the engraving system, that is probably the, and it's the least expensive. It's a very high quality piece of equipment. It comes with one pres sharpp and cobalt graver, two high speed steel graver blanks, two call. Its one adapter. There's everything you need to get started. It's like pull it out of the box, plug it into your air compressor, and you're ready to go

Speaker 1 (07:38):

And ready to go. So with that, how do you like it? I know that you do a lot of engraving and you've been doing engraving for a really long time. Well, not a really long time, but for a long time. How do you like it compared to other systems that you've used? Is it easier to use? Do you find that it's comparable? You said it was a beginner system. How do you like it comparatively? Well,

Speaker 2 (07:58):

I wouldn't call it a beginner system. I think if you are a beginner though, this is the system that I recommend to people who are just getting started in power assist engraving. I also use the GRS systems. I've used probably every piece of equipment out there, and all of them have their place engraving and stone setting and everything, what use. But I think for somebody that's just getting started, the Lindsey that we sell is probably the best in route to get there. And it's just so simple. The GRS systems, there's much more to them. They're not that complicated, but they can be a little bit overwhelming just because of their size and

Speaker 1 (08:40):

Scale. There's scale, there's so many options to kind of

Speaker 2 (08:41):

Start, there's more buttons,

Speaker 1 (08:42):

Right? Yeah. People get overwhelmed with buttons.

Speaker 2 (08:45):

With the Lindsay, there's no buttons. Plug it into the air compressor. There's a foot pedal. You push the foot pedal, the

Speaker 1 (08:50):

Engages, and then goes, yeah, I actually got to use, I've been able to use the Lindsay a couple of times, but at JCK last year, I got to sit down and actually use it at a bench. It's super easy to use and I'm not a great an engraver at all, but I have played with a lot of the tools to kind of be able to talk to customers about them. But yeah, I think that's probably the easiest one to use. And then it's also a very aesthetically pleasing engraver. They're all hand engrave. They're just beautiful looking and they just look great.

Speaker 2 (09:17):

Steve Lindsay builds each and every one of 'em, and it's really a unique situation because we're the only place you can get those graves. Every other graver he produces, you have to buy directly from him. But the Lindsay Bench Jewel Art Graver set you can get from us.

Speaker 1 (09:30):

We're spoiled. Every we have the connections. Well,

Speaker 2 (09:34):

It's because we want to bring the best tools to the

Speaker 1 (09:36):

Public, right? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, even just the way that it looks alone and then knowing that somebody hand builds them. I think being a jeweler or you being a jeweler, just somebody who likes craft, I think we appreciate it instead of sometimes you can kind of see assembly line type things, but I think having the understanding, somebody built this by hand and somebody who knows engraving built this by hand. It feels like a little bit more special. Plus the cost isn't too high either compared to other things.

Speaker 2 (10:04):

No, it's like I said, out of all the engraving equipment that we sell right now, it's the least expensive, but it's one of the highest quality.

Speaker 1 (10:12):

Right. I agree.

Speaker 2 (10:13):

Cool.

Speaker 1 (10:16):

Before we get to our interview with Ben, we'd like to thank today's sponsor, Sunstone engineering maker of a complete line of pulse arc welding systems from the Zap Plus and the Orion PJ Design, specifically for permanent jewelry applications to the sophisticated Orion 200 I pulse arc welder, complete with touchscreen interface and microscope for precision. Sunstone has the arc welding system to fit your needs. Visit rio grande.com to order your sunstone welder today. So thanks for joining us, Ben. Really congratulations on what you did with your piece. We were all pretty baffled and stunned by your piece, your grand prize winning design for the 2024 fall challenge really took the team by surprise and took us by storm and really, really, really loved it. Can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind it and maybe where you were thinking of going with that piece and how you found yourself thinking fall and divine feminine together within that piece?

Speaker 3 (11:21):

Sure. First, I just want to say it's an honor to be recognized for my jewelry. I've never won anything in my entire life, so this was a big surprise for me. I actually forgot I even entered, so

Speaker 1 (11:36):

That was, you got the email.

Speaker 3 (11:39):

But yeah, the piece is probably one of my best works. It was a collaboration with ster. I hope I'm saying his name, but I have followed his art for many years, and one day I decided that I'm finally going to get one of his stones and I'm going to make something with it. Well, I bought the stone and then I sat on it for maybe a year before I was ready to start. And with my work, the stone is always, that's everything to me. The stone is where I start. I want to honor that stone. I want the balance of metalwork and the stone to be in harmony and really do stone justice. So first of all, it's a rose to France, amethyst accented with It's beautiful. Thank you. Accented with sa, satellite garnets and aquamarine.

(12:34):

I think over the year that I spent thinking about it, I really wanted to honor the earth, and I believe that the earth is feminine. I think as humans right now, we're deeply focused on tech and AI frequencies and things like that, and this stone really asked me to share that connection with nature is the most important thing we have, and I don't want us to forget that. And I think if we continue going down that path, we will be in more trouble than we already are. So I found the stone as a way to really make a statement in celebrating our connection with nature.

Speaker 1 (13:17):

The other, yeah, actually, sorry to interrupt you, but before I actually knew what the name of the piece was, I was calling it the Winter Goddess. Oh, wow. That's kind of how I was perceiving it, because it had a very frosty, earthy kind of feel of the transition into winter. And you think of Fantasia and you think of the kind of things coming in and the dew and the goddesses and the fairies coming into give the winter a new life. And so that's kind of how I was perceiving it. But I think we were kind of on the same page a little bit different, but on the same page.

Speaker 3 (13:49):

And what's cool is I was only, I don't know if I was able to show more than one picture, but the back of it, I hand engraved these trees and these crystal caverns and the scars and the cosmos, and so the whole piece was really, we

Speaker 2 (14:02):

Didn't see the

Speaker 1 (14:02):

Back. No, we didn't get to see the back. I'd love to see the back.

Speaker 3 (14:05):

Yeah, I'll send some pictures. So the whole piece was really just an amazing story and came out incredible. I'm still extremely proud of it. It was hard to let that one go for sure.

Speaker 1 (14:16):

Yeah, I'm sure it was.

Speaker 2 (14:18):

So the other, so did you sell it, Ben? Is that

Speaker 3 (14:21):

Sold? Yeah, it did sell. Good for you. Thank you. The other piece of this that I wanted to talk about was watching my wife become a mother. We have two children together, they're seven and three, and the birth of my children was one of the most impactful experiences of my life, and especially my daughter who's three. We had her in the comfort of our home with no doctors, nothing. It's called a free birth. And just that experience, I feel so amazed by feminine everything and just watching her

Speaker 1 (15:01):

Power,

Speaker 3 (15:02):

Extremely powerful experience. So yeah, this piece was a great opportunity to show all those things.

Speaker 2 (15:09):

So it sounds like the feminine is a huge inspiration for your work. Is there anything else that inspires or influences your work?

Speaker 3 (15:16):

Yes. Nature number one. I love being outside. I love especially being with my kids outside, watching them observe all the things that maybe as adults we kind of forget about a little bit. Animals. I love animals. I live in the country outside of Asheville, and we have a good amount of wild animals around, and I really love that. I love, I kind of look to them for inspiration and signs, and they do help me focus my work sometimes. I did a line recently where I had engravings of deer and mushrooms and hawks and crystals and all the things that I love so much about nature.

Speaker 1 (16:03):

I did a little bit of research and I found your Instagram page, and I found you with a picture of your dog, and I'm a dog person, so it was like, ah, yes, jewelry and dog people. I love it.

Speaker 3 (16:14):

Yeah, we have two English retrievers right now that are about 10 months old, and they're a handful,

Speaker 1 (16:19):

But it's in the Velociraptor phase.

Speaker 3 (16:22):

So wild. My dog's actually right under my feet right now. She's being very good,

Speaker 1 (16:27):

Being very good. Good. Yes, I had to kick my dogs out because I have an 11 month old German Shepherd and then a 4-year-old healer, German Shepherd, and they're too much right now. I'm like, I'm trying to be quiet and you guys are not. So I understand. Most

Speaker 3 (16:40):

Herding dogs can be real challenge. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (16:43):

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (16:44):

Yep. But yeah, the other piece I would say for inspiration architecture, I really love looking at beautiful buildings and just kind of seeing how they come together. And I mean, you can really use that in jewelry quite a bit.

Speaker 1 (16:57):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (16:59):

So tell us a little bit about your process. I mean, that's your inspiration. What's the kind of process that you go through when you're creating a magnificent piece, the one you entered?

Speaker 3 (17:10):

Well, I'll tell you, it seems really simple, but always when I take that center stone, I make a setting for it. I always make the setting on its own, and then I take the setting and I trace it on paper, and then I just start sketching, building around. What I like about that is it's to size. So I can just kind of start flowing and page after page in my sketchbook, create a lot of designs until I feel like I've really found the one. And then I always go straight from that to if I have to roll out some sheet or whatever I need to prepare. And then I just start piercing and fabricating. And from there, the rest of it is sort of more open-ended. I don't plan the accent stones typically. I don't plan my sizes. So all of that stuff, once the blank canvas is finished, I am able to see what fits and then order what I need to finish the project, which is a lot of fun. So

Speaker 1 (18:10):

You do a lot of pre-production for your pieces, and you do a lot of time of planning out what you want the final piece to be. So awesome. Good to hear.

Speaker 3 (18:18):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't remember the last time. I just sort of, sometimes I'll have a component component I didn't use before, and then that'll kind of inspire a piece, but that's pretty rare for that to happen.

Speaker 2 (18:31):

So Ben, you use a lot of stones in your work. How do you source all those beautiful stones that you're using?

Speaker 3 (18:38):

Well, I used to go to the Tucson Gem Show every year for maybe 10 years or so, and then I stopped going because I had developed all these amazing connections out there in the desert, and I started just kind of buying from them regularly through email or social media. And that's been really helpful to me to kind weed out the people I didn't want to work with and kind of keep the people that I love working with. So Tucson was really the jumping off point for that.

Speaker 2 (19:13):

So that weeding out process that you're going through, does any of that involve ethical sourcing of stones and ethical cutting practices and things like that? Is that part of your consideration?

Speaker 3 (19:23):

It does. I think there are definitely people out there that want to either take you for a ride, rip you off, be dishonest, that doesn't work for me. I want to know that you're paying people fairly want to know that what you're selling is exactly what it is. And I think that became important to me when I became a gemologist. I just know how it should be. Everyone's number one really.

Speaker 1 (19:57):

Absolutely. Yeah, I've done a little bit of the GIA courses, but gemology seems like it's such a on top of jewelry, it's also such a vast expanse of information and learning and having that aspect and also pairing it with metals, I feel like is a really important thing for people who do create jewelry, especially within the environment that we're in. So yeah, I think that's really great information for everybody to have.

Speaker 3 (20:22):

And the good thing is there's so many dealers out there, you can just, if something's not working, there's always someone else you can try again. And it can be fun to just kind of switch it up sometimes. Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:38):

A lot of networking goes into the jewelry business that people aren't aware of. It really is a people business. So kind of off of that topic, how did you get involved in jewelry to begin with? I mean, what was the genesis of that?

Speaker 3 (20:57):

Early on in my life in high school and a couple of years afterwards, I was seeing a ton of live music. I was traveling and I started seeing, I got into crystals and raw gemstones. I always loved that. And then it was actually wire wrapping, which was my intro. I saw some cool wire wraps, and I remember buying one and taking it apart right away and then putting it back together

Speaker 1 (21:24):

Just to see how it'd work

Speaker 3 (21:26):

Exactly. And I loved it. It just sparked something in me. I used to do painting and drawing and things like that, but this was something I could do with my hands. It felt really good, and it just took off from there. Really, I couldn't stop after that. It just became a huge part of my life.

Speaker 1 (21:46):

Do you still, in your downtime, maybe you're kind of burnt out from jewelry, do you still go back to the old medias of painting, drawing, ceramics? Is that something that you do just to kind of keep creative or are you just solely jewelry now? Metal fabrication?

Speaker 3 (22:00):

I'm solely jewelry. I rarely will just draw for the sake of drawing, but I do enjoy basic carpentry. Oh, ing. But it's a similar as fabrication. It feels the same way, but it's something I can do around the house and it's for fun. And like I said, I'm not very good at it. If you guys need maybe some simple raised beds,

Speaker 1 (22:26):

Call a spice rack,

Speaker 3 (22:29):

That's where it ends.

Speaker 2 (22:31):

So raised beds, do you garden as well?

Speaker 3 (22:34):

We do some gardening. Yeah. Actually the best thing I ever built, I built a greenhouse two years ago.

Speaker 1 (22:41):

Oh, fun.

Speaker 3 (22:42):

And it came out really great and it works really well. So we do grow some of our own food out here, but it can be hard to keep up with.

Speaker 1 (22:50):

Yeah, I can imagine that's like a whole job in itself of maintaining plants and gardening and trimming and getting the food planning.

Speaker 3 (23:02):

Maybe the greenhouse is probably 30 feet from my studio, and I don't think I went in there more than five times, which was kind of hard for me. But I'm just very busy with jewelry and stuff like that. And family, of course.

Speaker 2 (23:13):

Yeah. So you're busy with jewelry. How does that work? Are you taking orders or are you making one of a kind pieces and then selling them? What that, if you don't mind, explain that process to us. How are you marketing and getting your work to the public?

Speaker 3 (23:29):

I love making one of a kind pendants. I do that for the majority of my work, but I do a lot of custom work as well. Mostly custom rings, wedding rings, men's wedding bands, things like that. I do pendants as well, but I think over the past however long, 20 years, people know that I make them for fun and they want to buy a piece of my artistry. And occasionally I've noticed with custom work, it can feel, sometimes it works really well, but it can feel forced as well. I'm drawn to a stone for a particular reason, and other times maybe the stone that they choose isn't something that I would have picked right away. So it's working out really well where I make a lot of one of a kind pieces. People seem to like them enough to buy them. And then I love doing the wax carving and all that as well for wedding rings as well. So it's a good mix.

Speaker 2 (24:29):

So do you do craft fairs or art markets? How are you getting your stuff in front of the people?

Speaker 3 (24:36):

It's always been social media, and one of my goals this year is to put myself out there. I live in Asheville, North Carolina, and there's a lot of amazing artists and ways to show your work in person, and I just haven't prioritized that. But I really want to because I think it would be fun for me to talk about my work more to people in person

Speaker 1 (24:59):

To actually meet people and be able to describe to them and the feeling that you have behind your work and get that information. I think that's really important, especially within any kind of artist industry. But within our industry, people think of us as little jewelers in a corner in the dark who we don't talk to anybody, but we're very passionate people. So I think going out there and talking to people tends to give us more humanity and not so much of a bench goblin type feel.

Speaker 3 (25:29):

Yeah, I do feel the bench goblin thing for sure. Me too. Maybe in a given week sometimes I maybe haven't seen too many people, so it'd be good for me as well to kind of get out there. And social media can be kind of impersonal in a lot of ways. I mean, someone can ask about a piece and then not respond if they choose to. And that's just part of social media. And when you're in person, you could walk away, but that would be weird.

Speaker 1 (25:54):

Yeah, it's not as socializing with social media as you do with Yeah, exactly. I feel like you build better bonds with people when you are talking to them, and maybe if they didn't even buy something, you end up remembering those people or they remember you. So yeah, being in person I think is really important.

Speaker 3 (26:11):

And if you make an impression on them, they may come back later and say, I remember meeting you at this craft fair or this art market and I'm ready. And that can be a really beautiful experience to have it come back around down the line.

Speaker 2 (26:23):

Yeah, the relationships is what, I've been doing this for over 30 years, and I have clients and collectors that have become very close friends, and it's just really amazing how the relationships we develop, it all starts with the art, but then it grows into these connections that we have with people that if it wasn't for the art, we'd never have that connection. It is just this amazing thing.

Speaker 3 (26:50):

I totally agree with you. A lot of my clients are friends at this point, and I'm dealing with the same people pretty regularly. And it feels amazing to have someone want to support your art over and over again and then know about them and congratulate them on their new baby or what milestone that they've reached, because you talk to them several times a week. It's exciting.

Speaker 2 (27:14):

Yeah, it's amazing because I think as artists, a lot of times we take it for granted because we have this ability to manifest things that we imagine, and we don't realize that most people don't have that ability. That's why they're drawn to us. That's why they come to us as artists because they're seeking that. And when you can help people to experience that or understand it in some way, in my opinion, it makes the world a better place.

Speaker 3 (27:47):

I'd agree with that as well.

Speaker 2 (27:49):

So when I was doing my research on you, I saw you have an extensive education in your craft. You went to Penland School of Craft, the Gemological Institute, new Approach School for Jewelers, the GRS Training Center. One of the questions I have is why those schools? What led you to those educational opportunities?

Speaker 3 (28:10):

That's a great question. I think in the beginning, the Penland School is actually located about an hour north of where I live now in Asheville. And at the time, I kind of had an art background from high school and I just needed to get away from my hometown and kind of gain some perspective. So I went there for a whole summer and penland just, it opened my eyes to all these different ways you could be a metalsmith and a lot of the fun things, some of it, which I don't even use anymore, but it really helped build my love of jewelry and I love that. And then I would say after that, I tried to go to college, didn't really work out for me it, so I wasn't really interested and I kept just dropping out. And my parents were both teachers in my high school actually.

(29:05):

And to convince them to let me pursue jewelry as a full-time thing, I use GIA because GIA is this big name. Everyone knows GIA and I love Stones. So the Gemology program, they were like, okay, yeah, we'll send you there and you'll be able to be successful. And that was a great choice. It was nice to get out. I moved to Southern California, lived on my own, and I finished that program. I did really well with it, and then fell immediately right back into making jewelry full time because I wasn't going to go to a jewelry store and be a salesman, and then it just wasn't who I was, but it was really a definite great stepping stone for me. And after that, diving into jewelry, full-time, you want to learn new skills, you get better and you're like, oh, I want to learn engraving.

(30:01):

Well, where do I learn engraving? Well, GRS, they have all the tools. So I went to GRS and then you meet people and they start sharing new things. And after a while, I started figuring out who the best teachers were. So I went wherever they were to take a class. And that was a really power move for me because there was no barrier at this point. If I wanted to learn from Jason, Marcia Fava, I found out which course he was teaching. I paid what he was asking. And then you gain those new skills, and I think that's a really important step for someone to learn. You can learn a lot anywhere, but sometimes you got to go to the right teacher.

Speaker 1 (30:44):

Actually, one of my close friends and the coworkers, she lived in North Carolina for a while, and she was telling me about Penland because that had come up with you. And she was like, yeah, it's like this art colony. You can learn everything there and you can learn from a bunch of different people. And when she called it an art colony, I was like, oh, that sounds really cool. I wish we had more stuff like that out here. We've got art schools, but definitely not an art colony. So that sounds like it was a really interesting, fun experience to have, especially going between trying to do traditional college and then doing something like that. I feel like that fits more of the creative mind than just being in college and getting good grades.

Speaker 3 (31:23):

Yeah, for sure. I think the cool thing about Penland was the ability for collaboration between different mediums. Nothing there was really impossible. I took a moca May class there, and it was really profound experience, and the guy who showed me, he's like, now let's take this moca May billet we made, and we took it up to the Iron Studio and they just flattened it with the power hand one hit. And I was like, wow. Wow.

Speaker 1 (31:51):

How do I get a hammer like that?

Speaker 3 (31:54):

I want one of those. So yeah, Penland is a really beautiful place, for sure.

Speaker 2 (31:59):

So Ben, you were enamored by the Power Hammer, which is this amazing tool. So Rio Grande partnered with Sunstone for the Grand Prize, which is Orion one 50 pulse arc welder. So you're going to get this new welder. Do you have any visions or ideas for how you're going to incorporate that into your practice now?

Speaker 3 (32:19):

What are you going to

Speaker 1 (32:19):

Do with your new toy?

Speaker 3 (32:21):

Well, so I'm super excited. That's something I've wanted for a really long time. I have relied on just a jeweler's torch for a very long time, and I plan to use it for repairs. With jewelry, there are always mistakes, and there are some times where it can be repaired with a tool like that. And I've been hiring people to do it for me, and I'm excited to be able to just do it at home. Also, tacking things in place. When I'm fabricating, I love fabrication and things shift and move, and sometimes it can be a bummer to have to start over, and I can't wait to see what this tool can do for me and my work. I'm very excited about it.

Speaker 1 (33:03):

Yeah, I think we both, Shane, you have a welder as well, but I have a welder at home now too. I started with big welders, large TIG welders, and having a micro tag welder just at home to tack things together. Or maybe you soldered something and you just have the tiniest little pit, and maybe nobody else will see it, but you can see it. That's definitely one of the benefits of having those welders. I think the more that I experience the welders, the more that I use them for things that I might not be able to do with a torch. Very fine weaving or tacking things together. So yeah, there's a lot of potential you get with the one 50 and it's a really good system and you have the optics with it too. None of us can see anymore. We get to a point where our eyes aren't as good. So having optics with a welder, perfect.

Speaker 3 (33:50):

I'm very excited about that. I actually have two benches each with their own microscope, and I just can't wait to walk in here and see that Also set up three microscopes, laboratory. I can't wait. It's going to feel awesome.

Speaker 2 (34:03):

I have one question that I want to know. You started this journey as a jeweler over 20 years ago, and what I'm curious about is if you could go back 20 years in time and talk to yourself then, what would be the advice you would give yourself to help you?

Speaker 3 (34:23):

Okay. Well, the number one is take big risks. Something that I've struggled with in my career is just going all in all the time. It's easy to just work safe and oh, I think my customers will really like this. I have learned that when I make jewelry that is connected to my heart completely. It's a vision that I came up with. It's more fulfilling for me, and someone will see that as well. If I'm creating solely for financial gain, it doesn't always work out that way. Sometimes it does, but

Speaker 1 (35:01):

Doesn't feel as good.

Speaker 3 (35:02):

It doesn't feel as good. And when it doesn't work out, it's a big let down because you poured all this time into something and it's like, wow, that wasn't really in my alignment, in my true alignment. So I say, if you can take the big risk, you should take it. Just jump all in. Nothing should be considered impossible. Just go for it.

Speaker 2 (35:26):

So entering this design challenge on Rio Grande's Instagram, was that a big risk? You said you had never won anything before, so that's why I'm asking kind of, right?

Speaker 3 (35:38):

Yeah. I think the reason I entered, I saw a lot of other people I know entering. I was like, I saw one, and then someone's like, I entered, I entered. So I said, well, I'll enter. Why not? And that picture always stood out to me as one of my favorites and that piece as well. So when I entered it, it didn't feel like a risk, but it's not something I would've normally done. So maybe it really was, I'm glad I put myself out there. And I'm also glad I forgot about it because

Speaker 1 (36:09):

The sneaky hidden risk

Speaker 3 (36:11):

That night when I just picked up my phone and it said, Rio Grande, congratulations. And I just set it right back down. And then I said, oh,

Speaker 1 (36:19):

No, wait, what? This

Speaker 3 (36:21):

Is possible. And I opened it up and my wife will say that I was so excited. I was jumping around like crazy. It was such a beautiful experience. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (36:32):

Yeah. And to jump off of what you said, Shane, what was your favorite part of the challenge? Because you are inspired a lot by nature, and we were kind of giving the inspiration a fall. What was your favorite part of this challenge?

Speaker 3 (36:45):

Oh, I guess all of it really. Everything about it was great for me

Speaker 1 (36:51):

Winning the welder.

Speaker 3 (36:54):

Yeah, I mean, I going to be honest with you, I didn't even know what the grand prize was. I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (37:01):

See, that kind of is a pretty big risk to take.

Speaker 3 (37:05):

It was. I didn't even know that that was part of it. And I said, wow. I think it was my inner being just new to enter because I needed that tool. It was all just happening without kind

Speaker 1 (37:17):

Of happened serendipitously.

Speaker 3 (37:20):

Yeah, it really was. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (37:22):

That's a good thing. We didn't do the Wheel of Fortune challenges where, or the prizes where you win a trip to Alaska or something, you actually get a tool you can use.

Speaker 3 (37:31):

Yes, I'm very excited about that, and it's probably a tool that I would've put off buying for a long time anyway, so this is just perfect.

Speaker 2 (37:39):

So Ben, in 2024, Rio Grande plans on having more of these challenges via our social media and everything. So would you recommend to other creators, other creative people to enter these contests?

Speaker 3 (37:56):

Oh, absolutely, a hundred percent I would. Yeah. I think given the opportunity, I'll probably, if I have time, I'll enter every single one for sure. Why not? What do you have to lose?

Speaker 1 (38:09):

Absolutely. You just put a picture out there. Absolutely. Yeah. Taking that is a very low risk, high reward type of thing. So if you just throw a picture in there and then hopefully you win something cool.

Speaker 3 (38:20):

Yeah. And it also creates community with, and you may see new work. There was so many artists that I started following after that because yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was amazing.

Speaker 2 (38:31):

Yeah, that's one thing about social media is it connects us to people that otherwise we would never be exposed to and we can create dialogue and interact with people. I know that I've become parts of different groups because of social media, and it just expanded my horizons creatively. We're coming near to the end now. Is there anything that you would like to share with our listeners that you think is important?

Speaker 3 (39:07):

I think I'll just touch back on what I said, the advice. Please, please take all the risks and please try to remain unique as well. Your ideas matter and you should pursue them and you should see them through. Yeah, that's really what I think is the most important because that's something I've tried to do ever since the beginning. I really trusted my process. I trusted my dreams, I trusted my abilities, and you should too.

Speaker 1 (39:40):

I think I needed to hear that. That was good advice for me. Not even just the listeners, but if you only hit one person, it was me. So that was good advice. I like that.

Speaker 3 (39:50):

I'm glad.

Speaker 2 (39:53):

Well, that's fantastic, Ben, on behalf of Rio Grande and myself and Pauline, congratulations on your win. Thank you. Fantastic piece. I encourage anyone who hasn't seen the piece to go look it up on social media and

Speaker 1 (40:08):

Show us the back. I'd love to see the back. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2 (40:10):

Show us the back.

Speaker 3 (40:12):

And I'll also say this, I think there might be a version 2.0 coming out in 2024. So

Speaker 1 (40:19):

Send it to us first. We want to see it.

Speaker 3 (40:22):

Thank you.

Speaker 2 (40:24):

But anyway, thank you very much for your time. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (40:26):

Thanks for talking with

Speaker 2 (40:27):

Us, for entering and everything. We really

Speaker 1 (40:28):

Appreciate it. So we are really active on social media. I know you and I are, and we are kind of very much in touch with the community. Is there anybody that's inspiring you lately? Anybody that you're really interested in seeing and have been following their work more often, or maybe somebody that you really like to see their posts and things like that?

Speaker 2 (40:53):

Absolutely. I've got some Go-to people that I go to on a regular basis. So one of the reasons why I like the Lindsay is because I've been exposed to it. Because a lot of the guys I know that engrave build buckles and spurs and bits and all this stuff. They all use lenses. And a lot of these guys I follow and I follow him on social media and everything for one, Wilson Caprin, Wilson Caprin, he's a member of the traditional Cowboy Artists of America Association, and he's probably the premier bitten spur maker in the United States today. He uses Lindsay Equipment, I don't know about, I follow another guy's name is Matt Lit. He's an amazing engraver as well out of Texas. Matt's amazing in that, I don't know if he has the exclusive contract or not, but if you get on Instagram, he did this cigarette lighter for Dave Chappelle. That's cool. When Dave Chappelle sold out the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, and then he did a buckle for George Strait as well for selling out that concert. He does this,

Speaker 1 (41:53):

That's even better

Speaker 2 (41:54):

Mind blowing stuff. But who are you following on social media?

Speaker 1 (41:59):

So I follow a couple of people that are just crafts people in general, but one of the ones that I've been really liking and actually I was introduced to, it's a Father-daughter duo. It's Lubeck Goldsmiths and it's Kindred. And Jay Lubeck and Kindred actually was featured through the Women's Jewelry Association, which is what I'm a part of. And so I kind of got an idea of her as a person through the Women's Jewelry Association. And then I found her page later on. And it's cool because it's a father and daughter duo. I love that they do very, it's like traditional, but it's almost not because a lot of their designs seem a little bit more art deco, but modernized. And she works with pearls a lot, and there's a lot of creativity that you don't really see in larger spaces. And so I like one, I mean, having a young woman making gold jewelry is always really fascinating for me.

(42:55):

I love seeing women in the industry, but the designs that they come up with are just kind of put out, have always been really aesthetically pleasing to me just because they're clean, but they have a lot of flash and they use different stones that you may not see big pearl rings, you don't really see that as much anymore. And so I really like them. And then I also follow a chasing and represent artist named Douglas Pryor, and he does large sculptural type things and they're bat masks and weird faces and just kind of horror type things. And so it's kind of interesting to see his process on such a large scale. For me, my introduction to chasing and represent is very small, but seeing his huge sculptural masks is always really cool. And then watching people kind of send comments and be like, how are you doing this? What is that black stuff? And what are you melting? And it's like I know the answer to it, but it's cool to see his techniques and his responses to stuff like that. So I dunno, I follow a lot of people, but those are two that I've been really liking a lot lately.

Speaker 2 (43:58):

Just a reminder, everybody, you can find everything you want on social media at Rio Grande. We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, we're on TikTok, we're on YouTube.

Speaker 1 (44:08):

And I think one of the best things about our social media too is that we're not only just putting out content, but a lot of the content is curated for knowledge, which really is something that I think we both like. And YouTube has a lot of full long length or long form content that you can find and learn a new trick or skill or maybe a burning question you might've ever thought about that you didn't know.

Speaker 2 (44:31):

And we're interactive. Yes. So if you have questions, ask your questions via social media. If you have feedback, we're welcome. We welcome it. So we look forward to hearing from you all. Yeah, we

Speaker 1 (44:41):

All talk to each other. And a lot of the times with social media, especially for the Burning Tech questions, it's usually you or I or somebody else on our team that's answering. So it's one way of contacting us, but we see everything and we try to be very conscious about how we interact with our community. So you can always talk to us too. It's social for a reason. So Shane, you just got back from A OTC Art of the Cowgirl in Queen Creek, Arizona. How was that? Did you have a good time? I mean, it seemed really fun. I got to see a lot of the stuff that you were doing and it seemed like it was a blast.

Speaker 2 (45:16):

One of the greatest things about being on the tech team is not only do I get to go to trade shows and share my knowledge with people online, on the telephone and everything else, I get to make videos. And now I'm getting to do this podcast. So for everybody who's out there listening, all of this information is available@riogrande.com. You go to our knowledge hub under the Knowledge Hub, you'll find a podcast, you'll find the videos, you'll find everything you're looking for. But you're right at Art of the Cowgirl. It was amazing being able to interact with people, getting that hand face-to-face, hands-on stuff that we're doing there. I had people who had never engraved before, engraving and everything. And that really illustrates how Rio Grande is your go-to source, not just for materials, but for tools, equipment. But most importantly, we're the go-to source in the industry for knowledge about jewelry.

(46:03):

If you want to know about jewelry, we're here to help you. And going off of that, I want to make sure everybody understands that for the rest of the year, we're going to have a whole list of trade shows that we're going to be doing in 2024, starting with A GTA in Tucson. That show is actually going on as we record this. And then we're going to go to MJSA expo in New York City. That's March 10th through 12th. We'll be in JCK in Las Vegas, Nevada, May 31st through June 3rd. We're going to be at PJX in Las Vegas, Nevada, June 4th through sixth. We'll be at a PP in Las Vegas, June 23rd through the 26th. And the last show that I have on my list is in-Store Chicago, August 11th and 12th. So be sure to stop by, say hello. Give us some feedback, let us know what you think. We're here for you.

Speaker 1 (46:51):

So that's it for today's show. Thank you to our guest, Ben Kloss, for joining the show to talk about his grand prize winning design in our for the Love of Jewelers Fall Design Challenge. And thanks again to today's sponsor, Sunstone engineering makers of the Orion line of Arc welders. Do you have any questions you would like answered on the show or want to submit ideas for future episodes? Email us at podcast@riogrande.com.