I am so terribly behind in my writing on here. I had promised myself to take the time to do the writing prompts set by Caitlin of Aguja y Clavo jewellery. I really like reading her posts and I should follow suit by writing my own when I say I will, right?
This second prompt, Meet the Artist, I almost skipped. I guess that might tell you a bit about me already. My name is Pati and I make all the things. That’s Chris with me, he writes stories for video games like Nancy Drew. Cool, right? Here we are at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
I literally cannot stop making things, and this is how I came to start my own business over ten years ago. I had taken a ceramics class and started making garden sculpture and green man masks. I made so many that I thought I had better start selling them because I was running out of space. When i stopped selling ceramics, I started selling other things I had made, like candles, herbal potions, linocuts and etchings, and vintage clothing (I am a collector and at one point had a huge number of excellent pieces from the 20s, 40s, and 50s.)
We moved (briefly) to Toronto, where I learned metalsmithing from an incredibly talented goldsmith (see my About page for details) and thought perhaps this was my next artistic challenge. I started up the Etsy shop again to sell my experiments as I learned. Those who bought from me at that time sure got some crazy deals, even from a beginner. Etsy is NOT good (ask me why!) so I started up my own website in 2019, but I wasn’t quite ready to try the whole production jeweller thing. In 2020 I decided to try to make a go of selling for real. I found out that production making does not suit me as I cannot keep my attention long enough to finish multiples of the same thing (I’m autistic). Those who can do this truly, truly, have a superpower. So I make art jewellery and mostly one of a kind pieces so I don’t get bored, and the things in my head get out into the world. It doesn’t pay the bills, but I am happy that my work gets adopted into very good homes with some regularity. Homing my handmade creatures is my priority. I should probably go get another office job (I’m also a software developer and a business analyst) but hope springs eternal for my business of making art so for now I will stick to it.
Atelier Patricia Tozer 