Artistic Process
It is very difficult to put down on paper your years of training and study that lead you to today, your practiced skills and artistic vision that create a final product, and your shear willpower to run a business. Below is our attempt to capture our artistic process so you understand the love, devotion and craftsmanship put into each of our jewelry pieces.
Inspiration:
We live in the largest, most rugged and unexplored state in the United States - Alaska. We take our inspiration for our jewelry from the flora and fauna, the mountains and tundra, the rivers and streams, the snow and ice, and the darkness and sunlight of this Great Land that is so hard to describe and understand. We take God's created world around us and interpret this into our jewelry designs.
Color Development:
Based on the inspiration for our current jewelry piece, we work hard to match the beauty God created with the colors and/or textures from natural stones, beads made from natural wood, and/or genuine leather to interpret our inspiration into wearable jewelry. Upon the approved color scheme and materials to be used, our artisans move to make working models.
Jewelry Modeling:
At this point, our artisans layout the appropriate materials - beads, leathers, cordings, and any clasps - to best represent and interpret the original inspiration. Often there are multiple models, layouts, scraping and starting over until the perfect model meets the artisan's approval.
Final Design:
Once a final design is reached, the inspiration, the colors and design are reviewed to make certain the original inspiration is captured in the final design.
Jewelry Creation:
An initial piece of jewelry is completed based on the artisan's design, just as the jewelry would be completed at time of order for a customer. At this point, the craftsman is making sure the piece assembles as expected, the final materials work as expected, and the assembled piece is as expected when complete.
Marketing Creation:
At this point in the process, the model piece is taken to marketing for its premier photographic session, copy creation, and the creation of appropriate marketing to make certain the story and inspiration behind the piece is accurately being told and conveyed.
User Testing:
One of the advantages of working at BTJ Living is getting to "wear test" all our great jewelry. After the model piece finishes its marketing debut, it is test in real world scenarios to make sure the design is sleek, smooth, and tough enough to stand up to our customers' needs and expectation. After a worthy test run, the product is placed into our inventory and is only now ready to be presented to our customers.
Placing into Inventory:
The initial inspiration, the time in development and creation, modeling, and testing are all time consuming but necessary steps to create our quality and long lasting jewelry pieces. Unlike other jewelry brands that mass produce and machine tie and knot their jewelry, BTJ Living takes the time-proven, higher quality, artisan skill, and hand-crafted approached to every piece of jewelry we create. Nothing is mass produced. Machines are never involved in our production. This is why we can offer our Lifetime Guarantee on every piece of BTJ Living Jewelry we sell.