Today we’d like to introduce you to ZRINKA (ZEE) DUNN.
Hi ZRINKA (ZEE), we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am Croatian, and back there in Croatia, after finishing law university, LLM, and bar exam, years of practice at attorney’s office, working as a judge councilor at municipal court, HR in air charter company, and lastly, eight years in city government of Rijeka in department of culture as lawyer for conservation and preservations of cultural goods, I met my, today husband, John, an American from Swainsboro GA. And after years of him and me going back and forth visiting each other over seas, choosing love, I moved late 2013 here in Swainsboro GA with my two dogs. Today, we are a proud parents of three dogs, and a one cat, at the moment. There might be more fur babies in future, because you never know if some special little soul awaits and chooses us at some shelter.
I knew all of my professional skills as a lawyer, all of the professional experience and years of work as a lawyer, and my degree as doctor of law would not be recognized here. I applied on so many possible jobs online and was so anxious to find a job, because my whole life I was a hard working person on strict office schedule and it was very challenging finding any job in town, because usually, I was always over qualified. I even worked as a waitress for a while, and was happy to fill a day being productive, meeting people. The notion of not working was never my kind of the deal.
I was literally messing with making simple jewelry since I was a kid, as a hobby, remembering beads everywhere and regularly buying nylon thread at fishing store to make necklaces and earrings. I always liked and loved jewelry, not mass produced one though, and was always passionate of figuring out how jewelry can be made, the craft of it. And besides all the other art hobbies like drawing, writing stories and poetry, and decade of even singing in a choir, of all of those, creating jewelry stood the closest to my heart, and hands, to this day.
About nine, ten years ago, I discovered the magic of wire wrapping, and creating pendant designs with flat back cabochons, and was obsessed finding wire in most unusual places, like ripping apart some generator of house appliance, and uncoiling copper wire to work with it. Visiting Lowe’s and buying wire for picture hanging. I did not have any knowledge of where to get cabochons with flat backs, and my first pendants were practice on a flat back glass vase fillers from Walmart. I was wrapping everything I could find, even making big suncatchers with beads, glass parts, and wire.
My knowledge today of how to create jewelry is completely self taught, and besides endless sources of how wire wrapped jewelry is made on you tube, or elsewhere online, and just by discovering more and more picture wise examples of vast number of handmade jewelry, like on Pinterest, my ever best help in learning, I would say, it is the basic process of practice, trial and error work, attempts with each piece to try more, something new, creating jewelry every single day.
I shall never forget how when I discovered hammered wire, I was daily hammering on a piece of metal in garage to flatten wire, meanwhile making obnoxious noise with a blasting, pounding sounds, when a kind friend neighbor Neil, an art professor, came bringing me a big, heavy duty anvil, and that was a revelation. And my biggest support, husband, was probably the happiest ever when I relocated the hammering process further away in house, to a specific room, and me eventually wearing ear protection.
And I shall never forget how after a while, I had so many jewelry pieces made, that I simply had to find those homes. So, being in a small town, I participated in local farmers markets, bringing with my husband tables, tent, chairs, and trying to sell those. Selling in farmers markets was hard, because people would mostly visit those to buy produce, so, with a constant encouragement and support of my husband and friends, I started searching online where handmade jewelry and craft I could sell. And since 2018, for more than eight years ago, I am selling my jewelry through my ZDArtisanJewelry Etsy shop worldwide. And in these years, I discovered and learned so much by myself. From how to texture metal, oxidizing it to give antiqed patina, where to find professional wire, especially solid sterling silver, how to solder and fuse metal, polishing and sanding dremels and tools, practicing on mixing two kinds of metal media like bezels with wire wrapped decorations, where to find cabochons, which faceted gemstones are quality ones, reading more and more about crystals and gemstones properties, etc.
Today, I am happy to say I am a jewelry maker. Sketching daily new designs, having so many ideas that a day, is never enough, to create as much as I would want to. Inspiration to create is endless, and I find it in almost every aspect of life: nature, people, story, particular stone, music, painting… Creating with my own hands, something beautiful, unique, and one of a kind. For some future person, a unique and one of a kind person itself. And when a buyer messages me, or leaves a review of how much my creation means to them, how much they love it, how do they feel wearing it, how many compliments and interest do they get while wearing my piece, I truly smile inside outside with my whole being. And knowing that, about ten thousand pieces that I created in these years, necklaces, rings, earrings, are now all over the world, somewhere, appreciated, and alive, fills my entire soul with such joy.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
My journey of making jewelry might have been more smooth if I myself had not been such a self critic to myself. I was aware that there is no technical perfection in handmade jewelry with skills that I thought myself, and that wire wrapped jewelry and metal is often so unforgiving if you make a wrong twist or bent. Maybe I was pushing myself to work with wire, practice, daily, to know how to make something more and more better, better to me. And to be more satisfied with the outcome how a piece looks finished.
Usual day to me is to wake up early, and while sipping coffee, sketching new ideas and designs, then going to my studio, basically a storage room filled with clothes and shoes around me, and choosing a stone, cabochon, gemstone, to work with. And music is always on. After a piece is finished, I go out to take outdoor pictures and video of it, prepare Etsy listing, and then make a post announcing in my Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, when it will be in my shop. Sometimes some piece I spend sketching hours and hours, and then very creation takes more hours and hours to create. And sometimes some very stone, crystal or gemstones, pulls me to create a story around it without sketching, almost instantly having a vision of a design, when in these cases I simply sit at the bench and start working right away.
I could mention some of the struggles in my journey, past or present.
PR matters in this media run world, and branding, and I do all possible on my own promoting my creations through media through my profiles.
Witnessing of how much success some mass produced jewelry, weather cheap or designer brand, is behind a professional PR.
Cost of materials constantly rising, cost of copper, silver, gold, cost of gemstones. Cost of fees selling jewelry rising.
Being a tiny drop in a vast sea of small handmade businesses and trying to stand out to be noticed.
Watching my own design, work, hours and hours of work ripped by a copycat faraway mass producing company that takes my design and make hundreds of pieces in cast metal melted alloy and even using the photo of my piece I took myself and digitally altering it to remove my logo, or to change stone color and such.
Realizing how, with all the costs of living being higher and higher, people are struggling more and more how to cope with elemental life necessities, and how jewelry-a luxury product itself, is less and less an existing choice for them.
Finding good, honest suppliers of materials is always a quest, and building a trust in those, takes time, and experience, because you have to see the stones yourself first, and some bad experiences teach you to recognize who is truthfully presenting a good looking product.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I create handmade, artisan jewelry, specializing in wire wrapped jewelry, using metal wire (copper, sterling silver) that I bend, hammer, sand, file, cold forge myself, sometimes even solder parts of metal, and sometimes heat forge metal by using a torch to melt it, to create settings with cabochons, gemstones, crystals, into pendants, earrings and rings.
My customers, or my followers on my media pages probably could say more of what I am known of, as they are the ones to say so best, so I can only say of preferences of what kind of jewelry I enjoy and have passion to create. A somewhat fantasy, elven like, intricate designs, that hold a special story and energy, and each peace I make is created to be unique.
I am most proud of inspiration I have, as something that surrounds me in my daily life, in so many ways, and I hope I will live to create as much as I can.
As for what might set me apart from other creators, I might say that the best moments are when someone messages me saying how they saw online a picture of a jewelry piece by scrolling through some platform page, and how they knew it was my piece before even seeing who posted it.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Try. Practice. If you feel it is not good enough to you, you will never know why it is not good enough to you. Bridge that gap. Why- is magical.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/ZDArtisanJewelry
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zd_artisan_jewelry
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZDArtisanJewelry
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@zdartisanjewelry641
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@zdartisanjewelry
