Your Full Name.
My name is Chuck Domitrovich and my business name is Down to the Wire Designs.

Tell us about you.
I come from a small rural town in eastern Washington and am pursuing just about the most non-traditional career that I could have imagined growing up there– I simply never saw this coming.  But I like working with my hands and my imagination and making jewelry is the perfect use of my talents.

If you have a bachelor degree/education background; what is it?
I have a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Washington in Seattle.  For much of my time at the UW I was an art major but I never really intended to get a degree in that– I just liked taking the classes.  It is ironic to me that I now make my living from my art after not pursuing a degree in the arts.

Where are you located?
I am located in Seattle, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest and I really like it here.  We have mild weather, beautiful scenery, and a great balance of culture and size.

What do you do when you are not producing artwork?
I like to play basketball and racquetball as much as I can.  I also like to ride my bike.  I travel when I can, catch live music whenever possible, and like to read.  I have recently gotten into cooking– it’s a fun way to be creative.  Currently I am finishing up a children’s book which I hope to get published.

What drove you to become a jewelry designer?
I stumbled into my jewelry career.  I was studying at the UW and taking art classes to fill holes in my class schedule.  One quarter the only art class that fit was Intro to Jewelry Design.

I almost didn’t take it because I had little interest in jewelry and knew nothing about it.  I took the class on a whim and immediately felt at home.

All the skills came easily to me and I had a lot of success early on.  I knew right away that I wanted to continue at it in one way or another and I am lucky to have found the opportunity to earn a living doing what I love.

How do you promote/sell/showcase your work?
Apart from Etsy, I sell my work locally in stores and do one or two craft shows a year.  I don’t do a huge amount of promotion beyond just listing my work on Etsy and in my Flickr account.

I think the smartest thing I do is to focus on providing great customer service to the people who do buy from me.  I want every customer who shops with me to be happy with their purchase and I will work with them to make sure that is the case.

As a result, I get a lot of repeat customers and good word-of-mouth exposure.  Also, you would be surprised at how much simply taking to the time to personalize a transaction is appreciated– I always include a short note with every shipment thanking the customer.  Having shopped online myself, it is surprising how many sellers do not bother with this small gesture.

What’s your way(s) to balancing work and life?
It is really hard to balance work and life.  When you are your entire operation you tend to wear a lot of hats and it is hard to work efficiently when you are moving from tasks as varied as designing and producing jewelry to being your own photographer and bookkeeper.

I try to stick to a routine as much as possible and often simple tricks will keep you on track.  I try to go for a walk or get some kind of exercise each day and make sure that I set aside time for friends and family.

It ultimately comes down to treating your art as if it was just another job in the sense that you have to clock out each day.  The challenge is to do that without losing any of your passion.

A great jewelry designer is…..
I think a great jewelry designer is someone who always feels driven to further explore their chosen medium.  In that way, you can never be satisfied because there is always something new to discover.  I never want to rest upon one particularly clever and successful design.  If I ever stop coming up with new ideas, I will know it is time to quit.

Who is a designer/ artist that you look up to? Why so?
Seattle is home to many world-famous jewelry designers and I have been fortunate to meet many of them as well as study with two of them:  Micki Lippe and Mary Lee Hu.  That said, there are two people who I look up to in particular.

One is my good friend Victoria Takahashi of Experimetal (www.etsy.com/shop/experimetal).  She is about my age and skill level and is amazingly creative.  She, more than any other jeweler I know, creates the most pieces that I wish I had thought of first.

The other is my friend and collaborator Cynthia Toops.  She is a world-class polymer artist who specializes in making micro mosaics.  Working with her has pushed my abilities way more than I ever could have achieved on my own.  Our styles mesh really well together and she inspires me with her tremendous artistic skills and her incredible work ethic.

What do you think about the Internet and how it is affecting the creative business?
The internet is great in that it allows artists to access a retail market that was unavailable to them previously.  This means that you can sell directly to your customers without giving up a big share of the retail price to a store.

The trick is getting your customers to find you.  Sellers who are new to the internet often have the idea that all you need to do is set up shop and wait for the sales to roll in.  It doesn’t work that way.  In addition, the internet is that it is constantly changing.  What works today might not work at all tomorrow.  It really makes you have to re-evaluate the way you do business all the time.  I find that challenge exciting but a lot of people are overwhelmed by it.

Another great thing about the internet is the way it connects people.  I have dedicated customers in places as far away as Japan and Finland and friends who are jewelers all over the world.  That would not have been possible when I first started making and selling my work.

What music are you listening lately?
I have varied music tastes.  I regularly listen to The Jam, Sonic Youth, the Talking Heads, and Belle and Sebastian.  I also really like The Decembrists and the Seattle hip hop band The Blue Scholars.

Name 3 your favorite art books.

• Calder Jewelry –> Alexander Calder was quite a prolific jeweler as well an amazingly influential sculptor– this book focuses on that aspect of his work.
• Tone Vigeland  Jewellery + Sculpture: Movements in Silver –> a catalog of one jeweler’s amazing body of work
• The Splendor of Ethnic Jewelry –> amazing jewelry from all over the world

What do you like the smell of?
I love the smell of freshly made waffle cones and I have no idea why.  I would rather go into an ice cream shop to smell that than to get ice cream.

If you have online portfolio (website/awards/credits/client’s showcase), what is the URL?
I am kind of between websites right now so I would have to go with my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/shop/downtothewiredesigns

That shows a lot of my more production oriented work.  On my Flickr account, you can see photos of some of my one of a kind and collaborative pieces.  That can be seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/downtothewiredesigns/

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