Ashley Weber Design

Never underestimate the power of a clean and organized studio.

Jewelers are kind of known for working surrounded by disaster. Benches full of tools and scrap and dust and dirt and everything close by… so many tiny freaking tools. One year I cleaned up my act and now I will die on the cleanliness and organization hill. Once everything has a designated spot with no exceptions, cleaning up after your day is so easy and fast and rewarding. Just do it already. You’ll thank me later.

Some days, it’s so meditative, that I don’t realize that I’ve drifted. I love to set with a hammer. Not the old l school way, not the way that you’re “supposed” to, carefully, with a steel stake and a hammer, but with just a hammer. Straight to the bezel. A way that most people would probably tell you to absolutely not do. But if you saw how a hammer and I can work, how perfectly those strikes can land, I’d like to imagine you wouldn’t even consider the risk.

I didn’t realize I had drifted until I started to cry. I kept setting.

My Oma, my German grandmother, was an artist. She drew and painted and created. She sewed, and crocheted. She dressed impeccably her whole life. Always wearing handmade, art jewelry from her travels. Always matching. Always with her hair done. Growing up, she always had a project for us, always took us to art stores and sculpture gardens and museums. She always talked about being an artist, about trying to sell her paintings, about having them in local shops in Danzig (Germany at the time, now Poland). You could hear the longing in her voice, the one that always wished it had become more.

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