Di-Ann Pitts Hand
D.P.Hand Jewelry Designs LLC
 

  Confronting your own mortality forces you to face your life’s work. What was the purpose? What did I accomplish? What am I leaving behind? How are people going to remember me?

  I had a successful career as a high-end jeweler, but when I stopped to consider what my work might mean after I was gone I began to wonder if the pieces I produced over the years were the best I could have done.  Was that my legacy?  Was I an imitator, a designer, an artist?  What is my voice? What does it all say about me?

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   I inherited my husband’s grandmother’s jewelry tools. In a sense it kept Gram alive, or at least remembered and talked about. Every time I see that 1950’s-era flaking red foil tape marking all her tools I recall, “These were Gram’s”.  I also have tools once owned by Judith Woodbury, a teacher who continues to inspire my studio practice to this day. I bought her hammers when she retired from silversmithing, and each time I pick one up I think of her.  The zen-like nature of the raising process gives me plenty of time to reflect on those who came before me, and how their legacy informs my life today.

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  After treatments and during recovery from my illness, I needed to reflect on what my legacy would be.  How would my work and life story influence the next person to use my tools?
 

  I rattled around my studio wondering,  “What now?”.  The answer came when Oddly enough my daughter nonchalantly asked me to make her two sterling silver goblets for her wedding. Knowing that was a huge challenge for any metalsmith let alone a recovering survivor, I just laughed at her. Later, roaming around in my studio lost in reflection, I ended up mulling over the idea and it grew on me. I decided that since I was going to live after all, it would be a great way to get my mind and body back into working order, and to start building my legacy.

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  I am moved by the Japanese approach of reproducing a simple form over and over again, until one achieves perfection.  I love multiples. Simple, elegant & beautiful. So, I set my sights on a goal of producing holloware and “kanpeki o tsuikyu” in the pursuit of perfection.  That will be my legacy - making the best work I can in the time I have been given.  I can only hope that it will be enough to spark the fire of creativity in another, as it had been in me.

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  I present these matched pair of hand raised sterling silver Wedding Goblets as the first stepping stone on my path to finding my own voice as a metalsmith and designer with a tiny bit of Zen.