7 Questions with Jewellery Designer
Liat Gal On
Who are some of the artists or some of the works
that inspired you to get started in this field? Of today’s current artists, who do you draw inspiration from?
Up until three or four years ago, I was a Project Manager in IT. I loved it and was very good at it, but the corporate world does take its toll and I must admit that being a woman in my position in this industry wasn’t great.
When my second child came along I found myself at home and since he refused to go to child care I decided to stay home with him. After a couple of years, I was looking for things to keep me occupied. I upcycled furniture found in hard rubbish, I bought a 20kg bag of cement and started playing around with that as a medium. I remember watching a YouTube video about filling a cement or wood crack with glow in the dark resin and that peaked my curiosity. I started playing around with resin and was hooked.
What have thus far been some of the negatives of being an indie artist in your field?
I don’t think I’ve been doing this long enough to see the negatives, so I guess working from home sometimes can be a bit lonely as I don’t mix with other people as much as I used to. Working on weekends at markets away from my kids is also a negative :). It can also be easy to get carried away and recently my studio has spilled out to take over every available surface in the house 🙂
What have thus far been the positives of being an indie artist in your field?
I’m completely engrossed in what I’m doing. I love playing with
different Mediums. I started collecting flowers wherever I go. I still find it amazing to make money for something I made with my own two hands. It’s quite surreal. I always wanted to be able to find something to do that would also give me the flexibility of not working nine to five, so I guess I found it.
What have been your favorite completed projects to work on up to this point? Can you tell us a little bit about them?
I love the concrete and resin bowls that I made… In fact, all the work I’m trying out now with concrete and resin is quite exciting to me. I have been working for a while on a concrete recipe that would be suitable. With the bowls, I usually make the concrete bowl first. I hand form it and then it needs to dry for a minimum of 24 hours. I then paint it and coat it with resin which is tricky as the bowl’s surface is curved, and so I need to babysit it for quite a while.
What projects are you currently working on or have planned for the near future?
I want to keep exploring the cement and resin jewelry ideas and I’m very curious to get more experience with color and how it moves and changes within the resin. The possibilities are endless.
Where do you see yourself in a few years and what would it take for you to consider your career a success?
Hmmm. I must admit I never liked the five-year question (got them in job interviews in my corporate job). I’m enjoying where I am right at this moment and I don’t want to ruin it by thinking of what happens in five years. Ideally, I’ll still be doing what I am doing and be able to make a good living out of it, so I never have to go back to the corporate world.
If you couldn’t do this anymore, what career path do you think you would have followed and why?
If I couldn’t do this anymore I guess I would have to consider going back to IT Project Management since it was a good job with good pay and I never had to worry about it as I do my own business. But if I didn’t have to work there’s still a million things I want to see and try to do. For example, I haven’t been to Japan yet and am dying to go.
