About Jodi
Jodi L. Bombardier
The Short Story: Jewels By Jules is named after my daughter, Jules, with its inception in 2001. My thought about jewelry: Make cool pieces of jewelry that will be enjoyed.
The Long Story: By day, I moonlight as the owner of a typing service, Cactus Transcription Service. I needed downtime after working 60+ hours a week – something that would yield immediate gratification and a tangible thing – not just words on a screen (although the medical providers for whom we type would call our finesse of transcribing a tangible thing as it inevitably creates mounds of paperwork). Although one may think that I might actually want a hobby that gives my hands a break from constant abuse of repetitive motion – like maybe watching TV or reading a book – I chose a different path. I had to find something that would not only occupy my mind but also keep my hands busy in some capacity and flipping pages of a book or pressing buttons on the remote just did not seem to fit the bill.
To top off the typing abuse to my hands, at the time that I discovered jewelry making in 2001, I had also been crocheting since I was 8 years old.
I realize 8 years of age is a vague number as I am not divulging my current age but let’s just say it adds up to at least one ton of yarn and bedspread weight thread over the years with everyone in my immediate family, some members of my extended family, and loads of friends having a sundry of blankets, throws, and doilies. And walk into any room in my home….! The typing began at age 12 on a manual typewriter. If you are too young to remember or know what a manual typewriter is, ask your Grandmother.
So after years of typing and crocheting, I needed to find another way to abuse my hands that required completely different repetitive motions so I started making jewelry in 2001 as my new downtime hobby. Doing the “abuse math”, I figure that jewelry should keep me occupied for the remainder of my life – thank goodness!
How It All Started: One afternoon I was visiting with one of my neighbors, Colleen, and she had on the cutest bracelet ever – a memory wire bracelet made with an array of glass blue beads imported from India. “I love your bracelet. Where did you get it?” I asked. “Lauren made it. She was invited to a bead birthday party and she whipped this up for me.” Colleen’s daughter, Lauren, was 8 at the time (that age sounds familiar). I had to know more…where, when, how. So Colleen patiently told me what store Lauren had gone to, who to ask for, and what to buy. It was after business hours and it was all I could do to get through the night before I could race off to the bead store and encounter what would be my first shopping trip to buy supplies – an endless addiction that I thoroughly enjoy.
Once I entered the bead store, I knew I had hit the hands-on, downtime jackpot – I was in heaven – all the colors and shapes – so many choices and ideas just begging to be bought and taken home to be made into fun pieces of wearable art. Really, it was all I could do to buy only what I felt I needed and leave the store. I kept having to remind myself that all this super cool stuff would be here tomorrow and I really should only buy the essentials and what the sales person was informing me to buy in order to get started.
I went home and began immediately. I made fun and funky bracelets and gave them away so I wouldn’t end up with a pile of jewelry and have no excuse to make more. And much to my amazement, my pieces were liked and soon I was being asked if my jewelry could be purchased …. “really” I thought to myself? Hhmm, well OKAY, I can do that and pay for my supplies! This was better than crocheting (although one of my Grandmothers sold her crocheted doll clothes – Barbie and later Cabbage Patch Kids – and made more than enough to pay for her supplies). My Mom continued to be given her bracelets gratis and I finally had to ask her to pay for the products that I used to make her jewelry although now I have regressed and no longer request funds to supply my habit and hers but rather make her extravagant pieces for all occasions – seems to work out nicely for both of us.
After making memory wire bracelets for a year, many of my friends and family asked if I could make bracelets and necklaces “with hooks”. So I took my first class ever – Stringing 101. Well, I tried really, really hard to like stringing pieces of jewelry “with hooks” but it just wasn’t my thing – it felt like sewing and I hate sewing so after a couple of years on and off of attempts at stringing and with few successes, I finally gave up. Every once in a while I get a request for a strung piece and my response is “I know a great stringer who would be happy to make that necklace for you,” my dear friend, Gaby, stringing extraordinaire.
Over time and like many jewelry designers, I started buying magazines off the newsstand and reading endlessly on different techniques and designs. Problem was everything I found was STRUNG (there is only so much that can be done with memory wire). This just could not be true! There had to be more. Okay, well, I really didn’t want to learn to be a goldsmith or silversmith1 so ? … and then I starting seeing what undoubtedly intrigued me – wire wrapped jewelry. I was completely amazed at how wire could be twisted and formed into jewelry without soldering the ends or tying knots (that is the crocheter in me) but then I thought weaving in ends would certainly be an option (again, the crocheter in me) but what about ? … Enough pondering – off to the internet I went. I had to find more info on this wonderful art and figure out just how it was done.
The first book that I purchased was All Wired Up by Mark Lareau. It became my wire wrapping bible as I quickly discovered that there really was not much on the internet or in print on wire wrapping and there were slim pickings for classes locally, but I persevered – I had to learn how to master this wizardry.
I began with cheap tools – not going to sugar coat that one – and craft wire. I taught myself, with the help of Mr. Lareau’s book, how to create simple and closed loops, how to attach closed loops to one another, and how to form spirals – it was just the beginning of the discovery of an art for which I will be forever love.
Wire wrapping gives me the creative outlet that I had been seeking for years. When I was young, I always wanted to be an artist but my definition of an artist then was someone who drew and painted. What a narrow version of an artist I had! And who in my family received those talents but none other than my youngest sister, Misti! So unfair! But I am quite proud of her and her skills which she utilized to help pay her way through college and have ultimately helped her to become a very skilled architect - The Murphy Studio. And oddly enough, both my children can draw extraordinarily well. Actually, my son’s talent goes beyond sketching – seems sketching is more my daughter’s blessing than my boy’s – but he has designed bracelets that my friends thought were my creation!
So I have now moved on to well made tools and sterling silver wire and with each passing day/month/year, my skills improve and my ideas go beyond anything I have ever hoped to create – skills that I used to drool over the thought of having are now mine for the creative outlet and as I continue to grow, learn, and develop these skills, one of my goals is to pass the knowledge on that I so desperately searched for in the beginning of my wire wrapping career by offering free tutorials, low cost tutorials, and helpful tips which can be found on my blog, Online Wire Wrapping Instructions. Some day I also hope to teach classes helpful.
I have had the privilege of writing several tutorials for Step by Step Wire Jewelry magazine, published by Interweave Press, some of which are low cost tutorials and free tutorials on Online Wire Wrapping Instructions. I have also written tutorials for one of Interweave’s newest magazines, Easy Wire.
As I compose this “About Jodi” page in 2008, I am venturing into some goldsmithing skills. I recently took a forging class, as noted at the end of this article, and this summer I will be taking a class on how to make clasps with cold connections with Mr. Sturln. I took a soldering class in 2007 but I find that cold connections satisfy what I want to create – there is always a way to end or tuck away a wire. Of course, soldering is a wonderful skill, just not for me.
So with all the votes in, it is wire wrapping for me. The possibilities and ideas for bracelets and necklaces are endless.
1 I recently learned the definitions of goldsmith and silversmith. For years I have thought what was obvious – a goldsmith worked with gold and a silversmith with silver – but that is not entirely true. The simplified definitions, which I learned in a forging class that I recently took in Phoenix, Arizona with Michael David Sturlin, is a goldsmith makes items that are smaller than a fist and a silversmith makes items that are larger than a fist so goldsmith = e.g., rings, earrings, bracelets and a silversmith = e.g., teapots, mugs, coffeepots.