Hi!  Thank you for taking the time to visit my site and for giving me this opportunity to tell you how I came to be a jeweler.

Unusual as it may seem, I began stonecutting in 4th grade, inspired by a teacher, Mr. McKenzie, who told me that it was possible to “slice rocks like salami”.  Mom provided me with books, Dad put together the machinery and I never looked back.

I met Granville Wilson on my paper route. His front yard was full of rocks: petrified wood, agates, geodes. He was an engineer and goldsmith, stonecutter and desert rat. He took me under his wing and I came to feel like one of the family.

I was 15 years old when my goldsmithing apprenticeship with Granville began.  Gran opened the store, Wilson Custom Jewelry, in 1975. I worked there for 10 years, the final two years as owner.  It was there that I learned to carve wax designs for casting—Granville was an expert. Gran’s gold castings were dense and heavy, and he was a stickler about finish.  These things have stuck with me.

It was at Wilson’s that I met Ray Die.  Ray was a legendary figure to me at the time.  If there was pavé setting or beadwork* to be done, we sent it to Ray and it always came back beautiful. Granville’s prong work was second to none, but when it came to beads, Ray was the master.  A top stonesetter at the Los Angeles tradeshop L&R, at 70 years old Ray was setting some of the largest and most valuable stones to pass through Southern California at the time.

From 1979-84, I had the real honor and privilege of being among the group of four young jewelers who spent almost every Tuesday night at Ray’s home shop.  We would bring jobs that we weren’t sure how to tackle, and Ray would walk us through whatever it was.  I learned antique fabrication, clasps and hingework, bead setting, bright cut and pavé, bezel, channel, baguettes and became fluent in the use of an automatic hammer.  I got a real taste for the finer expressions of the jewelry art from Ray.  I still strive to make pieces that he would be proud of. 

In 1983 Granville retired.  I took over operations for the final two years of the business. I realized that it was too much work to continue in retail for long, so I switched operations and became a trade shop in 1985, doing work on a wholesale basis for independent jewelry stores.  This is how I operated until 2001:  manufacturing special order jewelry for jewelry stores while cultivating a growing “word-of-mouth” clientele.

In August of 2001 I teamed up with Allure Jewelers in Old Town Eureka, California. It was an opportunity to showcase my own design work. I was given showcase space to promote my own personal jewelry for sale.  Of course, through the years, I had been developing my own design sensibility and style (something I could exercise more freely in jobs for my growing list of personal customers), but this was different.  I had the chance to meet with and show my work to a retail audience.  It was empowering to connect with my customers and see my work sell.  It was a dark day in March 2007 when the store closed due to circumstances involving the owner’s health.

I’ve honed my craft bringing the ideas of others to form.  Although, now it is my turn to make what inspires me, I am willing to consider your custom design requests as well.

I’ve launched this website, stevenvictordesign.com, to show my work.  No sweatshop, no computer driven programs, no mass production here—just enduring quality and original design along with my desire to set artifacts in motion.



Creating heirlooms for your future.

stevenvictordesign.com

 

 

* antique-style flush setting of small stones, usually diamonds, in a “cobblestone  pavement” manner using engraving tools to cut away surface gold leaving little standing “beads” which act as the prongs securing the stone(s).  “beadwork” is a general term for the engraved, flush stonesetting style.