Hello and welcome to my brand new blog!  My name is Eileen Goddard, and I design, fabricate, and sell my own jewelry line, imprint by eileen.  I live in New York City, in a tiny East Village studio that also currently doubles as my jewelry studio.  It also houses my wonderful boyfriend, Nick.  We have a little backyard with some benches, a grill, and some plants.  You can see our backyard in action throughout this website--I use it to do all of my jewelry photography.  I'm no professional, but I'm proud of the quality of pictures I have learned how to take.  I am, after all, very new to this business.  

My background is mostly in theater--technical theater--although I have always loved to work with my hands.  I moved to NYC back in 2006 to try to become a lighting designer.  A year at Juilliard, a year of freelancing, and three and a half years at a local theater later, I found myself unexpectedly unemployed.  I was angry and hurt after being laid off.  I was depressed, stressed out, and didn't know what to do next.  It seemed like I had reached a natural turning point in my life--after years of doing tech work with no health insurance and only dubious future prospects, I knew I had to find a way to change directions.  If I didn't, or if couldn't try something new now, I knew I might not get the chance again.  

So I did what I always do when I'm depressed, anxious, and broke--I started getting creative and making art.  I dug up old art supplies and got to work painting boxes, canvases, and more.  I went to see my parents in North Carolina for a visit, where my mom helped me buy some more art supplies, and it was then that she suggested that I might give jewelry making a try.  I remember buying a few beads, a few tools, and thinking, I probably won't even use these.  A month later, I couldn't have been more wrong.  I was obsessed, excited, making jewelry every day.  I couldn't, and didn't want to, stop.  I taught myself new techniques on an as-needed basis.  I made more and more jewelry as fast as my fingers could cooperate.   

That was last July, and I haven't looked back since.  So much has happened since then that it almost feels like it was a lifetime ago.  Last fall, I took a three month, professional jewelry class in metalsmithing.  Many times now, I have sold my jewelry in person at markets and fairs.  My jewelry is currently displayed for sale in a real, brick-and-mortar store in the Lower East Side.  As exciting as this has all been, and as positive a person as I generally am, I  have often second-guessed myself along the way.  I have wondered many times whether I'm doing the "right" thing.  I have wondered whether I am crazy for trying to make this work.  

This month--January 2012--marks the very first month in my adult life in which I have not had money coming in from a steady job.  Even when I was freelancing, my work and my income felt steady somehow.  If I wasn't too busy one month, I knew it would pick up the next.  I knew where to go to find work, knew that I could make money.  Now, there are no such guarantees.  I am in a totally new world, and it is both terrifying and exhilarating.

In this blog, I will document my journey to try to make it as a jewelry designer in New York City.  I know there will be missteps, failures, things that don't work out the way I hoped they would.  Hopefully, too, there will be some success.  This is a year of great possibilities, and I hope you will come along with me for the ride!