Metalsmith Benchtalk- Archived interview art/business consultant Marlene Richey

My Guest this Thursday, July 10th  at 3 p.m. PST on MetalSmith BenchTalk is art/business consultant Marlene Richey, who offers creative business solutions for creative businesses in the art, craft and jewelry markets.

About: My father was an art professor and my mother a freelance writer, neither of them had even a rudimentary knowledge of business. I received a BA in art and jewelry from Central Washington University, without anyone ever suggesting I might sometime want to make a living at what I had studied for four years. I married Bill Richey and we naively created what turned out to be an award-winning jewelry design firm with no idea of how to run a company. And that was the beginning of a long journey on learning the do’s and don’ts, ups and downs, ins and outs of running a small art business.

During my 30+ year career in jewelry I have run a wholesale design business, a retail gallery, participated in hundreds of shows - craft and trade, indoors and out, juried and not juried, dreadful and successful. I traveled for a decade selling our jewelry in every nook and cranny of the US.  I have served on numerous boards of directors (SNAG, CJDG, MCA), consult with emerging and not-so-emerging artists both nationally and internationally, teach seminars and classes (including at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC), give speeches and participate on panels, write articles for jewelry/craft publications, write a regular column in Art Jewelry magazine called “Business Savvy” and have a book published by the MJSA Press on running a small jewelry design business called “Profiting by Design.”

For more information about Marlene and her work, visit http://www.marlenerichey.com/.