Jeweler, entrepreneur and influencer Nick Noyes creates one-of-a-kind heirloom jewelry designs, favoring high-karat gold, a stunning spectrum of custom-cut colored gemstones and intricate hand engraving. After years of creating handcrafted wire-wrapped jewelry to sell on the music-festival circuit, Nick attended the New Approach School for Jewelers to further develop his craft, and his evolution continues. In this episode of For the Love of Jewelers, Nick joins host Courtney Gray for a candid discussion of his creative path, his journey from music-festival wild child to high-end custom jewelry artist, balancing work and parenthood, the role of sobriety in his personal and professional success and so much more!
Jeweler, entrepreneur and influencer Nick Noyes creates one-of-a-kind heirloom jewelry designs, favoring high-karat gold, a stunning spectrum of custom-cut colored gemstones and intricate hand engraving. After years of creating handcrafted wire-wrapped jewelry to sell on the music-festival circuit, Nick attended the New Approach School for Jewelers to further develop his craft, and his evolution continues. In this episode of For the Love of Jewelers, Nick joins host Courtney Gray for a candid discussion of his creative path, his journey from music-festival wild child to high-end custom jewelry artist, balancing work and parenthood, the role of sobriety in his personal and professional success and so much more!
Courtney Gray:
Welcome to For the Love of Jewelers, a podcast brought to you by Rio Grande Jewelry Supply and hosted by yours truly, Courtney Gray. As we dive into season four in 2023, we recognize the relevance and resilience of the jewelry industry through stories of inspiration. We celebrate the pivots we've taken and the passion that drives our unconditional strength. Our journey, although uncharted, is one we are on together. Join me as we discover the variety of silver linings in each story of innovation and determination. When Nick Noyes first started making jewelry, it was fueled mainly by a desire to put his gemstone collection to good use and to find something to fill his days. It became quickly a lifeline for him, creating a new sense of purpose and direction to guide him whenever he felt lost or wary. He never imagined that when he picked up those tools over 10 years ago, his craft would lead him toward a life full of discovery and creation.
Nick's artistry has taken him all over the U.S. in pursuit of knowledge and connection, learning from true masters in the craft and spending months pouring over books of antique jewelry and ornamental hand engraving, hearing a voice and inside him saying, "This, this is what I want to do." That insistent voice became a clear calling, guiding him down the road of hand engraving, awakening not only a new way of seeing his art, but also a new way of looking at the world around him. Let's dive in. Hey, guys. Welcome back to For the Love of Jewelers, brought to you by Rio Grande. We're here with Nick Noyes, Just learned how to pronounce his name and I freaking love it. Welcome, Nick. Thanks for joining us.
Nick Noyes:
Thanks for having me.
Courtney Gray:
Absolutely. I'm excited to meet with you. You've been on my list for a while, looking at your work and everything you're doing on Instagram. The video work that you do is stunning, and I want to hear all the tricks later off the camera.
Nick Noyes:
I'm happy to share.
Courtney Gray:
Oh, I love that. I love that about you. So tell us a little background, a background on Nick Noyes, when and how did you get into the craft of jewelry?
Nick Noyes:
So if we go way, way back, before I ever worked with metal, my first delve into anything wearable jewelry was my brother and I made hemp necklaces, and I used to make those and sell them in the summer to different stores. And we would put, I mean, countless hours into making these necklaces, and then you'd sell them for like $7 or something. It was great when we were 13.
Courtney Gray:
Right. That's a lot of money.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah, yeah. But then as we got older, ended up shifting into wire-wrapped jewelry, and there was a decent gap between those. I started collecting gemstones and jewelry in different crystals when I was in high school, and I had a teacher that was incredible. This guy, Mr. Lindsay, who was my geology teacher, and he took us mining in Herkimer, New York and Franklin, New Jersey for these neon. There's a mine in Franklin, New Jersey. It's a zinc mine, and there's rocks to fluoresce under UV light.
Courtney Gray:
Yes.
Nick Noyes:
It is the coolest. It was one of the coolest trips I've ever been on. And then we got to go in mine Herkimer diamonds, and I just fell in love with crystals and I started collecting them and traveling all over, looking for places to mine and dig stones. And I just had these cases and piles of just crystals and nothing to do with them. And a friend of mine, he was like, [inaudible 00:03:30]. Yes, it's true. And this is still the case, but I have something to do with a lot of them now. But a friend of mine had started wire wrapping and he showed me some things he and I love. What he did was just say, "I'm going to teach you this weave, and then you got to figure out the rest. I'm not going to tell you how to make a complete piece. You're going to have to figure out how that's going to work for yourself." So it forced me to take a technique, but then figure out a way to make it work for me instead of just replicating his work.
Courtney Gray:
Right.
Nick Noyes:
And I learned a couple weaves from him. I went home and I taught my brother that same day. My brother still does wire-wrapped jewelry, and his work is amazing. He’s Inner Orbit Jewelry on Instagram, and his work is awesome. And so I started wire wrapping and it gave me this outlet to finally use some of these crystals that I had been collecting. And I started doing that and they were atrocious. I mean, they were completely terrible works of art.
Courtney Gray:
Don't look at the back kind of work. Like don't flip over?
Nick Noyes:
But don't even look at the front kind of work. It was the thing where it was barely holding a stone together. But I was at going to music festivals and someone asked, "Are you selling those?" And I was like, "Sure, I'll sell it." And I think I sold my first piece for 30 bucks or something, and it wasn't even silver. It was silver filled wire that I had gotten somewhere. And so it was very cheap, but it sparked this thing of, "Oh, I guess I could start making these and selling them." I just kept on working at it. And that same summer I was up in New England working a landscaping job that I had done for many, many years in a row, many summers.
And I had been living in Florida the year before, and I was subletting my apartment and I got a call from my old roommate and he said, "Listen, the new roommate brought bedbugs in. We canceled the lease and we threw out all of our stuff," and I mean, I clothes, bed, furniture, all these things down there. And he said, "It's all gone." And it was not like, "We're getting rid of it." It was like, "We've gotten rid of. It's gone."
Courtney Gray:
Wow. No warning.
Nick Noyes:
And I was at this point in my life where I was, I was just on this spiritual escapade of everything happens for a reason, and I was like, "This was meant to be. I wasn't meant to go back to Florida and I'm just going to go and travel on Phish tour with my wire-wrapped jewelry and make a go of it."
Courtney Gray:
On Phish tour. Yes.
Nick Noyes:
On Phish tour.
Courtney Gray:
Okay.
Nick Noyes:
And so that's what I did. And I started making pieces of jewelry and going on tour, and I sold jewelry and bottled water.
Courtney Gray:
Yep.
Nick Noyes:
And was starting to make some decent cash. I mean, for me, at the time I was early 20s, single, I didn't need much money to survive, and I just couch-surfed everywhere I went. So I could make do.
Courtney Gray:
Couched surfed and hope that they didn't throw out all your belongings while you're gone.
Nick Noyes:
Yes, yes, yes. Well, I didn't have anything anyway. Everything I had left could fit in my Hyundai Elantra, so I was like, "I didn't have too much to my name anymore."
Courtney Gray:
Wow. Wow.
Nick Noyes:
And so I did that, and once again, sparked this idea that I could actually make my job just doing this instead of the more traditional job. Before I was doing this, I had worked at Quiznos, and then at a country club. Both jobs that were fine and I was grateful to have, but nothing that I was like, "You know what? My goal in life is to work at Quiznos."
Courtney Gray:
Long-term goals. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Long-term goals. So it just opened the door to be able to say, "I think I could make jewelry for a living." And I did solely wire wrap jewelry for six years or so. And then that same friend who had taught me wire wrapping. He had gone to New Approach School for Jewelers, and he was like, "This place is amazing. You should go." And so I looked it up and I went, and the rest is history. It changed my entire life as far as stone-setting fabrication. It just opened so many doorways, and so many pieces of jewelry that I had seen and said, "I really want to do that. I have no idea how they do that."
I went to New Approach and learned how they did it. I used to see bead setting, and I actually remember talking with a friend. I'm like, "They must laser those little dots of metal on. That's what they do. They probably just laser them on." And then learning through the years doing jewelry that it's not how it's done at all. And it was so cool to see pieces of jewelry and say, "I want to do stuff like that," and then now I can look at my work and I do stuff like that.
Courtney Gray:
Right. You're actually applying it. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Wow, that's amazing. Your work is absolutely stunning. You guys need to go check out Nick Noyes if you haven't. He's got plenty of work to view on Instagram as well as on his website, which is a really lovely website.
Nick Noyes:
Thank you.
Courtney Gray:
Of course, I get to stalk you guys when I'm above pre-interviewing. Not stalk, but research. Look into all the groovy things, but very cool. So what a story. Oh my goodness. And you were a musician as well, right, Nick?
Nick Noyes:
Yes, yes. So I played music. In between when I was doing those hemp necklaces, I was always playing guitar, writing songs and I played in bands. Again, also with my brother, he's still a touring musician, and he plays piano and guitar and sings.
Courtney Gray:
Musical family.
Nick Noyes:
Yes. Yeah. So we were a band too, the Noyes Boys.
Courtney Gray:
Oh, I love it. I love it.
Nick Noyes:
And we played in tons of bands together from the age of ten on basically. And I played music and shows still in the beginning of my jewelry career. And then it just shifted more into just full-time jewelry at some point, because it was exhausting being a traveling musician and just always on the road.
Courtney Gray:
A hundred bucks a gig if you're lucky.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
And so I focused more of my creative energy on the jewelry-making side of things.
Courtney Gray:
And it's working.
Nick Noyes:
And it's working. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yay. Amazing. That's so cool. So that was nine years ago roughly that you got into jewelry. Well, the level, the stature of your work is definitely advanced. How many hours a day are you in the studio these days?
Nick Noyes:
I took a few-month break with a new baby that I have that's three months old. So I've been back at it for a few weeks, and I get about probably four, five hours a day in the studio.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. That's not bad. That's good.
Nick Noyes:
And that's pretty good because I've got five-year-old twins and then a three-month-old baby, and so the time is more limited. They're at home. So I'm balancing with my wife and giving her time, but also taking time to work.
Courtney Gray:
Finding that balance.
Nick Noyes:
And this is what I found. And I think for people who, before kids, I'm like, I always thought I was busy and tired. And then after kids I'm like, "Man, I wish I was as tired as I thought I was.”
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Right.
Nick Noyes:
So if I get four hours of work now, I can do eight to 12 hours of the work I would've done before kids. Just the amount of focus and motivation I have that I say, "I have this set window of time and it is all that I have, and I am going to use every single second of it." And it's amazing. My productivity just skyrocketed after kids.
Courtney Gray:
Isn't that wild? Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
It's like all of a sudden you're like, "Oh," and it makes sense. It's like efficiency is a whole different thing.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. Efficiency and also the motivation too. I am not just providing for myself anymore on those couch-surfing days. It's like this is paying for food and clothes and everything for my kids and my family, and it's a whole new level of motivation.
Courtney Gray:
Motivation and necessity or providing.
Nick Noyes:
Yes.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. I used to say from necessity we create the recipe and it's like . . .
Nick Noyes:
I like that.
Courtney Gray:
Until you really need it, sometimes we don't take the leap or we can put it off or procrastinate the leap to really dive in and do the work that it takes to get the customers.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. There's a term I use, actually. It’s called the gift of desperation. I think it's like when you are at a point where there are these crossroads, and if you have no choice but to dive into something, it's like that opens the door in so many more efficient ways than if you're just in the middle.
Courtney Gray:
Right. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
The necessity really does spark the motivation to do a change. You can coast along in the middle and never progress, but when you reach a dead end and you have to do one thing or another, it makes a big difference.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. It's like the decision becomes more clear or quickly, more quickly clear. Like in a blink of an eye, I'm reading Blink right now, actually, the book. And it's all about that, the scenario of you can make a decision as quickly in a few seconds, that's more accurate than if you had researched it for months and months just by going with your intuition, or like you said, from that place of necessity to move quicker or, yeah, you can't sit around lingering on one choice.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. Well, you come to a point I think, where you can over dissect things and you can get decision fatigue. And I think that's another thing too with parenthood is decision fatigue is a real thing, and you can get to a point where if you overthink things, it becomes impossible to move forward.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. You think it to death, it's like just you got to make a choice. And sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes you fail.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. You know what? I heard this quote though, and I don't know if I was just telling someone about this. This is Edison quote where he was talking about... When he was creating the light bulb, the experiment failed 986 times or something, and the person was working with him. He said, "We failed 986 times." And he said, "We have not failed 986 times. We have successfully found 986 ways that it does not work."
Courtney Gray:
Yes.
Nick Noyes:
And I think that so many people look at my jewelry and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I just make mistakes. Your work is flawless." And I'm, "First of all, my work is not flawless, and the reason that I'm able to work a little more efficiently or to make fewer mistakes now is because of how many pieces I've ruined throughout the years, and how many things I've messed up and then figured out, ‘Oh, I can't do it that way.’”
Courtney Gray:
There's 986 ways that you've learned not to do it.
Nick Noyes:
Exactly. Yes.
Courtney Gray:
I love that. It's like the WD-40, wasn't that a test of 40 tests to get to the right?
Nick Noyes:
I didn't know that.
Courtney Gray:
I think that's why it's called WD-40.
Nick Noyes:
I like that.
Courtney Gray:
We'll have to research. We got to make sure that's official.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. But it's WD-39, it doesn't have a good ring to it. Let let's mess that one more time.
Courtney Gray:
Exactly. Yeah. It's all an experiment, and my son has a word, it's “experient.”
Nick Noyes:
Experient.
Courtney Gray:
So it's experience mixed with experiment. And I loved that. He came up with that when he was just four or five or something: "I'm experienting." It's like, "This is part of it, you guys, we've got to go through the process." And you will figure it out though, you will get there. I think with anything, right? You just have to keep going and not let the failure get in the way.
Nick Noyes:
Yes. And I think especially if we can apply this to jewelry that there are 9,000 right ways to do something, and you can talk to certain jewelers and say, "No, no, no, no. This is the way you need to do it." And then you talk to the jeweler right next to it and it's like, "You don't actually need to do that. You can just do it this way." And I think for me, an interesting thing that my style is a bit different than most is because I went to New Approach, but then I came home and I was on my own. I've never worked in a store. I've never apprenticed with anyone. I did that class, but essentially everything else I'd learned I was on my own. And so when I couldn't turn to the person next to me and say, "What do I do when I'm doing this?", I would end up just trying something and then being like, "That melted it. Shit."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
"I guess I can't do it that way." And then having to shift gears and figuring out another way to do it. And so some of the methods that I use are unique to me or that they're a little different. I'll look at a YouTube video or a book or something and be like, "Oh, that's not how I approach it at all." Or just figuring things out like, stone spacing and everything. People are like, "Well, what do you do to measure it?" I'm like, "I do it by eye. I just look at it. But it's from lots of practice." And I'm like, if I'm teaching, which I found when I'm making a video for Patreon or something, I'm like, "I should break this down in a more specific way that can be repeatable," instead of just, "Hey, look at this until you do it well." So breaking it down and being like, "I don't necessarily do this every time, but if you're learning, this is the way to do it," and measure with your calipers and all those things.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, do it the right way the first time, so that that's becomes the habit.
Nick Noyes:
Yes. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Well, and is there a right and wrong way? I don't know.
Nick Noyes:
If you get it done, I think that's the thing.
Courtney Gray:
That's the right way.
Nick Noyes:
There might be a better way or worse way, but if the end result is the same, then if it works for you, that's all right.
Courtney Gray:
What is your favorite technique these days?
Nick Noyes:
I'm torn between pavé and hand engraving. I love, love bead setting and pavé work.
Courtney Gray:
Really?
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. There's just something about it. And before I even started New Approach, I was like, "This is what I want to learn. I want to do this." Just something about being able to fill a space and graver control and everything just to make it look the way I want, and I love it. And hand engraving is something that, again, when I came, I was like, "I want to learn how to do that." And my first engravings were so bad. They were so bad. And I've shared some of my before and after, because what I did was I looked at some of my engraving and I was like, "This is terrible, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to engrave the back of every single piece I make.”
No matter what. And I did that and you can flip through the progression over the years and just see that it just got better and better and better. And is there still room to improve? Of course. With everything that I do, I consider myself, I have so much more to learn and progress, which I think is the cool thing with jewelry. There isn't this point where you're like, "You're done. There aren't any more skills for you to get."
Courtney Gray:
Right.
Nick Noyes:
It's always like, "Oh, there's a new technique, there's a new thing I could learn." But engraving and bead setting were two things that I was not great at. And the only difference between me and someone who maybe never got that great at it was that I just didn't stop. And I think that as far as a lesson too to pass along is that I've seen jewelers that are far more talented than me, that I look at their work and I'm like, "I think your techniques are better than mine." And then they stop at some point, whether it be personal reasons or whatever. And over the years, I've progressed farther than they were when I was looking up to their work in a sense of, “I don't think I can reach there.” But then they stopped making jewelry or working at it.
And I've been able to reach that level now simply through the years of dedication and the fact that I didn't stop. And I think that that is something too, that a lot of times in, and this can happen in music, but also in art and jewelry, people say, "You're so talented." And I think the truth behind anyone that is "so talented" is they have dedicated so many hours of their life to it that they've just gotten to a point where they're really good.
Courtney Gray:
Yup.
Nick Noyes:
And I don't consider myself, and I think there might be inherent talent with certain people, but a huge factor that has made me successful is the fact that I just kept on working at it every day. And I say, if you take any skill and you say, "I'm going to put," and even if I'm only doing five hours a day. You do five hours a day for ten years, you're going to get decent at it, at least I hope so. If you're not, maybe check yourself on what you're doing with your life.
Courtney Gray:
Time to maybe shift gears or think about something different. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
No, I think that's a huge thing to keep in mind, especially with jewelry. And when you're talking about these techniques like micro pavé and hand engraving, those require a lot of patience. I remember having students come in when I was teaching and they would say, "I'm here to learn pavé." And they had never done anything as far as fabrication. And so it's like, "Okay. We need to go have a talk."
Nick Noyes:
Yeah, yeah.
Courtney Gray:
"Come to my office. Let's sit down and let's look at the steps here." But when you get . . .
Nick Noyes:
It's like, "I want to race Formula One."
Courtney Gray:
Yes.
Nick Noyes:
"I've never driven a car, but is it hard?"
Courtney Gray:
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. "Can I build the Porsche?" Or whatever?
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. It is one of the techniques that requires just a different type of, well, not different. It’s just a real precision. It's very precision work, whereas I think some other things like wax or fabrication and working in metal could be a little more forgiving. What you're doing it requires precision, right? Is that what you love about it?
Nick Noyes:
I don't know. It's funny. I talk to some people and they're like, "Just looking at the size of those stones gives me a headache, thinking of having to set them." So I don't know if it's the precision necessarily, but I do have a way of getting hyper focused on things, and especially that helps with a microscope, which I mean, if you're doing hand engraving or micro pavé a microscope is, I don't want to say essential, but it really helps. And it's not cheap. It's an investment. But I think also the investment warrants the dedication in the sense of, "All right. I just spent $3,000 on this. I better use this."
Courtney Gray:
Better learn this technique.
Nick Noyes:
"I better learn this and make it worth it." So I don't know if it's the precision or just the satisfaction of setting a goal and achieving it. So it's hard to necessarily simply just apply that to micro pavé or engraving, but I have these goals of what I want things to look like. And it's something too with engraving where you're like, "All right. I start this design," and then I look at this piece and I'm like, "This is going to take me forever." I've gotten to a point where a lot of times the pieces of jewelry that I make take me over a week to make of working every single day. And some of the time that I don't equate is also the amount of hours that I am thinking about it, not in the studio, which is all of them.
I'll wake up in the middle of the night being like, "Oh, I was dreaming about the way that I could set the stone," or this piece that I'm working on this new piece right now with these two stones cut by Gem Innovator. And he is amazing. His gem cutting is so cool. And so this piece, I've been dreaming about how the settings were going to work, and literally in the middle of the night, I'd wake up and just be like, if I'm holding the baby up or something in the middle of the night, and I'm just sitting there being like, "All right. If I put the bezels up there, then I could hammer it down." I'm always thinking about different ways that pieces could come together.
Courtney Gray:
That's so funny. I literally was working on, "What do I want to ask Nick?" And one of the questions you just answered for me, I didn't even write it down, but was, "Do you dream about your jewelry?"
Nick Noyes:
All the time.
Courtney Gray:
When you stare at something so long, it becomes a part of your dream life and your subconscious. So yeah, I sense that about you. I was like, "I bet he dreams about these."
Nick Noyes:
I do. I do.
Courtney Gray:
Beautiful intricate works.
Nick Noyes:
Oh, yeah. I dream about different gemstones that I could pair together. And I'm like, "I have this opal." I'm like, "All right. What stones could surround it?" And I'm always thinking in terms of jewelry.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. It's your imagination working hard. I love the way you write and speak about your work. It's so passionate. But I have to ask, why didn't you move in? Why not oil painting or ceramic? What is it about the metals and the gemstones?
Nick Noyes:
I've done both. I've always been artistic and drawn. And my dad is also an art teacher. My mom is a polymer clay artist as well. So I grew up in a very artsy family. And so my senior year of high school, I did advanced photography, advanced ceramics and advanced music independent study. And then geology, and it was all very art centric. And so I tried different sorts of painting, pottery, and it was something about the craft of metalwork that I fell in love with. The initiation into wire wrapping was huge because it allowed me to create jewelry without any equipment except pliers. So I'd get pliers and clippers, and then I could put it in my car and drive anywhere. I would go with my brother. We'd hike into the woods and just make a wire wrap in the woods. That ability was so cool to me. I'm like, "This is so cool that I can go out and just make something and travel around."
And also the tactile nature of being able to manipulate it all with your hands. And I think that was one of the hardest shifts into fabrication was how much more limited I am in the ability to move the metal with my hands. And I think that that is something that a lot of people who transition from wire wrapping into fabricating jewelry struggle with to create... Wire wrapping is amazing, the flow and movement that you can create in a piece, that is very hard to translate into sheet metal. If you're carving wax, you can get a little bit more of that flow, but fabricating can be difficult in that sense. And a lot of people can come up with these boxy and everything is very hard angle, like all the angles are really hard.
And I wanted those curves. And so it took a while to find that in fabrication. And some of my first fabrication pieces were little boxes. There was no curve at all to them. And it took some time to figure out the ways that I could translate that. It was because of my wire-wrap background that gave me the ability to conceptualize the flow in a fabricated piece, and it gave me this unique approach to creating jewelry that way.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Yeah. I've had people come to me with or come up with the idea that for some reason, beading or wire working is a lower level, but I feel like it's a gateway to pavé.
Nick Noyes:
It's amazing. I think that's true that it is an undervalued art form, especially in the sense of, and I've got a friend, Nick Cooney, and he lives in California, TendaiDesigns on Instagram. And he shifted into doing these hybrids fabrication and wire wrapping, and it was at Revere Academy. So Alan Revere was like, "Wire wrapping isn't a complete jewelry form because it doesn't have a back. It's wires in the back, and so it's not a complete piece of jewelry." And so I think that is a big part of the jewelry community of looking at it like, "Well, if there’s wire tied off on the back, then it's not a complete piece." And so what Nick did was that he ended up creating these backplates, engraved these really cool backplates. So his pieces are wire wrapped in the front, and then fabricated backplate gets closed off in the back too.
And really, really cool unique approach to jewelry. But I think that that is a big consensus of, and for me, I struggle with that. I'm like, "The back of my piece is even if it's cleanly tied off," and it's still blunt ends of wire to an extent. And so that was a big reason why I thought engraving was so cool. Because I'm like, "Now the back of my piece can be a complete blank canvas that I can just go off on." And I also felt like I hit a wall creatively with wire that I saw my brother surpass. And I was like, "I feel like I'm stuck in this."
Courtney Gray:
Interesting. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
I can only do certain things and my techniques aren't pushing me to where I want to be. And fabricating just opened a new door for me.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah, yeah. I hear that. It's all a process, just going with the flow and, yeah, if you're starting to get bored, the lovely thing with jewelry is that it's endless, like you said earlier.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
There's so many things. There's so different techniques to incorporate and play with. And I think that's one of the things I love about it. It's just a really broad craft. It's probably one of the most broad, right? Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Oh, yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Technique wise. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
I mean, you can go in any direction. It's amazing. And it's also incredible how if you only ever looked in big-box stores and you'd be like, "Well, this is what jewelry is."
Courtney Gray:
Right.
Nick Noyes:
This is what a diamond ring looks like. But then if you branch out and you start looking and you're like, "Oh my gosh, there are no guidelines on how a ring can look. It could be anything."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
And you start getting into, and what's amazing about social media, is that you can see these different jewelers from around the world. And it's just incredible the different amount of techniques and styles and everything that exist. It can also be overwhelming because you can get hung up on other people's styles and stuff. So sometimes taking little breaks from looking is good too.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Because those images are influencing us no matter what, the more you're looking at, right? If you're looking at nature, it's influencing your work. If you're looking at other people's work, it's influencing what comes out when your hands touch the work.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Would you agree with that?
Nick Noyes:
Oh, completely. Yeah. And I find that when I'm making pieces, there will be times where I'm like, I'll design something and I'll be like, "I love this design." And then I'll look, and I'm like, "But this actually kind of looks like my friend's piece." I'm like, "I can't do this." And so I'm like, "All right. I'll keep these two elements and I'll scrap the rest." And I'll incorporate some other techniques to change up the design, because I'm like, "I don't want to make something that is taking someone else's style." And I think there's nothing new under the sun. And there are techniques that are...
And I've heard also other jewelers say, "I don't want anyone taking my style." But then where do we draw the line of like, "All right, so if you’re bead setting, can this bead not be 45 degrees over the stone or something because you've done it that way?" Or when you're setting a bezel like, "Can it not be one millimeter thick because that's your thing?" At a certain point, I think a lot of these techniques are more open for everyone to use, and taking inspiration from other people is completely fine. It's just a matter of finding your own style within that. And I was talking to you, I think last week about, I've had people that have completely replicated pieces of mine—stone choice, stone color, everything.
Courtney Gray:
Wow. Yeah. To the T, huh?
Nick Noyes:
To the T and one person. And someone messaged me saying, "Have you seen this guy?" And I look on his page and I just see my piece. So I messaged him and I'm like, "Hey, it's all good." Basically what I just said: "It's fine to take inspiration from others. When you're doing something maybe just try to add your own spin to it or a little twist." His response was hilarious. It was like, "Hey, man, once it's out in the ether, this is just pleasing, asymmetry. It has nothing to do with you. This was just like what's pleasing to the eye, and that's why I made this style." I'm like, "So you're saying it wasn't inspired by me. It was just like, this is a nice way that lines look?"
Courtney Gray:
Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
I was like, "But you follow me, and you liked that photo."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah, it's real apparent that, I guess there's different ways of thinking about this.
Nick Noyes:
He was like, "It's the Fibonacci sequence, man. It's just beauty. This is how it works." I was like, "Okay."
Courtney Gray:
"I didn't take anything from you." Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. So I'm like, "All right."
Courtney Gray:
What do you say to that?
Nick Noyes:
At the end of the day...yeah. I'm like, "Okay." But I don't need to argue with someone. And I also believe that, too, my clients aren't going to suddenly start going to this guy.
Courtney Gray:
Right.
Nick Noyes:
And if they are, then they weren't meant for me anyway. I've had people reach out and say like, "Hey, can you make this pendant but cheaper?" And it's like someone that’s a jeweler I know, and I'm like, "No."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
I'm not just replicate their... And it's like, "Okay. So you don't want to pay their price, so you just want me to do it cheaper?"
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
So I'm like, "No, I don't do that. I'm happy to make you something," but also, it's just not the best way to start a relationship. I'm just like, "Hey, what's the cheapest way you could do this?" Typically, that's not someone I'm anxious to work with.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a great segue. I was going to ask you about your customers and where do you find like, what is your dream client? Have you had? Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my dream client, there's one guy I'm thinking of in particular, and he reached out. He said like, "Hey, I'm trying to make this special piece, it's a memorial to my parents. I want bicolor tourmaline, like watermelon tourmaline colors, and just do your thing." He said, "I think I want some color-change garnets in there too." And I was like, "All right." And so I created this piece and it's one of my favorite pieces. And then he came back the following year and said, "Okay. I want to do a piece with a tourmaline, ideally fantasy cut some by someone like Dalan Hargrave. This is my budget. Do whatever you want. I want it in gold." And so I messaged Dalan Hargrave, got a stone custom cut for this project and just created this piece.
And it was incredible just to be like, all right, the budget is worthy of me dedicating my energy, time and love into it, which is just, it can be hard sometimes when you're creating custom piece of jewelry and someone says, "All right. I want this to be all 22k gold and I got $500 and I want this piece to be an inch bit." I'm like, "These numbers do not line up."
Courtney Gray:
Right. Right.
Nick Noyes:
And I'm like, "Even if you were buying something from a store that's just been printed, these prices don't work." And it's hard sometimes when you have people that, I mean, I've had people send me Etsy links and be like, "Well, look at this one. It's $150." And I'm like, "That's great if they're $150, I don't know how . . ."
Courtney Gray:
How they did that?
Nick Noyes:
"How they did that? But I can't match that." I'm like, "And feel free to go to them if you want, but I can't stoop to that level to make a sale." And I think that is something that a self-employed entrepreneur, it can be hard to say no to money, period. But something that has helped me with, especially since having kids, is valuing my time enough to say no to the jobs that I don't want to do in the sense of that's going to take a big chunk of my time. It's not worth my time if it's not something that I really want to do.
Courtney Gray:
Well, and now your time is limited. Absolutely, and you're providing for more people. So if the numbers don't work, it just doesn't work. As a professional, I think there is probably people out there who are just doing it as a hobby and then posting to sell the work at basically what it costs them to make it, just to see it on somebody. And I think that's okay in the beginning, but it can affect how we're able to charge for the work and value the work that we offer. So yeah, it's a whole other podcast, right?
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. Well, there's all this psychology behind too. If people that want to feel like something is worth it, and if you're selling something for $200 versus $2,000, intrinsically what you're thinking with the $2,000 is like, "This is a higher quality item." It has to be, right? It's got to be better. And you also get different clients that, for instance, so there are two different kinds of people that'll reach, well, there's many, but a couple different kinds of people that will reach out to me.
One saying, "All right. I've got $500 to spend on something. This is really the maximum I can spend. It's going to be really hard. Would you take partial payments or payment plans or something to make this possible?" So for me, at this point, I say, "I can't. My customer starts minimum at $2,000, and if $500 is a stretch for you, then I don't think that getting a piece of custom jewelry at this moment, at least for me, is probably the right move for you financially." Or then I'll have people that say, "I've got $10,000, let me know where to send it, and we can get started."
Courtney Gray:
We like those. That's the dream.
Nick Noyes:
Those people are amazing. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
That's the dream right there.
Nick Noyes:
Basically just if you create work that you value at a certain price point, you attract people that will be more willing to invest in it. And I think of this story that there was this painter in California, and I can't remember her name right now, but she had a piece in a gallery for three years at $300, and it didn't sell. And she went and added a zero one day, and it sold that week.
Courtney Gray:
Yep. Just add a zero. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. So I think about that. I've had people come in, I was vending at Bonnaroo one time, and someone came into my booth, and they were like, "Do you have anything that's $5,000 up?" And at that point I didn't. And I was like, "No. I've got something that's $2,000." And he was like, "No."
Courtney Gray:
Wow.
Nick Noyes:
"Got to be $5,000." And I'm like, "Okay." So I'm like, "I could sell you this for $5,000." He's like, "Nah, it's got to be 5k.
Courtney Gray:
Just add the five.
Nick Noyes:
Wait, wait. One second.
Courtney Gray:
Wait, hold on.
Nick Noyes:
I'll change it for you.
Courtney Gray:
I can turn that three right into a five. You too. Yeah. Interesting.
Nick Noyes:
So I think of there are people that want to spend a certain amount to feel like they're getting their money's worth. And if you have your stuff undervalued and underpriced, you will never attract those kinds of people. It's something to also think about of if you are creating something, one of a kind by hand, and you are fabricating it, you are engraving it, you're doing all the stone setting, you are unique. You cannot go out and get that piece somewhere else, and you can value that higher. And CAD is incredible, and I know some people that are wizards with CAD, and even if you're doing CAD or any method to replicate, if you're recasting a piece, for instance, that you have a mold of, that inherently is just taking you so much less time.
If you have a mold, you're just recreating it, or you're printing it and then casting it, and you look at the prices that some jewelry store charge and you're like, "Okay. So this is one-tenth of the labor of this custom, one-of-a-kind piece," and they're still pricing it five times as much as you are. At a certain point, you should up your prices to value your own work, because once again, people are going to think that they're getting what they're paying for. And if they think they're getting something that's cheap because you're pricing it cheap, then they're not going to want to buy it.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? It's like there is something that happens to the mind and the consumer brain where you don't—I mean, even simple stuff. "Well, this organic label makes and the $5 price tag, it must be better quality."
Nick Noyes:
Oh, yeah.
Courtney Gray:
You make decisions every day.
Nick Noyes:
I mean, it works with everything. You look at three shirts and you're like, "These are both $20. This one's $96."
Courtney Gray:
That's a better shirt.
Nick Noyes:
You're like, "Oh, gosh. It's a much better shirt." Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
"Got to have that shirt."
Nick Noyes:
You're like, "This is much higher quality. I should get this."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Well, you've been lucky to find really great clientele, it sounds like. And I think that is the dream is somebody just saying, "I want these colors,” or, "Here, I want this one color. Go for it. Here's my budget." And that's the dream. And at some point, yeah, you have to say no, so that you continue to attract and keep space open for those projects. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. There's also a little trick that I'll use sometimes, and it's not just for the jewelry industry. But there's the, “I don't want to do it” price.
Courtney Gray:
Right.
Nick Noyes:
And so it's like, "All right, if you don't want this project," you're just like, "That's going to be 12k." And if they're like, "Yes," then the want will come and you're like, "All right."
Courtney Gray:
It's worth it. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
"I'll make it work. I can do it. Okay, we can do it," And then suddenly the motivation comes. Versus someone saying, "Well, can you do it for $300?" And you're like, "No, no."
Courtney Gray:
I can't even buy the material.
Nick Noyes:
Not just that I don't want to do it, but it's just not worth my time.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Well, and I mean, these days, you can't buy the materials for that.
Nick Noyes:
No. My God.
Courtney Gray:
No. No.
Nick Noyes:
I show people sometimes. I'm like, "Do you want to see what $300 of gold looks like?"
Courtney Gray:
Yes.
Nick Noyes:
And you pull out casting grain and you're like, "You see these three pebbles?"
Courtney Gray:
Great idea. Give them a visual. It's our job to educate the client. And they don't know. Some people, they just really don't know. They haven't researched it yet. And so I always considered myself as a resource like, "Well, let me just tell you ABC. Here's the things that you should realize if you're working with me or somebody else. Here's the things to know."
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
And yeah, don't undervalue your work, guys, or yourself or your time. And I think that's great advice from Nick. Thank you so much. We could talk all day about that. Tell us about the Patreon and teaching, and when did that come about for you?
Nick Noyes:
So that started during the pandemic. So I had started doing some work. This is the only time I've ever worked for someone else. There's a jeweler in town, Jason McLeod Jewelry. He's great. And we've got a great relationship. And I started doing some setting work for him on the side, and that was great. When we moved down to Charlottesville, Virginia, my kids at that point they started going to this Montessori school and we're like, "I got to get a more consistent," this was my mindset. I was like, "I have to get a more consistent income because it's so sporadic with being self-employed." And so I started doing some work for him and realized pretty quickly that it's less lucrative always to work for someone else, basically. When you own your own business and when you sell a piece, you make a hundred percent of the profit versus doing some stone-setting for someone. It's hard to compare those.
And so it was great working for him in a lot of ways, but when the pandemic happened, that job just ended. And so I made a commitment to myself that I was going to make a YouTube video every week and a Patreon video every week. And so I started shifting my social media into more teaching, which it had already been in a way, kind of a lot of demos and process videos. So I started filming everything with my nice camera, so my Canon R6. And that instantly changed the way that my social media did. I mean, the up in the video quality was huge. And then it also gave a way to earn money from the teaching that I was offering, because still to this day, and back then as well, if people reach out with questions, I respond, I answer. People are like, someone yesterday, "How do you blacken your metal?"
I'm like, "Well, if it's silver, I use liver of sulfur to oxidize it." And they're like, "Would you rhodium plate instead?" And I'm like, "Are you working with gold?" And they're like, "No, just silver." I'm like, "If you're trying to black rhodium plate, personally, I don't think you need to with solar, unless you have the setup and you feel like that's the move." But I always take the time to respond and answer people's questions. And a lot of people will ask a question. I'll answer it, and then they'll say, "Thank you," and then that's it. And then I'd have people that I'm like, I'm reading through these paragraphs. I'm like, "Oh my God, you just wrote 10,000 words that I'm trying to read through and be like, "All right. Okay. I mean, I know you want help. I'm holding your hand through every step of the process."
And so part of me was thinking, "All right, if I can create a Patreon, first of all, I can answer a lot of these questions that I get asked consistently. But also I can get something back for the time that I'm dedicating to it," because I want to help. But it also gets to a point with certain people where I was like, "I'm spending hours."
Courtney Gray:
Right. Right.
Nick Noyes:
Coming up with a response for, or making a little custom video explaining something. I'm like Patreon was an easier way to solve the issue.
Courtney Gray:
That makes sense. Is it working? Was that a good move, do you think?
Nick Noyes:
It was great. I have dedicated much less time to it in recent months. Again, well, just before the baby was here, and then with the new baby, video editing is, it's not happening much. It used to always be at night. And like I said before, I'm in bed at 8:00. At this point, I'm like, I'm not doing any extra work at night right now.
Courtney Gray:
Well, and then you got to get up at 3:30 because the baby's up.
Nick Noyes:
Oh, I know. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Nick and I were talking about being night owls and how that shifts when you become a parent, at least temporarily when they're little.
Nick Noyes:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
I know. I'm like, I cherish the sleep any time I can get it now.
Courtney Gray:
Yes. Oh, hey, you want to do something fun with me?
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
I call it Rapid Fire. I stole it from Oprah.
Nick Noyes:
I'm sure she's okay with it.
Courtney Gray:
I hope so. I hope so. Or it's a gateway to find her. All right. Let's do don't think, I know you got up at 3:30 a.m. too.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
This will be really easy.
Nick Noyes:
I'll take another sip of coffee.
Courtney Gray:
Do it. Do it. It's just a fun little thing. I like to pull out of the hat every now and then. Yeah. Don't think, just answer. You ready?
Nick Noyes:
All right.
Courtney Gray:
Oh, most inspiring part of the day to work?
Nick Noyes:
Morning between 9:00 and 11:00.
Courtney Gray:
It's dead on. Spot on. See how efficient we get with as parents.
Nick Noyes:
Oh, yeah.
Courtney Gray:
And self-aware. Favorite place in your house to relax?
Nick Noyes:
Living room, couch.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Everybody says couch. It's like the happy place.
Nick Noyes:
It's the best.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. One habit you're working towards altering?
Nick Noyes:
Doom scrolling on social media.
Courtney Gray:
Doom scrolling.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. I heard that term recently of just endless scrolling.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
It's a double-edged sword for me because it's work as well. So I'm like, "I'm working." I'm like, "Is this work?"
Courtney Gray:
I'm clocked in.
Nick Noyes:
This isn't working well. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. But there is a good one to put limitation on, right?
Nick Noyes:
Yes. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Difficult these days. Your biggest strength in your eyes?
Nick Noyes:
My adaptability.
Courtney Gray:
You're proving right now with the Rapid Fire, adaptability. I love that.
Nick Noyes:
Yes. I think in many times in my life, I've developed a way of doing something and it can get to a point where that is no longer serving me. And so I haven't talked about this at all too, but that was a big thing before I got into jewelry that I was very heavily into drugs and alcohol. That created the gift of desperation that I think I was talking about too, with something needed to happen to change. And I mean, I was at a very, very low point, hospitalized, homeless, desperate.
Courtney Gray:
Wow, Nick. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
And it sparked this incredible change for me. And it didn't happen overnight. Part of me was thinking, I know to get sober for a little bit because my life is a disaster. But my plan was, I'm like, "I'll get sober for a couple of years, and then I can go back to doing what I was doing and everything will be fine." And it took maybe a year or so to realize how dumb that was. To think that once I get my life back together, what would help me would just be going back to my old habits. And so I created this life and sobriety, which for once I thought that I was going to absolutely hate sobriety, and I did when it started. I was like, "This is the worst. What do people do when they don't drink?" I'm like, "This is worst. I don't want to do this."
And what it's done for me is just opened every single door of every dream I've ever had has suddenly been opened wide for me. And that was through a lot of hard work. And it hasn't always been easy, but I've been extremely lucky that... and jewelry in more ways than one has saved my life and given me this way, this outlet of creation that has helped me maintain this path of sobriety that's been over 14 years now, which is crazy.
Courtney Gray:
Wow.
Nick Noyes:
But I think of that—I needed that desperation. I needed something to force my hand in the sense of forced me to change. And I'm so grateful for it. It's funny to look back and think of the things that I'm grateful for. I'm grateful that for those years that I was a drug addict, an alcoholic, because it created this ability to change my life for the better.
Courtney Gray:
It was part of that process of learning what not to do, right?
Nick Noyes:
Yes. It's that 900-
Courtney Gray:
960 ways not to do it. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yes, yes. And yeah, it was so informative. I mean, it's incredible. If you're living that life, it's pretty apparent what is not working. And it's not so easy for a lot of people to say, "This isn't working. I'm going to stop doing this." And it wasn't an easy change for me. It took some extreme circumstances to get me to shift my life, but it has changed my perspective because I was so convinced that I would absolutely despise being sober ever, and that my life in sobriety would be dull and not exciting. And since then, I've been able to travel the world and do the most incredible things.
And all these things that even when I was in the throes of it wanting to do, but I never did, I never was able to motivate past. Even leaving my hometown, I was like, "Oh, I'm comfortable here. I don't want to leave." And so it's helped shift that into doing hard things, going to New Approach for three months, which even I remember driving to Tennessee to go to new approach and thinking, "I shouldn't do this. I should wait at least a couple more years. I'm not ready to do this."
Courtney Gray:
Fear.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. I'm terrified. I'm like, "I don't know how to do this." So I feel like, "This is too big of a commitment. I don't know what I'm doing." And then driving back home after those three months is the best decision I ever made. It's changed my life in a million ways.
Courtney Gray:
Awesome. Oh my gosh. I'm so glad you shared that with us. Yeah. Jump in and just do the work. It takes work.
Nick Noyes:
I've got a motto with that. And it jump in, literally, if I'm jumping off a cliff into water or something, I'm like, "You only live once."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
If I sit there and think about it and dissect it, I'm probably not going to do it. But if I just jump in, I'll figure it out. And I've used that too with jewelry. And I think I put a video out recently of this platinum piece that I made. I got this order for the platinum ring, and I had never fabricated a platinum ring at that point, at least in that style. And so I didn't even know how to do it. My torch didn't get hot enough to melt. I could solder platinum, but I couldn't melt platinum. It was like a Smith Little, it does not melt. You can't fuse it. You need a bigger torch to do that.
But I just said yes, and then I figured it out. I figured out while I was filming it. I'm filming it. I'm like, "Ooh, that did not work out." I'm literally, the platinum is melting into my soldering board. I'm like, "I got to get a better platinum," something for platinum. But it's the thing of just say yes, and then you can figure it out. Instead of just being like, "I can't do that. I don't know." Because this community is incredible. You can reach out to people and ask for help or assistance or tips or techniques, and nine times out of ten, people are willing to share.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah, I've noticed that. I don't know if it's always been like that. And that's come up in discussion on this podcast for sure. But it's like, "Why not share it?" I know you feel strongly about sharing it and not making people feel bad for asking maybe what seems to be a simple question. You’ve got to remember, we're all coming from a different place.
Nick Noyes:
And we were all beginners once.
Courtney Gray:
Right. We're still beginners, Nick.
Nick Noyes:
Yes, you're right. Not me.
Courtney Gray:
No top to this mountain.
Nick Noyes:
Yes, yes. I know. We always have somewhere else to climb.
Courtney Gray:
For sure.
Nick Noyes:
But I think it's like at one point you were curious about that same question, and I think it can be easy to forget. And it's funny too, the way that I look at my own stuff, and I have people that reach out and they're like, "You're a master jeweler." I'm like, "I'm not a master jeweler at all." People are like, "Your work is flawless." I'm like, "All I see is all the things wrong."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. You're not looking through my eyeballs yet.
Nick Noyes:
You need to look through a microscope, and then you're like, "Ooh. Ooh, okay." There's always something. But at the same time, I believe in this abundance mindset of there is more than enough for everyone. And safeguarding and holding techniques and secrets and everything is not only going to hold you back in the end, but also everyone else. Whereas, we can all rise together. It doesn't need to be one person dominating everything and keeping all the secrets. And I think that if we share, not only does it make your own work stronger, but then you can also keep on pushing yourself, which I think it can be easy to say like, "This is what I do and I'm not going to push myself anymore." But what I've found is where you're feeling resistance is usually where you need to focus a little energy. And if you don't push and motivate yourself, you can get stuck in this level of complacency and stop progressing. Which I feel like if you're not progressing in some way, you’re usually backsliding a little bit. So that's something that's helped me.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. We didn't finish Rapid Fire. Are you ready?
Nick Noyes:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Let's go for it.
Courtney Gray:
There's only two more. Favorite color?
Nick Noyes:
Green.
Courtney Gray:
Oh, nice one. Yeah. Do you feel successful in life and career?
Nick Noyes:
I do. I feel extremely successful in life. I mean, I've got an amazing wife. I've got three kids and an awesome house, this incredible jewelry studio. You can't really see it, but out, let's see if I can mirror it. This window, I just have this bamboo forest in the woods in my backyard. I feel so lucky to be able to do what I do. And I'm very lucky in the sense that most of my clients are incredible. I still get people that aren't the best online, but it's usually one out of every thousand or something.
Courtney Gray:
Why do we look at the one? Look at the thousand, right?
Nick Noyes:
I know.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. I know.
Courtney Gray:
There's something about that that just drives me crazy. It's like, "Don't look at the negative one. Look at the positive thousand."
Nick Noyes:
I know.
Courtney Gray:
Why is that hard? Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
It's this people-pleasing tendency I think that a lot of people have that I definitely do of, you could be in a room of a thousand people praising you, but the one that's not, you're like, "But why? Why are you not? What did I do? Can I fix that? Is there something? I want to cater to you?"
Courtney Gray:
I know. Yeah. Instead of the thousand who are lovely.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah, I know—that are actually willing and listening and on your side. And that's something that I've been really trying to work on incorporating is the fact that whatever you're doing, usually art or music especially, it's like, "This is not meant for everybody." Not that I'm trying to exclude anyone specifically, but there are going to be people that do not like this style and that's okay. And I don't need everybody to like me. It's so much harder to believe that. It's easier to say, "Not everyone needs to like me." You're like, "But you can if you want."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. "If you want, I'll still be here trying."
Nick Noyes:
"It's okay if you want to." But that has helped me a lot being there are people that love my stuff. There are people that—I was in this jewelry group, I posted something the other day and I was like, "I'm trying to reach a higher end clientele for these high-karat gold pieces. And I posted some of my work and this woman commented who was an admin. She was like, "Rich people don't buy stuff that looks like this."
Courtney Gray:
Whoa.
Nick Noyes:
She's like, "I've been studying jewelry stuff for 35 years and magazines and rich people do not buy jewelry like this." And I was like,"Oh."
Courtney Gray:
And you're like, "Touché."
Nick Noyes:
All of those pieces have sold since. So, I mean, people have bought them. But in the moment I'm like, "Oh no." I'm like, "Oh, and this person sounds like they really know what they're talking about." If you can focus on that of like, "Okay. This is one person's opinion." Maybe she does know a thing or two, but in the end, those pieces sold. So whatever she was saying was incorrect, and it might be for her market, but if you looked at someone say that went to business school in 1984, they were like, "This is what you have to do to be successful in business." And then someone who started a business in 2023, how many of those principles still apply?
Courtney Gray:
Interesting.
Nick Noyes:
Do you need a brick-and-mortar store? And you're like, "No, man, I make videos on TikTok and I make more money than you." Or something like that. You're like, "Where's all of the things that you learn that you have to do?" This is a certain way you have to do things. They might not apply anymore.
Courtney Gray:
And things change. They change all the time. All the time. It's a big thing you can count on as change, right? Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yes.
Courtney Gray:
And staying open I think is really important to, and like you said, just try it anyway. So-and-so said you can't, well, I think I can, so I'm just going to do it and find out more and fail 968 times. Keep doing.
Nick Noyes:
I saw something that was like, the people that are the high achievers, the outliers are people that did the thing that people said they couldn't do. So if I think about that of if someone says you can't do something, first of all, maybe it's their perspective of they can't do it. It doesn't mean you can't necessarily. And also doing that thing and breaking the mold is what creates these incredible people throughout history that have done something that others said they couldn't do.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. You can't create electricity. I'm sure everybody who's invented something powerful has been told that you can't. I took it as the you can't as fuel.
Nick Noyes:
Oh, yeah. No, I know. I've used that for sure.
Courtney Gray:
It mixed with a little bit of anger. Like anger and you can't and you mix them up, and it became this passion fuel like, "Well, I'm just going to show them and myself that yes, I can."
Nick Noyes:
Spiteful motivation.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Now I'm trying to work from love, Nick. I'm like, all about the love. But early days it was like, oh, I get fired or something. And it's like, "Well, I'm just going to start my own business in my garage.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. In your face.
Courtney Gray:
In your face. And I did. I'm just going to start my own school, whatever. And it's like, "Okay, just go do it." And it's interesting to look back at how we begin. Sometimes that can be fuel the you can't.
Nick Noyes:
I relate to that more than you know. It's so funny to think of the people being like, "You're never going to make it." And you're like, "I'm going to show this one person that I can." And then the byproduct is you get this happy, successful life. It's like, "Thank you I guess for not believing in me because it opened the door for me."
Courtney Gray:
That was my fuel. Yeah. That was what fueled me. Yeah. Waiting for the next thing to fuel me. You know what? But I don't want it to be from anger or from hurt like that or from negative.
Nick Noyes:
I know. Yeah. That's true.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. That's what I'm trying to say. Well, Nick, oh my gosh, amazing, amazing to talk to you. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with this community while we have you here today?
Nick Noyes:
Yes. A couple things real quick.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Take your time.
Nick Noyes:
First of all, it's been amazing to talk to you as well. And listening to your other episodes, I was getting a little bit of imposter syndrome. I'm like, "Oh my God, these are famous people." And I'm like, "Who am I?" I'm like, "I'm just a guy who posted videos." But I think it's easy for myself to look at my own work and undervalue it in a way comparatively to others, but I've worked really hard to get where I am. And I think that a message, if you're just starting out with creating art of any kind, jewelry specifically, the way I'm talking about it is. It's easy to look at other people's achievements and feel down on yourself. Something that's helped me is realizing that other people's success stories, first of all, mean that you can too. If I see someone sell a piece for a high price, it doesn't mean that that sale has been taken away from you.
It means that it's possible as well for you. And I think if you surround yourself with only social media, people are only posting their highlight reels. And so you can look at people's lives and just be like, "Damn. Everything works out for them. Everything is always amazing. Oh my God." And the reality is that we all have lives that aren't on social media. We all have things that we aren't posting. We all have struggles that we're dealing with. And so when you see someone's work that is looking really good and you think that they don't make mistakes, they probably do. Not to get down on yourself for where you are. Because I looked at people when I started out being like, "Oh my gosh, I saw people that they started making jewelry when they were in high school," or when they were 12 or something. And I'm like, "If only I had started then." But the fact is that it doesn't matter when you start, it's just that you do start.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. If onlys, yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah, the if onlys. But more just to not get down on yourself for your skill level, all you got to do is just keep on working at it. And if you dedicate some time every day or every week, you will get better guaranteed. And it's just a matter of time and consistency.
Courtney Gray:
Showing up, right? Just show up to the bench and let the magic happen. And sometimes it doesn't come right away. Maybe that's a sketch day. The best advice that I ever got was just get your butt into the studio and the rest will work itself out. And I didn't get it right away. And I was like, "Oh, just get there. Get there. Turn on the torch." And see what comes up that day. And some days, no, it's not going to work, and that's okay too, but you got there. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
I know. It's funny that some days, even after it's like I... Last week, I was soldering something on, and part of the bezel melted, and it was like, I'm like, "This is my nine billionth bezel. Like what?" I'm like, "How did I mess this up?" But then I'm like, "So this is the first one I've messed up in a year or something. That's pretty good," versus every third one or something.
Courtney Gray:
There's that one in the thousand again, right? Nick, we're like, we look at the negative instead of the thousand successful bezels.
Nick Noyes:
Yes, yes. So I had someone comment on a video of mine once, and they were like, "You never make any mistakes." And I was like, "Listen, I edited this video for YouTube, man. I took out the mistakes." I'm like, "I filmed them and I took them out." When I dropped that stone on the ground, I didn't put that in the video.
Courtney Gray:
Right, right.
Nick Noyes:
When I broke that stone, I didn't put that in the video.
Courtney Gray:
You should make some bloopers. That would be awesome.
Nick Noyes:
I know. You know what? I was like, "I wish I'd saved more of those."
Courtney Gray:
Nick Noyes' bloopers.
Nick Noyes:
There were definitely some bloopers of dropping an emerald and be like, "Oh my God."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
But it's like the-
Courtney Gray:
Flinging one across the room. It happens. It happens.
Nick Noyes:
Oh my gosh. It totally happens. And I think that's something that people look and they look at something that's online and they're like, "Oh my gosh, look how perfect that is." And you're like, "It's because we're presenting the best image."
Courtney Gray:
Of course.
Nick Noyes:
And it's like, "You're not seeing all the mistakes that are in there that happen along the way because they're edited out." And if you can really look at it that way, being even these people that have been doing this much longer than I have, we all make mistakes because we're all human and it's okay. It's a way-
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Don't believes. The perfection doesn't exist. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
No, it doesn't exist.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Yeah. Anything else, Nick? I love this so much more, right?
Nick Noyes:
So much more. Yeah. Well, if you're listening to this podcast, there's a good chance that maybe you already are making jewelry, but if you're not or you're starting out: I grew up in a family where after high school I was like, "Well, what you do is go to college." And a lot of people I knew, it's like, "That is what you do," not because if there's anything in particular I want to learn or do, it's because that's next. And I think if I had taken a step back, and I was very lucky in the sense that I was, like I was saying earlier, I was a disaster as far as drugs and alcohol went, that I did not last in college luckily. And I was able to go to New Approach and actually learn something that I wanted to do.
So what I would say is find what you're passionate about. And if that's making jewelry, then you don't necessarily need to go to a standard college. Go to a jewelry school and give it a try, and you can always go to school later. It doesn't have to happen early in life. And what I've found is that I went through most of my life thinking that I was terrible at learning, and that school was the worst. And the reality is I wasn't learning what I wanted to learn because I obsessively learn now. I love it. And I loved school when it was something that I wanted to learn. And so that can shift your perspective on, it doesn't mean that school is horrible, it just means maybe you're learning the wrong thing for you at that moment. So go into a trade school and find something that you know can get your hands doing something that you actually enjoy.
Courtney Gray:
Something that lights you up, right?
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. You can feel that. I coach makers too, Nick, and when I'm done with a session, I feel like my body is lighter. You have this glow around you and I'd say that's a great identifier for something that lights you up, is just that kind of like, "Wow, I just really helped that person," or, "I just made this piece and had a successful bezel," and whatever it is. You're like, that's that place at the bench where you know you're in the right place doing the right thing. Follow that, right? Follow the good feelings, the joy.
Nick Noyes:
Yes. Most of my life is chasing the joy. In one way or another. I think that's-
Courtney Gray:
I think that most of us. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
That's true. I think of, you get a lot of advice of, "Follow your passion. Do what you love. Follow your dreams." And for most of my life, my dream was not making jewelry for a living. I didn't know what I wanted to do. It's my dream now, and I love creating something every day, but it doesn't mean that I always enjoy what I'm doing. And I think that is something that I have days where I'm super frustrated with something, a stone breaks, something like that, and it's really stressful and I don't like it. But in general, it's the best thing that I've ever done in my life. And so I've gotten to a point where I realized that there are going to be high and low points, and that the low points are okay, and they make the high ones that much sweeter. But just because you're doing something that you love doesn't mean that it's always going to be enjoyable. There will still be hard days, and that's okay.
Courtney Gray:
That's a great way to put it. Yeah. Is like, keep your eye on the big picture instead of all the little parts. You got to do the tedious work, you've got to do the accounting even you've got to do all the things that we don't love and maybe we're not as good at. And it's like those are-
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. Have you paid your quarterly taxes? I'm like, "Oh."
Courtney Gray:
No, but I pavéd these ten stones today.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. I love this.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. This is very random, but I've been meaning to say this, and maybe this will be distributed more so people will hear it. So I always for most of my jewelry career would ship things with flat-rate boxes from USPS. Oh. But in the last couple years, I've switched to a service called Sendle, and oh my God, they still ship through USPS somehow. And it is a quarter of the price.
Courtney Gray:
Really?
Nick Noyes:
It just got to a point with flat-rate boxes where I just saw them. When I first started, they were like $4.20 a box, and then it was like $5, 5.55, 5.60. And then it was like, now they're $9, just a nine something. So sending things with Sendle, which you could just get a free account and you can print labels from home. You can do anything, bigger packages, smaller, and it is so much more affordable.
Courtney Gray:
Nice.
Nick Noyes:
I mean, the last year it's probably saved me $500 or more on shipping.
Courtney Gray:
Wow. Sendle?
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. Sendle.
Courtney Gray:
Okay.
Nick Noyes:
I'm like, "It's great." I should just make a video being like, "I'm not sponsored by them, but oh my God, it's incredible."
Courtney Gray:
Game changer. That's awesome. Yeah, man, everything adds up. We've really got to watch that. Yeah, everything is an expense it seems, and everything seems to be getting more expensive as well. So got to watch even closer now.
Nick Noyes:
I know‑it hurts a little bit sometimes.
Courtney Gray:
I know. It is what it is, and I just try to trust that. Okay. I've always made it work. I've always adapted, right? Like you said earlier, we'll be all right.
Nick Noyes:
I actually heard this thing the other day that I really like that was... And this is going for metal work, and it was, "Gold isn't expensive. Silver is just really cheap." And so it's like this mental thing of like, "I love to work with gold. It's too expensive. It's too expensive." I mean, it is expensive, so it's hard comparatively to silver. But in the sense of if you're making something out of it, you can get that money back and then some because of the intrinsic value that gold will have always. But that helps shift things in my head of like, "Gold isn't really expensive, it's just that silver is really, really cheap."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. It's really cheap. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
So it's hard to look at it and be like, "Oh my gosh, for an ounce of silver is a pebble of gold."
Courtney Gray:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
But if you shift that, it helped me mentally being like, "All right. So I can invest a little bit more in gold and realize that it's just," and it attracts a different kind of clientele. People that are only interested in getting gold. And so all the people that would look at my silver pieces and never consider anything, it's suddenly has shifted to people that are like, "Oh, now I want to buy your work."
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Yeah. The in intrinsic value, I like that. And like you said earlier, it's like, "A minimum $5,000. Oh, that's $2,000, I don't want it. I want the $5,000 piece."
Nick Noyes:
Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Don't be afraid, people, right? Yeah. Add the zero. Add the five.
Nick Noyes:
You might be amazed. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. Yeah. Nick, thank you so much. Where do we find you and find your work, and check out your Patreon and how we can support what you're offering as far as education?
Nick Noyes:
Well, you can go to my website, noyesdesigns.com. My Instagram is NoyesDesigns, and it's all spelled the same way. My last name is spelled N-O-Y-E-S. Like no yes, NoyesDesigns.
Courtney Gray:
Oh, it is no yes. Yeah.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. And so I'm there and I encourage people. If you have questions, message me on Instagram. I answer the questions, and I'm here to help. And you can go on my Patreon and subscribe, and I have tons of videos that are there. But if you can't and you want to just message me on Instagram, I still will answer your questions. I'm not like, "No, you need to be a paying subscriber." I did respond. I'll still answer the questions and I'll help. So feel free to reach out.
Courtney Gray:
That's awesome, Nick. Just keep it to three paragraphs or under, guys.
Nick Noyes:
Yeah. Yeah. If you take anything away from this.
Courtney Gray:
Nick's got a baby and other children to take care of. So the time is more limited than it.
Nick Noyes:
It's precious. Yeah.
Courtney Gray:
It is precious. Well, you enjoy all that precious time with your kiddos and your family and the bamboo outside your window, and it's only the beginning, Nick. I definitely want to keep in touch with you and keep talking and thank you.
Nick Noyes:
Would love that, Courtney.
Courtney Gray:
Yeah. For sure. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Nick Noyes:
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Courtney Gray:
My pleasure too. Thanks for tuning in you guys. I hope you have enjoyed this episode of For The Love of Jewelers. Stay tuned for the next episode by subscribing through Spotify, iTunes, or by searching podcast@riogrande.com. I encourage you to rate us, write a review and share with friends and colleagues. I hope you're all finding ways to stay inspired. I'm your host, Courtney Gray. Until we get to connect again, onward and upward.