Description:

Well sometimes a name can make a sale for you…

So, you have your gorgeous, painstakingly designed and created, highly individual piece of hand-crafted jewellery sitting on your workspace in front of you. You have agonised over it’s design, worried about it’s construction, and possibly even been injured by it once or twice – in short, you have given birth to it. Doesn't it deserve a name?

Well I suppose you could just call it “Bangle No 10” and be done with it – but part of the joy for your purchaser is in choosing something special, individual, and intrinsically artistic. And the perception of artistry in the eyes of your purchaser will depend in large part on how YOU view the piece you have created. Giving it a name which reflects its individual status, and which indicates the time and trouble you have taken over the piece because it references your inspiration or feelings about the work, can be a very important part of the overall package.

If someone loves a piece you have created but they are still dithering, possibly because of the price or for some other reason, a really REALLY good name can make all the difference. The extra thought it shows on the part of the artist can sometimes just tip the balance between an instant sale and an “I’ll think about it and come back later”.

Sometimes (but in my experience, not often enough) a piece will ‘speak’ to you while you work on it and it’s name will just come to you without you having to spend too much time thinking about it. But on other occasions it is nice to have a few shortcuts or tricks up your sleeve to kick start your creative naming process. What follows is a brief description of the things my partner and myself consider when naming works in our gallery in order to help them sell. I have tried to limit them here to jewellery, but the basics work for paintings, ceramics and I am sure, many other objets.

1. Style of the work – Look at the piece in front of you. Is it curly, and if so, is it curly in an art nouveau-ish way or in a ‘waves on the shore’ way? If it’s the former, how about naming it after an artist of the period - maybe ‘Lalique’ after the glass artist of the time? If the latter applies, then maybe ‘Oceania’ would suit it? Does it reference a particular design style, ie, traditional Celtic – if so Could you call it Aoife or Aibell after the Irish goddesses (or spend some time looking for one who is particularly relevant to you or to your work). Does it look more Faberge influenced? How about 'Tsarina'. Is it full of shells and coral? Well where does that lead you? Breaking down the elements of the piece and looking at the overall style can take you off in lots of directions so far as naming is concerned.

What about context – does that help you with the naming? Does the piece put you in mind of a beach, or of sparkling city lights? Where would you wear it – what season would it look best in? Does it look like the perfect piece for a traditional bride or would it be fantastic with a little black dress? All of this information can be used to guide your choice of name or, at the very least, as a starting point for your deliberations.

2. Meanings of stones used – there is so much information on the web already about this subject that I will not go into specifics here. But if you are stuck for ideas this is another great place to begin. Gemstones have attributed to them various meanings and qualities and are also associated with personality types and birthdays (see Christina Amador’s excellent article in relation to this). These attributes can be an excellent jumping off point for naming your work.

As an example, let’s take rose quartz which is generally considered to represent love and constancy. Fortunately ‘rose’ is a great word in itself and is also frequently used to reference love. So if rose quartz features in your bangle – then perhaps love / desire / passion could feature in its title, maybe together with the name of the stone. Add to this either familiar phrasing or alliteration – so we get ‘Rose Garden’, ‘Pink Passion’, ‘Rose Kiss’, or how about ‘Wild Rose’ or ‘Wild Heart’.

3. Nature – and not necessarily specifics – if your bangle uses reds and oranges then how about referencing Fall and giving a nod to Edith Piaf the famous French singer at the same time and calling it ‘Autumn Leaves’? Too predictable? How about ‘Sweet September’ or ‘After the Fall’? Is your bangle full of dark amethysts and fluorite? These are the colours of the sky when a storm approaches – so how about ‘Perfect Storm’ or ‘Rain Maker’?
I am sure you get the idea...
4. Well known phrases – Using a phrase with which people are already familiar and adapting it to fit your work can work extremely well. A known phrase can help fix the piece in someone’s mind – and the next time they are searching for you online or at a show, they will have that phrase in mind, even if they do not remember your name. We have named pieces Time and Tide, Sticks and Stones, Catch of the Day, Prawn to be Wild and then (embarrassingly) Prawn Again for a similar piece (both of which sold to the same person because she loved the names).

Twisting a known phrase to fit your work may just give it the edge that makes someone laugh or feel pleased to have ‘got’ the joke – it certainly seems to add to the desirability of the piece and to please the purchasers – and isn’t that what we are all aiming for?