Small Business: How the Jewellers Collective is teaching traditionally

Chris and Lee-Anne Minturn, founders of the Jewellers Collective, are teaching the methods of jewellery making to those interested in the craft. Photo / Supplied

Chris and Lee-Anne Minturn, co-founders of the Jewellers Collective, talk to Tom Raynel about the jewellery industry, and why they decided to branch out from traditional teaching.

What is the Jewellers Collective?

The Jewellers Collective is a community workshop where people come together to experience the art of handmade jewellery in an informative, collaborative working environment. Whether that’s just a single ring class or people who come and do the longer classes and upskilling because they have a passion in wanting to learn something new.

It’s a mediaeval craft that dates back aeons, and some of the things that we still do are the old-school ways. There is modern equipment and we have some of that, but when you first start off it is all hand skills and that’s what we teach.

Chris and Lee-Anne Minturn, founders of the Jewellers Collective, are teaching the methods of jewellery making to those interested in the craft.

What inspired you to start the business?

In 2017, we could already see that things were tightening down in the NZQA landscape. That’s when we knew we needed to diversify. We decided to branch out into the repair and design and project space, because Peter (Chris' father) had already retired we stepped in and carried on where he left off.

But then when Covid came, we found we needed to pivot again. It was in that space that we thought, right, we’ve served our time of no trade, we should fill a void that had happened as a direct result of Covid. So it was just timing, really, that enabled the collective to come into being.

The Jewellers Collective workshop in Auckland's New Lynn has everything a prospective jewellery maker would need to craft that special piece. Photo / Supplied

Your most popular class is learning to make a silver ring, what else do you do?

So the silver ring has a very basic form, but it covers some very fundamental techniques. In the beginner’s class, we take those fundamentals and bring them into a foundational space so you get exposure to the processes of making jewellery.

We do a project in the beginner’s class that introduces really key elements of handmaking. Then with the jewellery-making classes on a Wednesday and a Thursday, it’s taking those foundational elements and then bringing them into your own designs.

It’s about translating and learning from what you know and building up a skill base.

Is it hard to become a jewellery maker?

I think if you’re a learner, it’s very difficult to get into placement. The avenue of entry, which would normally be through apprenticeship or through formal training through a private enterprise, those are quite limited as well.

I know that the people who purchased the Goldsmith school have then sold it, but then the people who currently own it are looking to continue all of the forms of learning that they have purchased or inherited, so that sort of cuts down on that form of entry into the trade.

Commercial and technology-based jewellery is accessible through CAD and through what we call a bench-hand type jeweller, but for other forms of jewellery, it’s quite hard to enter into the trade. It’s a very saturated trade as well.

When we had the big school, I’m going to say it was at least 90% female students. That has definitely changed from when my father did his training in the 50s, it was all male, you know, so a big, big swing there.

The Jewellers Collective workshop is not for the faint hearted, with incredibly hot flames used as part of the ring making process. Photo / Supplied

What does it take to make a good piece of jewellery?

I think Minturn is quite well known for perhaps being a little heavier than other forms of commercial fine jewellery, and that’s deliberate, then we look at how the piece must function. That’s something that we have learned through the influences of Peter and other jewellers that we know and artisans that we’ve commissioned to do some of the work that we need.

It’s about having an aesthetic and representing that in the pieces that we make. We do make very commercial pieces as well, but most people who come to us tend to want something that’s a bit different to the average offering.

What would be your advice to other budding entrepreneurs?

I think that the biggest thing that they could do is to really look at what they want to offer and how they think they might do it. Building a business plan that really refines what you think it is that you can offer, and where that sits in the industry you want to enter into is really important because you can identify gaps.

You need to get out there and talk to people, but start, that’s the biggest thing is actually start.

Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business and retail.