I'm on the board of the Women's Jewelry Association of Philadelphia, and this year we've been working on creating a more interesting and educational series of events for our WJA community. This May we visited the JV Collective, which is currently located in the Bok Building in South Philadelphia.
We were lucky enough to meet up with Sarah Rachel Brown, Luci Jockel, Melanie Bilenker, and Marie Eife (The other members currently include: Leslie Boyd, Emily Cobb, and Mallory Weston).
They let us explore their shared studio, and handle and try on their work. We chatted about working in a shared space, raising children while maintaining a studio practice, and Sarah's podcast: Perceived Value.
In her podcast, she interviews artists and jewelers about how they navigate money issues in their life: college debts, salaries in the industry, how much it actually costs to participate in craft shows, etc. If you haven't checked it out yet, we highly recommend it!