A business-minded jeweler travels to South Asia this month to study up.

by Melanie McGee Bianchi . photo by Matt Rose

Joanna Gollberg’s jewelry-making is just as much a business as it is a calling. “I don’t like being referred to as an artist,” she says.

Not that there’s anything wrong with artists. But. “I’m not sitting around making whatever appeals to me,” she says. “This is how I make my living. I have three lines that I sell in stores all across the country.”

One of those lines is her “Textured” collection. The medieval-looking rings, necklaces and drop earrings have thick, irregular borders and stippled surfaces. By contrast, the gems that shine within these chunky pieces (peridot, amethyst, blue topaz) are dramatically but delicately staged, pronged like imperial jewels in a crown.

Some of her work may look as funky as her downtown Asheville studio, but her company’s image is oddly corporate. Her website is sharp and glossy: models sport smart haircuts and pedigreed smiles. “I have to market my work,” Gollberg explains. “I make spreadsheets showing profit and loss. I’m a small corporation, and I’m happy with that.”

The national DIY movement—particularly the Renegade Craft Fair and the handmade-ware outlet etsy.com—has blurred the boundaries separating low- and high-end craft. To be sure, grooming the public to appreciate handcrafted goods is a cultural boon. And yet many shoppers in this saturated market are unable to distinguish dinky earrings or doilies from highly skilled, professional work.

Meanwhile, Gollberg, 39, has invested her whole life in her craft and career. As a teenager, the Asheville native was left a vast collection of material and two kilns by her grandmother, an enamelist. She took a jewelry-making course at Penland School of Crafts and received her degree from New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology in 1997. Gollberg is the author of four how-to jewelry books (with Asheville publisher Lark Crafts, a division of Barnes & Noble-owned Sterling Publishing Company), and she’s a frequent instructor at area craft schools like Penland and Arrowmont.

Her latest venture takes her to India this month, accompanied by her husband and toddler son. There, Gollberg will team up with educator and jeweler Hema Malani to gather information for her fifth Lark book: a distillation of traditional, intricate Indian techniques. An experienced traveler, she gushes about India, where she’s visited three times in the past. “It’s the smells, the food, the clothes, the overall friendliness—the happiness.” All that, plus the intensity. “There’s always something crazy going on, and, oh my God, it’s so much fun.”

But back to business for a moment. Gollberg notes that India’s recent immersion in the global marketplace makes it economically important for the country to reveal some of its native traditions. In her book, she’ll illustrate the methods behind Indian filigree, wood inlay, knot-tying and other ancient jewelry-making forms. “If these beautiful techniques can be shared and used in a genuine way, why keep them a secret?”

For more of Gollberg’s work, see www.joannagollberg.com.