Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
Issue link: http://ornamentmagazine.epubxp.com/i/104373
questions/answers be very focused and constantly challenge yourself. Professional artists also have to be good business people. The world doesn't owe you a living and you need formal training combined with the critique process to compete in today's market. If you don't wake up in the morning with a fire in your belly for making things, then you had better find another way to support yourself. It's a tough career. In the greater Seattle area, where you live, you have been active in promoting arts education. Why? Arts education is becoming something only rich people can afford. There is all this emphasis now on science and math and the arts are getting axed right and left. When I worked in the public schools, my primary goal was to give students a voice and another way to succeed. I also taught them some tool skills because many kids, rich and poor, come from families where nobody knows how to make anything. Human beings evolved as tool users and makers. If you aren't making things with your hands you aren't developing your whole brain. I came from a family of six kids and my parents were teachers so they couldn't send us to private schools. Without public school art programs I would not have become the artist I am today. 18 ORNAMENT 36.2.2012 In the last couple of years you have started what you call an atelier, which is a production line you design and have made by other metalsmiths. Why did you decide to add a production line? I actually started in production in the early 1980s but I had a hard time doing all the work myself, so I switched to one of a kind. When the economy changed in 2008 I needed more products to appeal to a larger audience. It's really been fun working as part of a team. The big artpieces take a lot out of me and I can't produce them very fast. I love having more jewelry to wear and spread around. You have also started a blog in which, among other things, you ruminate on the metalsmithing that was involved in building the Statue of Liberty. Are you enjoying writing the blog? Do you get feedback from other artists? Or those interested in jewelry and art? I love writing my blog; it's a way for me to put on my teacher hat without being in a classroom. My topics are about my cultural observations and are often prompted by a movie or book or exhibition I've seen. As an artist I bring specific knowledge to what I see and I write it for a larger audience. I get comments from all kinds of people, my medical care providers, friends, family, and fellow artists. The making and restoring of the Statue of Liberty is a fabulous tale about French and American history, art, engineering, politics, and patriotism. She is a unique structure made by craftsmen like me in a material most people associate with plumbing and electrical wiring. She knocks my socks off every time I see her.