On Cosmic Success…

by michaeljohnson on July 28, 2013

On Cosmic Success…

There is an old story about a fisherman who spent his days in his small boat , returning with two fish every day.  He sold one, and took the other home to cook for his family, and then took them all down to the local pub and spent the evenings rejoicing with songs and laughter.   Life was good.

And, then a businessman approached him.  ”If you were to spend longer at sea and returned with more fish, you could afford a bigger boat.  You could then work them until you had a fleet of boats.”

The fisherman asked, “and I would have more time for my family?”

“No,” said the businessman.  ”You would work all of the boats until you could incorporate, become the CEO”

“And, then I would have more time for family?”

“No, you would work as CEO, until you could retire with a huge pension.”

“Then what?”

“Then you could spend more time with your family and friends.”

“That’s the silliest thing that I have ever heard.  Why work so hard to have what I already have?”

Stellar Blossom: sterling silver, spessarite garnets, and welo opal.

Stellar Blossom: sterling silver, spessarite garnets, and welo opal.

I always feel like the fisherman in that story when bench jewelers try to give me business advice.  ”Make molds, send them to be reproduced, sell wholesale, do more repair work, make more traditional prong settings, sell more diamonds, use gold, work, work, work, more, more, more, harder, harder…”  to have exactly what I have.

I wake up in the morning to check my garden.  Pull weeds, pick stuff, fertilize, water, enjoy nature, the sun, and birds in my bird feeders.  I then go to my bench and make something inspired by one of my beautiful flowers.  I explore ideas in shapes, color, and numbers.  Explore metals, stones, and my own ideas about spirituality, the creator, and people.  And, then I start preparing dinner and enjoying my family and friends.  Do I need to work harder to be successful?  What on earth is success?

I am also asked occasionally, “Why aren’t you famous?”  LOL, I am in my own community.  People know that I am the odd guy wearing a funny hat who walks the perimeter of the city every evening with my girlfriend and dogs.  Most people know where to find me if they need something repaired that a jewelry store wouldn’t handle, or a customization that they would only trust me with.  Everyone that I know, knows me.  How much more famous can I get?  What else could fame mean?

If you look at the world of art, the days of mega famous Picassos are gone.  Even famous musicians are dwindling.  It’s all indie stuff and etsy.  Even authors now-a-days are self-publishing.  Galleries all use art as free inventory that they don’t have to buy upfront.  Corporate publishers and record labels won’t take risks on anything but a Justin Beiber, sure thing.  And, I am fine with that.

The world has enough designer “lines” of jewelry.  However, I am out here making one-of-a-kind pieces.  Pieces made with magic and love in mind.  Each one as spectacular as my homemade blackberry cobblers and homemade garden grown pizzas.   Each one as successful and famous as I can even imagine.

I do hope you enjoy my work, as without a viewer it’s not art.  And, since I don’t have a huge studio with many workers to support, I don’t charge a fortune for my time and materials.  I just want enough to keep on making beauty, magic, and love.  The world could use a little less business and a lot more art.

Let me know what you think…

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michaeljohnson

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Why Flowers?

by michaeljohnson on February 28, 2013

Animals, vegetables, and minerals have all been subject matters in art and jewelry since the the first people started carving and scrawling designs on things.  I can’t even think of anything that is excluded from being the subject of a design used in adornment.  Everything and anything is up for grabs when it comes to subject matter.

Fire bloom: sterling silver and spessartite garnets

Fire bloom: sterling silver and spessartite garnets

So, why flowers?
Many will say that real art doesn’t require an explanation, and I agree wholeheartedly.  But, I think that a dialog on what is going on within a work can open up a new way of seeing a work.  However, I was recently musing on why I have gotten infatuated with flowers lately, and felt inspired to wax a bit on subject matter.

All of my ideas come from my sketches and doodles.  Sometimes, the sketches are inspired by a stone, and sometimes they are just auto-generated from a string of sketches.  Flowers allow me to get abstract, without leaving the viewer with no frame of reference to relate to the work.  I can play with shapes, different settings, and composition, but as long as I keep a radiant pattern of petal-like extensions, it will still be “something.”

Aqua-Blossoms:sterling silver and aquamarines.

Aqua-Blossoms:sterling silver and aquamarines.

I can also play with combining colors.  Many of my multi-colored stone pieces were inspired by some of our local lantanas, with their contrasting colors of gold and purple, green and reds, oranges and blues.  But, I tend to play away from my original inspirations, and experiment with different combinations.  However, before I commit to a set of stones, I like to check my books of stone folklore, reflect on meanings of colors, and really examine the way the stones work together under different light sources.  I take my stones and colors very seriously.

The Brazilian: sterling silver, Brazilian opal, peridot, and two uniquely trillion cut rubies

The Brazilian: sterling silver, Brazilian opal, peridot, and two uniquely trillion cut rubies

I also like playing with different ways of securing the stones to the work.  I have been pondering the differences in the way the stone is secured to the work, and how it affects the relationship of the stone to the design.  Prongs, tend to be more temporary than a bezel setting, where the stone is completely wrapped in metal.  But, I will write more about this in another post.

Burma Bloom: sterling silver, pink sapphire, and aquamarines

Burma Bloom: sterling silver, pink sapphire, and aquamarines

The flower allows me to experiment with the settings.  I can turn them into smaller blooms.  The stones can float away from the flower, or be embedded in another part of the larger setting.

Ice Flower; sterling and aquamarines

Ice Flower; sterling and aquamarines

And, sometimes I just like to call on my inner-Dr. Seuss and just invent flowers.

Rain Flower: sterling silver, aquamarine, Lightning Ridge Opals, pyrope garnet

Rain Flower: sterling silver, aquamarine, Lightning Ridge Opals, pyrope garnet

Would flowers from another planet look similar to flowers here?  The very same atoms that make up the beautiful plays of color in space, make up the flowers found in our very own neighborhoods, and make up the stones buried deep within the earth.

Aquarius Blossom: sterling silver and 3.0 carats of various aquamarines

Aquarius Blossom: sterling silver and 3.0 carats of various aquamarines

We are all made up of the stuff stars are made of.

Of course I could go on and on.  I could talk about the five petal flower and how it was an emblem of sects of medieval knights that used the symbol to reflect their secret ties to Athena, or the Japanese knights of the cherry blossom, or the way the planet Venus crosses the night sky throughout the year.  Things that inspire me like the shapes of the petals, and the way shape changes the way the flower lays against the chest or the implied emotion or the  illusion of scale of the stones.

But ultimately, flowers allow me to play with certain aspects of design, like colors, settings, shapes, symbolism, and fabrication techniques, without diverting too far from the viewer’s ability to identify and relate to the object.  Plus, there is the fact that it is a representation of a natural thing, the reproductive parts of a plant.  But, I didn’t want to talk too much about that.  Some might think I was being lewd 😉

 

I hope you enjoyed looking at my work, and please feel free to comment.  I would love to know what you think.

 

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michaeljohnson

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