Often artists and designers have skills in
other mediums but focus on one. Are there
other areas of design you studied or have an
affinity for?
I’ve had a love affair with illustration for a long
time now. After making the Weirdzone Zine it
opened my eyes to the world of commercial
illustration and I’ve been head-over-heels ever
since. I’m currently illustrating a bit for a
magazine called Illustoria, and when I’m not
making jewelry I like to sit down with some ink
and paper and make pieces for friends. It’s
therapeutic, low stress, and helps me get out of
my own head.
How instrumental was your time with Jewelry
designer Bill Ford in shaping the type of
designer you are now?
Bill was a great teacher because he forced you
to think about process first and creativity second.
There are hard rules in jewelry fabrication that
you have to follow, and if you understand the
process, then you can let your creativity run wild
within that frame of understanding. Bill also let
you figure it out for yourself. If you needed help,
he was there. Otherwise, if was up to you to
make it happen. So much of creating jewelry is
trial and error, experimentation, and winging it,
and that’s a really important lesson to learn early
on. Outside of the hard rules like solder
temperatures, and at which point to attach
different pieces to what you’re making, there are
a million different ways to do the same thing. It’s
up to you to figure out what works best for your
creative practice, and to really put that effort in.
The same can be said for how you live your life.
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THE CONE - ISSUE #15 - 2018