FEATURE STORY
Elegant Vessels
Jewelry artist Michael Boyd fills his cup with newfound forms and shapes
"You were my first interview ever and I was panic-stricken," recalls Michael Boyd with humor. The first time I met him, he was sitting inside a chicken-coop turned-studio in downtown Denver. It was winter 1991 and I'd woven a checkered path through some spotty neighborhoods to find the tiny door that would transport me into Boyd's world. I had been told that Boyd was a rising star, a sweet man, and an eclectic character. True on all counts. My first impression was that he was strangely like a child prodigy -- even though Boyd was in his early 30s at the time, he seemed like someone whose talent was rough and undiscovered, like an uncut stone. Yet it wasn't lack of skill I detected, but an innocence of spirit that, I have learned, is matched by the soul of a sage.
Well known for his contemporary roll-on cuff bracelets of colorful stones and mixed metals (see “At Home in Salida,” September, 1995), Boyd captured me from the start with his architectural designs. He was the first jewelry artist whom I would commission to make a piece of jewelry. For a freelance writer, such things are a rare treat, but it was well worth the investment. I still wear my Boyd bracelet with its stacked, geometric shapes of such colorful materials as parrot wing, sugilite, and azurite. While Boyd remains on the cutting edge of contemporary jewelry design, he has branched out. For the first time, he is introducing to the public his hand-fabricated teapots and vessels made from stone and mixed metals.
Once again, it's winter. But this time, I speak to Boyd from a distance - from the East Coast to the Rocky Mountains. In the background, I hear the familiar sounds of hammering buzz through the phone lines from his studio in Salida, Colorado. Salida is the kind of town that used to be home to one horse, a few saloons, and a handful of mountain men. However, since the '70s, this alpine haven has blossomed into an artist enclave home to dozens of painters, sculptors, jewelry designers, metalsmiths, and other craftspeople.
Perhaps Boyd's well-rounded lifestyle has shaped his desire to create rounded objects. Boyd scoffs and makes light of the idea of functionality, never taking himself too seriously. “Yes, they're functional - as far as function goes,” he quips about his teapots and other objects. “Jewelry is functional as far as being body adornment. In the same sense, my objects are functional. But in many ways, the idea of function is a joke. I mean, you can have a $5 teapot from the junkyard or you can have a $5,000 teapot from Cartier. They're both functional. But in some ways, they serve totally different functions.” |
Whether it's form versus function or function for function's sake, Boyd has turned a teapot into a virtual ceremony - no water necessary. At first glance, his Long-Legged Teapot looks like it could take flight and orbit a small galaxy of tea cups and flying saucers in an outer space where “high tea” has more to do with science fiction than British tradition. A two-part set, the teapot was designed to sit snugly on its long-legged base. At the tip of the sinewy silver handle is a slice of ammonite embellished with gem chrysocolla and yellow jasper. The lid is constructed of serpentine and black jade with a ruby cabochon as an accent. The body of the teapot is constructed soapstone, but further enhanced with green and poppy jasper and serpentine. Various cabochons of turquoise, red coral, and jasper also embellish the pot. A bit of an optical illusion is provided by a large, green-hued ruby-in-zoisite tucked underneath the pot. At first glance, the stone appears to be attached to the silver stand, which rests atop long green jasper legs, but when the teapot is lifted, the zoisite remains on its bottom.
SIMPLE PROCESS, COMPLEX FINISH.
Boyd calls his new line of objects “basic fabrications and constructions.” Although he downplays his process, the results are stunning. “It is like buying someone else's stone and recutting it, like when I first started making jewelry. At the time that we first met,” he recalls, referring to our chicken-coop encounter, “I was mostly buying other peoples' stones and, with crude equipment, I was redoing and recutting the stones to fit my designs. The difference now is that I've been making jewelry for nine years. Now, I cut my own stones. In many ways, working with the shapes for my objects is sort of like going back to that. Now, with a teapot, I have to borrow and redo forms. With the exception of those shapes, everything else is fabricated in my shop.”
One of Boyd's more exotic objects that involves form, shape, and whimsy is his exquisite caviar bowl set. Taking a set of fancy jasper bowls, Boyd recut and reshaped them and added sterling silver to create flat, high-polished rims. The bowls are stacked and positioned with metal bars as design elements that create an illusion of floating in their own spheres. “The thing with caviar is that it is never supposed to touch metal. That's why I felt it lent itself to stone. In my set, the caviar is meant to sit in the stone and the spoon is carved of jade.”
“It's totally dysfunctional,” laughs Boyd. “It's my commentary on the concept of function versus non-function and art versus craft, which is all bogus and stupid, anyway. And the bottom line is, who cares? Who cares if it's art, if it's a painting, flat craft, or 3-D art?” Among Boyd's current creations and objects of desire made from stone and mixed metals are tea balls, forks and spoons, candlesticks, letter openers, and even a compass which actually works. Boyd will unveil his teapots and other objects on April 3 at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and on June 26 at his own gallery, Cultureclash, in Salida.
While continuing his jewelry line, he works on his vessels over extended periods of time. “These pieces are like large lap pieces. They'll be around for six months, even a year in process. They just sit there for me to contemplate. I don't do them very fast. I'll go and work on them for a while, but it's nice to let them sit and digest.”
For information on galleries that carry Michael Boyd's jewelry, contact Boyd at his gallery, Cultureclash, 101 North F Street, Salida, Colorado 81201, or e-mail rocks@amigo.net.
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Rock Hunting . . . with Goats
Boyd and his friend, Matt Keefauver, now own a total of six goats -- two yearlings, two two-year-olds, and two five-year-olds that they use to prospect for jasper, agate, and other fun stuff in their local Rocky Mountain environs. According to Boyd, his “babies” -- Clutch, Cargo, Spinner, Paddle Foot, Harvey, and Wallbanger -- carry a third of their body weight. “My boys are in the 200-pound range, so I can put 40 pounds on a goat. Even if I put on 40 pounds a piece, that's a lot of pounds with six goats. I still have one left for my wine and one for the chocolate. And after you drink the wine and eat the chocolate, you've got plenty of room to carry more rocks back.” Having bottle-raised all four of his younger “babies,” Boyd says his pals bond to humans. Out in the wilderness, no lead is necessary because, like a good dog, your bonded goat will follow wherever you go. Sometimes Boyd goes on pack trips with a string of goats and fellow goat packers. “The reason I chose goats is that they are ideal for rough terrain. The hills here have lots of smoky quartz, quartz crystal, and some topaz and aquamarine. I'm working with a lot of what I'm collecting now myself in my jewelry. It makes the whole process a lot of fun. For some jewelry pieces, I'll do a hike and collect rock and then do a piece that's totally out of rock from Sand Creek or Brown's Canyon, for example. Obviously, there are things I get at the gem show, but if at all possible, I collect it myself.” Boyd uses modern mountaineering panniers and hardwood pack saddles on his goats to haul out the stone booty he prospects. For serious enthusiasts, the artist recommends goat packing Web sites, such as www.goatpack.com or http://srv.net/~goatz/packgoat.html, for more information. These sites offer lots of helpful tips and goat facts. Shopping for your goat is also possible on these sites, especially if your goat is “hard to fit.” You also will find plenty of links to other goat-related Web sites. -- AO |
Although he has started to exhibit non-jewelry items, such as the Leaf-top Teapot of fine and sterling silver, 22K gold, gem chrysocolla, various serpentines, variscite, turquoise, rhodonite, dumortierite-in-quartz, and ruby, pictured above, Boyd has no plans to stop making jewelry.
I liked the idea of having precious materials hidden inside.” The spout is made of two different varieties of stone. The base stone is granite, the second stone is a material that Boyd speculates is a type of jasper. Dangling from the spout is a piece of silver tubing with silk emerging from it like a tassel. South African bustamite is used on the bottoms of the feet. Finally, the pot is placed on a tray of silver with a serpentine rim, which Boyd fashioned from a serpentine bowl. “Again I'm taking materials, like forms and shapes, and chopping them up. My pieces might as well be a mosaic or a collage. My objects are more like a 3-D collage.”
