Barry & Diana Hansen: Back On Track

After losing all their inventory to a quick-fingered thief, Barry and Diana Hansen regained their feet thanks to a few generous jewelers, a new son, and Barry's own eclectic designs.

by Annie Ross

Hansen used three cultured pearls to strike a balance between a piece of brown drusy Brazilian agate and an unusual Indian moonstone

Barry Hansen molds wedges of gold to frame exquisite Brazilian aquamarines, Afghanistan green tourmalines, South African sugilite, black Tahitian pearls, Australian chrysoprase, and more. A goldsmith for nearly 20 years and a certified gemologist, his passion is hand-fabricating one-of-a-kind jewelry. “That's what I love doing. I don't care if I screw a piece up and have to start over. I enjoy working with a torch, being able to mold the metal with my hands.” Since Hansen doesn't tend to follow a design for very long, he is well suited to unique metalwork. “That's the beauty of this medium. You don't have to stay with one theme in order to produce recognizable work.” Through good times and bad times - even devastating times, Hansen steadfastly pursues his calling as a fine art jeweler.

Devastating times fell in November 1997 at an outdoor art show when Barry and his wife, Diana, were robbed of their entire inventory. In a matter of seconds, their financial loss totaled tens of thousands of dollars; the creative loss was nearly 100 pendants, brooches, and rings. “I lost everything,” says Hansen. “After the show closed on Sunday night, I was breaking down my showcases and had all my pieces in a backpack ready to go. The bag was no more than five feet from me. He came up behind me, picked it up, and just walked away. I didn't hear him at all.” Hansen didn't see the crook. “I committed the cardinal sin of turning my back on my goods,” says the goldsmith, shaking his head. A particularly traumatic loss, since there was no insurance and it is more difficult to recover jewelry than most stolen items. “Within 24 hours the stolen jewelry is out of the country, across the country, or has been taken apart and melted down.”

Only five days after the theft, Hansen fulfilled his promise to participate in the Contemporary Crafts Market in Santa Monica. “I went to the show with six pieces of jewelry - all I could make in the week between shows - and photographs of my work.” At the Sunday morning gathering of the artists, show organizer Roy Helms asked the Hansens if he could mention the robbery. “He brought the subject up by saying he was making a donation to the Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF) in our name and that if any other artist wanted to donate in my name he would be happy to take checks and mail them all together. That brought Diana and I to tears. We just didn't expect that at all.

“Many people expressed their hope that this terrible event wouldn't keep me from continuing to work,” recalls Hansen, but special gratitude goes to jewelers Judy Lazar of Judy Lazar Designs and John Biagiotti of Metamorphosis. “They stopped by and stressed that they would be happy to do anything they could to help me get through the Christmas season. Could they clean castings, supply gold or stones, set stones, polish - whatever I needed to complete orders? I was really overwhelmed by their generosity, especially at that time of year when we make 80 percent of our yearly sales.” He sent each about a dozen castings. “Within two weeks I had all my castings back, cleaned, prepolished, and ready for the stones to be set. John even sent me almost an ounce of gold from his polishing sweeps, just so I wouldn't run out.” The Hansens were grateful. Declares Barry, “This can be a cutthroat business where no one helps anyone - and these two did.”

A brooch of drusy chrysocolla from Arizona, pink cobaltocalcite, and diamond, set in 14K gold.

FAMILY AFFAIR. Another person played an extremely important role in easing the pain of the robbery - their charming toddler son, Benjamin. After a long application process and an even longer wait, the couple adopted the baby boy in November 1996. “We didn't have labor pains,” Diana laughs, “we had writer's cramps.” She continues, “We were just devastated by the robbery. But we looked at ourselves, what had happened, and then looked at Ben.” She flashes a big smile.

“We're alive, we're healthy. And he is our miracle child - he brought us out of the most horrible thing we had ever been through.” Adds Barry, “He's been our light, our guiding light. He's at an age where he'll never really understand what happened. But I'll remember the fact that he kept us going the whole time.”

While Diana works as a registered nurse during the day, Barry enjoys the time with his son. “He's in his crib so much that I have a hard time putting him in the playpen. When he's up, I want to play with him, so I don't get a lot of work done then.” And so fabrication of his resplendent contemporary designs must wait until Ben's afternoon nap or until later in the evening. “I'll finish this piece tonight when he goes to sleep,” Hansen says, pointing to a ring-in-progress at his workbench. The front room of the family's home serves as the business office as well as the jewelry studio. Framing one wall is a huge representation of the solar system, depicted in old jewelry and beads, made by Hansen's father.

Hansen's work area for the last 10 years is an amazingly small space - a converted closet no more than 12 feet wide and barely two feet deep. “I spend 85-90 percent of my time right here at the workbench. We took the closet doors off and I have blinds I can lower down to cover the front.” The closet holds a pegboard with an array of tools, saw blades, hot pickle, scale, fire extinguisher, polishing equipment, and jobs in progress. A shelf above the work space is filled with notebooks recording sold and unsold creations, rubber molds, etc.; charts on the walls include lists of birthstones, season stones, state stones, weekday stones, and the gemological guidelines for gemstone durability. Soon the Hansens will move to a home that might include more work space, but that's not the highest priority. “I don't need a lot of space for my basic work, sitting at the bench with a torch and my hand tools - it's all right there in front of me.”

A pendant of sandblasted 14K gold, moldavite and fire agate. The textured moldavite fascinated Barry Hansen. “When I found out it was a tektite, that it was a product of a meteor impacting the earth, I knew I had to use it.”.

Larger equipment that is not used daily, such as the polisher, casting machine, burnout oven, sandblaster, vulcanizer, steamer, and rolling mill, as well as the equipment Diana uses for cutting and shaping stones - cutting table, carving station - is kept in the garage. “When she comes home stressed out from work, she'll just go out to the garage and cut some stones,” says Barry. “When I am working with a large stone and I break it, I'll have her carve two pieces out of it. Or she'll recut a stone that I break.”

Although Diana does not do any fabrication work, Hansen shares his love of metalsmithing with her. “When we first got together, I talked to her about design and how to put things together,” relates Hansen. “Now she's my greatest critic.” Frequently while Barry works at the torch in his 'closet,' Diana works nearby at the computer. “As I'm working, I can say, 'Look, this is coming together really nice,' and she'll stop her work at the computer and come over and take a look.” But the two don't always have similar design preferences. “I did one piece and she said, 'That's the most god-awful, ugly humongous piece you have ever made.' It's a pendant/brooch nearly five inches long. When I made this piece, I said to her, 'This is my favorite piece - I love it.' And she said, 'That is [drawing out each syllable] ugh . . . ly.'” Barry used the piece for his promotional postcards.

BACK TO SCHOOL. Hansen began metalsmithing in Philadelphia. After a four-year stint in the Navy, he attended Tyler School of Art on the G.I. Bill. Initially enrolled as a photography student, Hansen soon added metalsmithing classes to his schedule. By 1979, he had completed a B.F.A. in both metalsmithing and photography. Upon graduation, his attention turned further away from photography.

“All my instructors said that the competition is ferocious and that you have to really push to do something worthwhile.” Shaking his head, Hansen recollects, “That just talked me out of it right there. Within a week after completing school I got my first job in jewelry and stayed with it. I cut my teeth on Jewelers' Row.” Established in the mid-19th century, the renowned Philadelphia district boasts more than 300 jewelers, designers, and craftsmen offering every aspect of jewelry making.

“I worked for a retail firm for a couple of years, then for a repair specialist for two years, and then at a production house specializing in ring sets for two years. In six years, I got a really good education in most aspects of jewelry.” Working as a bench jeweler, he honed his technical skills. “Sometimes I would have to almost rebuild the entire piece - rebend it, reshape it, resolder it, reset it - hoping to get the piece to look exactly how the customer remembered it.”

Barry Hansen made these earrings with slices of Brazilian agate, shaped and polished, then topped with slabs of 14K gold-in-quartz from placer deposits in Northern California.

His father's massive heart attack and bypass surgery in 1986 brought him back home to California. “Diana and I got married in July, then we spent two months driving across country for our honeymoon.” By May 1987, Hansen was working for award-winning Swiss jewelry designer Jean Francois Albert. “Working for him, I learned new fabrication techniques. He taught me how to make fine, high-end, fabricated pieces. Everything I had done in Philadelphia was strictly commercial. It opened my eyes to a whole new idea of design. He's an absolutely phenomenal jewelry designer with very high standards.” But after nearly two years of a lengthy commute, it was time for Hansen to change direction.

Hansen Designs was established in 1988. “We saved money to buy metal and I started making jewelry,” remarks Barry, “When I had about 40 or 50 pieces, I went out on the road.” He first canvassed stores in the Four Corners area (around the conjunction of New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah), but he found his goldwork to be a hard sell against predominately silver and turquoise jewelry. Galleries proved to be a better outlet for his work, but starting out was not easy. “It's a tough business to get into because each gallery wants 10 to 15 pieces representative of your work and you get paid only when a piece sells. I was leaving 10 to 15 pieces in Arizona, 10 to 15 pieces in New Mexico, a half-dozen pieces in Colorado, another dozen pieces up in Carmel, and 15 to 20 pieces in Del Mar - the stores had my entire inventory. It's very hard doing consignments.”

Hansen also began participating in trade shows including GemFaire and the Pacific Jewelry show, neither of which proved to be the right venue for his work. “So I moved to the International Gem and Jewelry shows. I did better, but toward the end my work was becoming more fine-art-oriented and further from commercial designs, so my customer base was shrinking.” Finding the right market has required some fine-tuning, but Hansen has found his niche in a few select galleries and at art shows such as the Avon Festival of Fine Art in Colorado, Affaire in the Garden in Beverly Hills, Contemporary Crafts Market in Santa Monica, and the fall art festival in La Jolla.

A pendant of 14K gold, Brazilian drusy agate, and drusy chrysocolla from Arizona.

Since February of 1996, Hansen has had another showroom for his work - his own virtual gallery on the World Wide Web (www.hansendesigns.com). The online studio features an extensive selection of his work. “I have enough of a variety on there that they can get really good ideas. And everybody has their own ideas as to what they will be comfortable wearing.” The site also covers gallery locations, ordering information, gemstone and crystal information, upcoming shows, 'ask the gem guy,' and until the robbery, a monthly gemstone giveaway. Currently he receives about two orders a month from the Web site. “I just finished a ring for a man that encompassed his family crest, motto, and initials, and he found out about me through the Internet.” Asked how the design process works with online customers, Hansen responds, “I'll ask them to bring up my site and I'll bring up the site, and I'll say, 'Let's take a look at my jewelry and see what you like about it.' Then we go from there. It's almost like you and me sitting here talking about designing a ring for you.” So far, he has been enjoying the interaction on the Internet. “It's fun, though the first year and a half was slow. We got a lot of questions about jewelry and gemstones, but no one was buying until last Christmas, when I got a sale, then in January I got another one, in February I got a couple . . . and I just finished a third ring for a person in Boston.”

Hansen prefers to have that kind of one-on-one interaction with his customers, whether in cyberspace or face-to-face. “Customers often have old stones or old pieces of jewelry they don't want to wear anymore, and they want something new, so I do a lot of redesign work.” Working with his customer, “I ask them what they have in mind. I show them my photo album and we talk about what they like.”

But, Hansen cautions, “If they want to bring me a picture of something they want made, I will politely decline to do the job. I won't copy other people's work. I don't like people copying my work ‹ although some people say it is flattering, it's just thievery.” Most customers allow him considerable freedom in the design. “I'll give them a basic idea, slight sketches as to what I think of with these particular stones, color combinations and styles. They give me a lot of latitude. Since I do almost strictly contemporary jewelry, everything has clean lines, very geometric. And I like to use a lot of different color combinations.”

Striking color associations are central to Hansen's jewelry, such as his pendant of green uvarovite garnet, a drusy material from Russia, juxtaposed with a larger triangular marcasite in its natural state, “before it is cut into those little stones for marcasite jewelry,” and a scattering of flush-mounted diamonds.

When asked whether he has a favorite piece, the goldsmith responds, “That's a tough question. I like a lot of styles and lots of different types of stones and cuts. But what does become a favorite is the finished piece.” One favorite is a distinctive two-inch pendant that features sandblasted 14-karat gold with moldavite from the Moldau River Valley region in the Czech Republic and a fire agate from the Slaughter Mountain range in Arizona. The uniquely textured moldavite attracted Hansen's attention. “I tend to watch science fiction and so when I found out it was a tektite, that it was the product of a meteor impacting Earth, I knew I had to use it.” Another piece, the Starlight brooch, showcases moldavite and a rainbow moonstone with flush-mounted diamonds trailing down “like a comet blazing across the sky.”

One of Hansen's favorite pieces is this Starlight brooch, which he calls “the ultimate in flair and whimsy.” The pin evokes images of a comet, with a piece of moldavite as its head and diamonds streaming along its tail, which ends in a single rainbow moonstone.

ECLECTIC is a word Hansen often uses to describe his body of work. “There have been times when I have walked into galleries to show my work and I've been turned away because they want a 'grouping' or 'theme' - they want a cohesive group. I'm honored that they would say that because I focus on one-of-a-kind pieces - that's what I like to do. For me, to do a grouping, a cohesive body of jewelry, would be boring. When you have to start designing similar elements for pieces, it starts to smack of production work, and I don't like doing that. That just isn't for me.” Flipping through his sketchbook filled with ideas from his college days to the present, one gets an idea of his design process. “These are all concept designs for one particular shape stone that I have - working it different ways.” But sketches are more often done in his head than on paper. “Often a stone will dictate how the piece is made just by the cut. I'll buy stones just because it's pretty stuff, but I won't have any idea for it for how to use it. Other times, I'll walk by somebody's table of stones and one will just come out and bite me - I'll know exactly how to make a piece for that particular stone. I may not make the piece right away, but that particular design will always be in my mind.” One such piece is a graceful heart-shaped black drusy psilomelane, a manganese ore from New Mexico, with small diamonds. “It had that little opening up top. The way it was cut, it was perfect for a heart, and the cut allowed me to tube-set the little stream of diamonds coming down.”

His limited production pieces are mostly cast rings. Some rings have 10 or 11 parts to assemble. The Stress Ring, with pearls that rotate in their mountings, has 11 parts and takes eight hours to make. Pearls in his treasure trove include Tahitian pearls, cultured from the large black-lipped oyster. “Their colors range from silvery-grey and moon-grey through greens iridescent with pink, gold and blue, to darkest black. The most sought after is the peacock color (a little bit of everything colorwise),” Hansen explains. He also designs with American freshwater pearls, mainly from the Mississippi River basin. “I have been very finicky over the years as far as the types of pearls I want to use for my pieces. I look for pearls that are blemish-free and have a good overall pink or rose luster to them.”

Hansen doesn't envision expanding his operation, or moving from a home-based studio. “I enjoy just being a little one-person operation. I'm responsible for myself. I can keep a handle on my own integrity and stand behind the pieces I make.” When times have been tough, has he ever considered something other than one-of-a-kind and limited production work? Hansen laughs, “Well, my wife wanted me to do some lighter, more mainstream pieces that would generate more income. But I'd consider that for about five minutes or so and then I start looking at what I was doing and say, 'No, I just can't do that. That's just not me.' I would just be another one of a thousand other jewelers out there doing the same thing.”

Perhaps others have doubted whether Hansen would continue as a metalsmith, but that is not a question for the persevering artist. “I will probably always do jewelry, whether it is for a business or for myself.” Hansen has found his key to happiness - Diana, Ben, and metalsmithing - is there anything more important than that?