A Legacy of Design

2008-10-20T19:12:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, my son and I built a kite out of goods found around the house. At first the kite kept taking a nose dive down into the ground. After a while we found a good spot and then the kite took off. We then went off to practice some longboarding on the nearby sidewalk. We had a ton of fun and even though we flew a kite and riding on the longboard, it reminded me about of kiteboarding. It seems that kiteboarding is now entering the Golden Age, kind of like surfing during the Endless Summer. The sport of kiteboarding is fun and fresh, at ArtedepaulA some of our most popular shirts are kiteboarding shirts and for the ladies. (our organic cotton shirt is pictured) Next time you have a free day think about flying a kite.

2008-10-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

I recently saw the movie the Forbidden Kingdom that starts martial arts masters Jackie Chan and Jet Lee. The reason I went to see this movie was to see the two master in a movie together. After seeing the movie what I found most interesting was the mythological character the Monkey King. As an artist I try to do my best learning various myths and lore from around the world. Much of my art, if it is not tropical in nature, covers myths. I had never heard of the Monkey King before, except maybe the Monkey King from the Jungle Book.

As I dove in to find out more about this Monkey King, I found out that he was a classic figure in Chinese culture. So here I was thinking to myself, hey I know a lot about myths, but here I was not knowing a thing about this Monkey King. I was extremely humbling to find out that such a popular character exists and to not know anything about him.

I researched about the Monkey King and found him to be a fascinating character. There is much to tell about the Monkey King, he is at heart a trickster character, kind of like Loki in Norse culture, except maybe a little less devilish of a figure. You can find out about the Monkey King at this great site. Monkey King I enjoyed this character so much I will try to work out a work of art revolving around the story of the Monkey King. It just goes to show you, you can learn something new everyday, even without trying.

2008-10-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

Around the beginning of October I like the change in weather, the cooler air. Down here in the Keys, cool weather is a welcome break from the mind- numbing heat. October makes me think of Rock. I'm not sure why, but summer seems too bright for rock. Fall is a little darker, a little cooler. On Steechee.com I've got a rock n' roll shirt that I'm quite fond of. The image has a sword going through a heart with angel wings and a scroll saying "Rock'n'Roll". It's fun, It's Rock.

2008-09-29T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well it has been over a year since my last post, so I figured it was time for a new post. Here it is! Yaaahhh!! Crowd goes wild. Seriously I will try to make this a weekly occurance. Maybe I should slow down a little. I'll go for once a month. In addition to Artedepaula I've added a fun kids shirt collection to my list of sites. The website is http://www.steechee.com . You can check it out and the blog about that site which is listed in the begining text. Well, what Steechee is about is cool kids clothes. As a parent I hardly find any cool shirts for my kids so I went ahead and made some up. The designs are seperated by verbs. For example for the animal section they are listed as SWIM, FLY, and WALK. The game and sports section is called PLAY. And so on and so on. If you got some kids or want some, check out the site, you won't be disappointed.

2007-05-17T21:40:00.000-07:00

Man, I'm getting pretty bad at listing these posts, sorry about that. The mother's pendant was designed to showcase the power and beauty of motherhood. This was captured using a strong geometric shape with flower on the inside. The flowers are all covered in diamonds, symbolizing the everlasting love and strength of the mother and child relationship.

2007-01-10T09:01:00.000-08:00

After designing the Father's Legacy Pendant, I started to wonder what would the Mother's version look like? The whole time I was constantly debating about how the Father's Pendant would look and how it was in relation to other men's jewelry. My problem with the Father's Pendant was men's jewelry was very simple and similar to each other, not much risk taking so to speak. The problem with the Mother's Pendant was exactly the opposite. There is an amazing amount of designs in women's pendants. I was going to be hard to create something new. Something that looks very different. You have all sorts of designs when it comes to women's jewelry, from the very decorative, to jewelry that is very simple. I had to create something unique to stand out from the rest. I decided to go way back when designing the mother's pendant, back to the stone age so to speak.

2007-01-08T13:44:00.000-08:00

So instead of the lion, a symbol often used in crests, I opted for the more unusual, more gemometric sword. I didn't just choose a sword because it was a sword but because of what the sword represents. The sword represents protection, so it symbolizes the beauty of what is most close to our hearts, our family. The diamond represents purity and strength, and below the diamond is where the children's stones would be set. Each stone would represent each child, similar to what family jewelry does now, but instead of birthstones, only precious rubies and sapphires are used. A ruby for each daugher and a sapphire for each son. The sheild and sword are handcrafted in 18k gold. I designed Legacy to show meaning, to have something that your family could be proud of, not like the often tacky family jewelry that is already out there. This is something fathers, men, should be proud of wearing. Hopefully this father's day us dad's out their can have something we can be proud of something that symbolizes our family.

2007-01-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

The father's pendant was finally taking shape. The pendant was now going to be a sheild shape, looking like a family crest. The crest symbol is important because of the tradition that it shows. On the shield I was originally going to put a lion on, but that proved to be too average, not really a design at all. Men's jewelry tends to be very geometrical, and I wanted this to look different, but not that different. I felt that putting the lion on the sheild would alienate a lot of people who would love to wear a meaningful peice of jewelry that represents their family. I say this now, but in all acutallity I had the lion on the shield for about 3 months. The sheild instead carried a sword.

2007-01-05T17:30:00.000-08:00

As you see I haven't posted anything in a while, the computer crashed then lots of other stuff, but no use in explaining. Back to the design, what I seem to do way to often is overthink things. I will make things so detailed that often it loses the meaning or focus of what you want people to get out of it. One design idea that I think is great is the new hand vaccum that looks like a cone. Finally something you can put in your home and use. I have no idea how well this works, but the idea is great. When creating Legacy I wanted the family to come through, I wanted you to feel the tradition. I studied and looked at ancient designs and classic designs from all different cultures. The thing that really stood out to me was the crest, it was the family, so I felt that this traditional symbol should be used some how. I decided to use the sheild not only because it is a crest, but also a symbol of protection. Men's jewelry too often follows simple geometric shapes, the Legacy collection, stretches that simple idea of a geometric shape and makes us feel, it gives us a little more.

2006-10-04T16:45:00.000-07:00

Simplicity turns out to be very hard. Most of the time when you are working on something simple you end up with something way too simple, like basic shapes. Doing this is not really designing something new but instead just using the same old shapes. My simple theory was to use the basic dog tag style for this jewelry collection. It was simple, but way overdone. It wasn’t even like I was designing something. I just took another idea and applied it to this new collection. The dog tag idea was scrapped quickly, only after about a week or two. Back to the drawing board.

2006-10-03T18:43:00.000-07:00

The concept was simple -- develop a jewelry collection that would be distinctive and yet still evoke meaning. It is simple in theory, but if you really think about it, it is also quite complex. As I said I first started out with the idea that this was a simple concept, but as I realized, simple is often harder than complex. Jewelry basically falls into something taken from life or abstract with various shapes. The jewelry that is taken from real life is usually something in nature, such as a lion or flower. One great example of jewelry made from real life is the Orchid collection from Cartier. As for the abstract style, the jewelry is created using a series of shapes, that perhaps follows the cut and shape of a stone, for instance most rings take a simple abstract look. As for the abstract style, you need go no further than your average engagement ring or the popular “circle of life” pendant.

2006-09-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

Jewelry and fashion also go the other way. What happens when function is the only basic that is concerned? We often find cookie-cutter designs, everything is virtually the same, what is the point of making something different if we have made everything simply functional.

In jewelry this is way overdone, function or maybe lack of ambition, jewelry tends to look very similar. Things like, hey lets put this colored stone in the middle and put two diamonds on the side. Then thousands of other jewelers do the same thing, and who is to blame them, if they did something a little too far out, who would buy it? This is where the jewelry chains have really succeeded, everything has to be the same, they can create a formula, and keep doing the same old thing. This is just function, the ring is simple, classic, and comfortable to wear. Then why do anything different? As I said, avant guarde jewelry often isn’t very comfortable. This is why good design is so important, not only is it comfortable, and but you can have something different.

What happens when art marries function? A beautiful thing happens, they create beautiful children -- the kind that you would see on covers of magazines.

2006-09-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

In order to create a good design, you must consider function just as much as looks. In jewelry as in the fashion world this is not the case. How many times have we seen the runway models with some funky dress that would not be practical to wear anywhere in the real world? Could you imagine being at a fancy party, the only place I could even begin to image that these dresses could be used, and because the dress has these huge projecting feathers that keep smacking into everyone. She would surely be the life of the party, the kind of life you would want to stay away from.

This runway fashion is often beautiful, it is a form of art, so I do not knock the fashion world. Because without venturing into the unknown, how would things ever change. While the clothing is impractical, to helps to create other designs, it inspires. With jewelry I often find that the same is true, many things that are beautiful, a ring perhaps, are often uncomfortable to wear all the time. Why might that ring be uncomfortable? Well, perhaps it is the way that the stones were set, the prongs might be cutting into your other fingers, but alas, it does look beautiful.

2006-08-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

A year ago I was hanging out watching some television when I started to get bored. I started thinking of work. Yeah I know, you got to be pretty bored when you start thinking of work. During this time I was working on a few paintings and concentrating on getting a clothing line out, so I had no real interest on starting a new design project. I wondered why I don’t wear more jewelry, I mean, I do work with jewelry. I know tons of people in the jewelry business who look like an amateur version of Mr. T. There was lots of press about how it is okay for men to wear jewelry. But acceptance wasn’t the reason I was or was not wearing jewelry. I was just disappointed in design, there really was no interesting jewelry for men. Perhaps like Joan of Arc, voices started talking to me, well perhaps it was the TV. I just know now that I didn’t get any paintings done or get the clothing line out, I became obsessed with my new project.

2006-08-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

It has been a full year since the obsession that became Legacy has ruled my designing life. It started as a coy little idea and just grew from there. Little did I know how complicated designing this collection would be. I have designed several pieces of jewelry. I started when I was 10 or 12, working with my Dad. So I thought that designing this small collection would be a simple matter. It has been a full year and only now am I happy with the design, the feel, the craftsmanship and the texture of each piece. I was looking for the perfection of passion, when the collection could have a life itself, something that needed little explaining, but would tell the story itself.