Ron Taylor

Life is good!  In my retirement I am finally able to pursue my artistic inclinations whole-heartedly.  I believe those inclinations to be hereditary.  My father was an oil painter, and my maternal grandfather was an accomplished coppersmith.  Although my grandfather died the year I was born, he left behind a treasure trove of copper work that continues to inspire me. 

I began sculpting clay in high school, an endeavor I continued sporadically throughout much of my working career.  After receiving my doctorate in the biosciences, my career evolved from research scientist, to college professor, to Director of a forensic science laboratory, to business owner, and finally to manager in a county health department, the position from which I retired.  One of my avocations involved writing two books for the general public on the subject of insects as human food.  That endeavor resulted in featured articles in many newspapers and magazines, as well as numerous appearances on radio and television, including two on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  I have had my 15 minutes of fame!

I had thought that when I retired I would re-kindle my interest in sculpting clay, but the sudden death of my beloved partner of 22 years, just 10 months before our planned retirement, turned my life upside down and resulted in my resettling into a high-rise condo with limited space. That development soon had me searching for an alternative art form that would still nourish my soul but be more suitable to the limited space I now have available.  I found that art form in jewelry.

In retrospect, I now see my multiple, sequential careers as the result of my searching for myself:  “Well, if it wasn’t this career, maybe it will be the next one.”  I always knew that upon my retirement I would re-engage my artistic gene, and that it would be the focus of my “senior” years.  I just did not know that expressing myself through art was what I had been seeking throughout my whole life.  That realization struck me like a thunderbolt less than two years ago.  In an instant, I understood the entirety of my life, and for a few days I mourned the boy, me, who was not encouraged to follow his artistic talents, but rather to follow a path selected for him.  So, at last, in my 70s, I am following my passion.  I now know what I am here to do, and I am having a blast doing it.

I have been creating jewelry for the past three years, and I have taken courses from some of the finest jewelry artists in bead & pearl stringing, lapidary, silver fabrication, and silver and copper clays. These artisans include Dennis Turner, Connie Fox, Deb Jemmott, Jonna Faulkner, Hadar Jacobson, and Yvonne Padilla, among others.  I greatly enjoy silver fabrication, finding the work of the acclaimed Taxco artist Antonio Pineda to be particularly inspirational and influential to my art.  His designs are bold yet refined, conveying a sense of power and elegant sophistication.  For similar reasons, I am inspired by the jewelry of some of our Native-American tribes.  But, for all the joys of silver fabrication, I have recently become captivated by metal clay -- perhaps because of my earlier work with ceramic clay.  I am greatly inspired by the beautiful work of my primary metal clay instructor, Jonna Faulkner.  However, my aesthetics are more along the lines of Gordon Uyehara’s body of work.  One of my greatest hopes right now is to get some training under his tutelage.  My personal artistic expression is a work in progress.  I just hope that I live long enough to see it fully blossom.  The journey is a joy.

I find it surprising, and most gratifying, to be referred to and introduced as a “jeweler” and an “artist,” to have placed second in two jewelry contests, and especially to be featured as a “Rising Star” in this issue of “Metal Clay Today.”  My first win was a second place prize in the 2009 San Diego County Fair in the Southwest Jewelry category for a piece involving cuttlebone casting, and my second win was for a copper and silver clay piece in a Metal Clay Today contest.  To date, unwilling to sell or give away a single piece, I have been hoarding all my works.  However, that selfish state of affairs is changing.  I have set up a website on Etsy that will be operable by the time this article is published:  passionforward.etsy.com.

I have two sons and four grandsons, all high-achievers.  One of my grandsons just graduated from UC Berkeley and is now applying for law school, two are in college, and the fourth will matriculate this coming year.  One of my sons is an actor and a writer, and three of my grandsons have been active in the performing arts, leading me to believe that my grandfather’s artistic genes have passed down through four generations now.  Hopefully, I will be around to see if they pass into my great-grandchildren.