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DANA DRIVER
For the past decade I’ve used beach stones as the foundation for my jewelry. Not any stones, but only ones from a particular beach four hours north of Albion, California where I live. I would sort these by size, color, possibility, then select the best stones to tumble, carve, drill, and inlay with silver or gold.
When I first began working with rocks, it took me three months just to figure out that I could inlay precious metal into the surface. I would try something, then set it aside when it didn’t work. Then I’d try something else until the problem found its solution.
At some point I realized that my obsession with jewelry was as much about solving cultural problems as well at solving technical ones. Mining gold or platinum was so destructive to the environment, so it seemed a good idea to lessen my carbon imprint by making jewelry from bottle caps, tin cans, and bits of rusty metal.
My brother helps in this endeaver by collecting bottle caps at Paul and Jerry’s Saloon in Jerome, Arizona. I also peruse the occassional squashed bottle cap in extraneous parking lots. With tire tread marks, they are my fovorites and I horde them for future inspiration.
My interest in jewelry started at 10, when I made jewelry from fishing swivels, brass fittings, and anything else that intrigued me at the hardware store.
By the time I was 15, much to my mother’s horror, I was ready to take up a soldering torch. In short measure she found a private instructor to teach me the basics of jewelry fabrication. Eventually, in 1974, I earned a BA in metal arts at the California College of Arts and Crafts, where I learned the rules of fabricating precious metals. I’ve been trying to break those rules ever since.
danarocks.com
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707-964-8266
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