Michael Robinson of David Michael Jewels recounts the artistic career that took him from designing mainstream creations to museum-worthy pieces.

Welcome to this new episode of the Jewelry Connoisseur podcast. I'm your host, Sonia Esther Soltani, Editor in Chief of Rapaport. In previous seasons, we've discussed what is jewelry art, and today we're going to meet jewelry artist Michael Robinson, of David Michaels Jewels. David Michael Jewels is a famous jewelry art company that has produced extraordinary pieces for the past 10 years. You might have seen them as Sotheby's or as Steven Russell in New York. Today, Michael is going to share his creative process, as well as what he thinks makes jewelry art.

Hi Michael, I'm so happy to have you on this podcast to discuss work or the calling of the jewelry artist. How are you?

Hi, I'm good. Thanks for having me.

So tell me, before we start going into more the technical side of your work, how did you start in the jewelry business?

Oh, I think I started before I even knew I started. My father was in jewelry. So he wasn't a bench jeweler, but he would manage a jewelry store and eventually went on to own jewelry stores. So he was kind of more of a business jewelry person. So, I mean, before and after Kindergarten, our Kindergarten was close to the store he was managing, so we would go to work with our dad, and, to be kept busy whilst he was setting up the store in the morning, more often than not, we would be dumped in the workshop . At four years old, we'd be given a hammer to play with, and I guess that's where it started. I never never really stopped playing with hammers. Then, I just kept on making. Always knew I wanted to be a jeweler. So in high school I didn't pay too much attention in classes. I would just always be drawing. Then I dropped out of high school early to start making jewelry and have never stopped.

You remember the first jewel you created?

Yes, I do. It's, very forgettable though. It wasn't anything particularly spectacular. The first professional jewelry I started making, was when I was about 15 years old. And I would make little, silver pendants to sell at a local clothing store. They weren't anything original. I was heavily into music and I used to make little Wu Tang clan pendants and sell them through clothing stores.

And what's interesting is that you mentioned your father was in the jewelry business. You've always known about the jewelry industry. You've always known about the trading side, the retailing side. When did you think, I want to make something that is a bit different, that is not mainstream, but it's really exceptional and rare because for people who are not familiar with your work, yeah, most jewelry connoisseurs are familiar with David Michael, but you only create 12 to 15 pieces a year, which is quite exceptional in this trade. So how do you move from this mainstream jewelry business to exceptional high end unique pieces?

And what is it that you wanted to make? Can you tell us for listeners the really intricate, gem set jewels. I mean, it's really pieces of art when you see them, you feel like you want to put them on display and just look at them. Can you tell us some of this inspiration and some of the pieces that came out of your workshop for the past 10 years?

Can you pick one piece and tell us a bit more about the genesis and how it's made and how long it takes and the effort that's involved, the challenges .. One piece that you'd like to, describe to our listeners.

I guess the piece that probably has most attention, that when people meet me they say, Oh, you're the person that made this piece, is the series of koi ponds that I make. They're obviously quite heavily influenced by a koi pond. When I was a kid would make little rock garden ponds in the garden with my dad. But I very much morph them into just stripping down, not trying to look natural at all, make them into a particular soft rounded shape that I like, which is more like a pebble than a rock. I don't use any castings or anything like that. I start with raw metal, raw lumps of sheet or um, bar stock. And I. forge it. I roll it out or hammer it to shape. So the work's completely, made by hand. It's not cast. Once it's made, I drill and carefully, cover the surface with tiny little holes so that I can set, colorful pavé into the pieces that I want. And the thing that I love about these koi ponds is that they also feature a little miniature painting of a koi fish that I do on mother of pearl. So it really feels like it's a little work of art from start to finish, because it's almost like I'm making a tiny little jeweled frame for the miniature painting I did. So yeah, I sit down and I make the piece from start to finish. When the work has my name signed to it, it's because it's my work, not another single hand touches the work from start to finish.

I know that it's also very important for you to draw, I follow you on Instagram and you draw a lot everywhere,

I did

not just where you used to see watercolor drawing, but you draw with the simplest pens. So tell us a bit more about this process, because that's fascinating to see. And you're saying, which piece of jewelry is going to come out of this drawing, if any?

I like the creative process. And I was wondering, when you create a piece of jewelry, do you have a collector in mind already? Or you just create a piece of jewelry and you hope that it's going to meet its collector, someone who's going to appreciate the thousands of hours that went into it, the sourcing of gemstones, and our own spirit in the piece.

Very much the later, as I said in my younger career, I guess from my father's influence, I was a little more business minded and we didn't have a museum, we had a store, so we were trying to make things that sold, but for the last 10 years or so, I've very much been working like an artist. I try to close out the outside world and I, I'm very lucky that I don't have to think about, what other people want. I'm just purely focused on getting my own ideas out of my head and into a three dimensional little jeweled sculpture and work of art and it just gives so so much freedom. Obviously, I'm still grounded by the practicalities of my more fundamental upbringing where I still think about is the work going to be light and comfortable for the end person to wear Is it going to be durable and not have elements that are going to catch on every fabric or make the work sit crooked? So I still have all of these fundamentals of comfort, making it not so heavy that it's going to tear or weigh down fabric. But other than those, which I try to suppress a little bit, it's just total creative freedom. I sit down do what I want to do, what I have to do.

, I like this idea of, creative freedom, utter creative freedom. So tell us, why are you working at the moment?

I'm working on two projects at the moment, which has actually been quite difficult for me, because normally I'm very focused on working on one piece at a time. but as I said, mentioning going back to the koi ponds again, I have made the winter koi pond and I've made the summer koi pond, and I'm currently creating the autumn koi pond. that I'm working on now, and I'm currently collecting and carving gemstones into leaves to set into this koi pond. I'm working on that project and I'm also working on another series of works which are going to be a collection of 50 individual little works. Some of them will be jewelry but others are just tiny little jeweled objects that you might sit in your pocket or on a desk. they're kind of part of a special project that I'm not entirely ready to speak about yet. And they're probably two or three years away from being done. But, yeah, so exciting.

And since you started on the jewelry art scene, have you seen an evolution? Have you seen like jewelry art is more respected, is treated differently? I think in the past years we've heard the world jewelry artist much more in the mainstream. It's not, this obscure niche topic. It seems like more jewelers have come up on the larger scene. So have you seen it yourself in the past 10 years, 20 years that you've been looking at things and seeing it from the inside?

Yeah, definitely, you do hear the word jewel ry artist a lot more. I have noticed it. it's something, honestly, that I try to shut out and not be entirely aware of. when I'm on social media, I always try to, first of all, limit my time on there because I don't think it's that productive to getting work done if I get stuck in the trap of scrolling on social media. But also I always just like to create rather than consume. It is a topic that I feel quite passionate about personally. and I have very strong beliefs about, art and what makes jewelry art versus a product. they're my personal beliefs. Sometimes I share them. I never try to convince people or have them necessarily think the same way I do. but there is, I think maybe the term is used a little looser or it's a little bit more of a PR type thing rather than totally authentic. for, me, what makes jewelry art is when it's a singular human person's vision and they sit down and they create it. To me, that makes it art. If we think about traditional artists that paint canvases. These are human beings that sit down and they paint a canvas from their head. They aren't people that, tell other people to paint what's in their head. And they aren't people that if they're painting a landscape, for example, and in the landscape there's a building and they only know how to paint trees, they don't contract the work out to somebody to paint the building and then sign their name to the bottom of it. So, I think with jewelry we have to be careful about what is art and what is a product, and I think if you're taking shortcuts that concern making things easier, quicker, or cheaper, then I think you're making a product. But I think if you're making art, it's a human being sitting down and creating work through an artistic vision that they have and through their hands and the skills that their hands have built up over time. so yeah, that's something I feel quite passionate about. But again, that's, my personal belief.

Thank you. No, I think it's beautiful. It's a beautiful distinction between product and art. Who would you consider a jewelry artist? Who are the jewelry artists that you look up to and you find inspiring? Their style is completely different from yours, but you think that is really art.

I have the perfect person. that inspires me so much and he became a mentor of mine in the last year of his life. It's an artist called Daniel Brush. if the viewers aren't aware of them, I highly recommend, Googling him and, there's a few good YouTube videos about him and a few good podcasts. But he was just the epitome of an artist. He did everything himself single handedly. They were his own artistic vision. Again, they were made of his hand. They weren't, designed with the aid of a computer and, cast in a machine. They were lumps of material that he sculpted and worked with his hand. And sometimes he made jewelry. Sometimes he made sculpture. Sometimes he did paintings or drawings, but they were always purely of his mind and hand and I don't think there's a better poster boy for an artist jeweler than Daniel Brush. He really was an artist.

That's a great example. I think there's an exhibition at the moment of his work.

There is exhibition going on in Tokyo at the moment which is called Thinking About Monet a lot of his more more colorful sort of well, they weren't colorful, they were metal, but they, give off colorful light, but yes, he's very much lives the ethos where it is art, it's, his vision and it's not of other people's hands that he's signing his name to it.

Thank you. And can people see your creations, Michael?

Uh, the easiest way is to, again, Google or, get onto our Instagram page, David Michael Jewels and there's a collection on there, I share work on there from time to time. I don't share everything. Again, a lot of my work's quite personal and private. Mostly people find me through word of mouth. Like, if a collector has a piece and they tell their friend, or if a friend sees them wearing it, they'll track me down. But again, because I'm only hand making a handful of pieces. there isn't a huge collection of work anywhere. They tend to find a new home as pretty soon after they're finished. so really the best place to see them would be on our website or, social media. But they are welcome to contact me directly and there might be a piece I'm working on and I can share what I'm working on.

Wonderful. So I encourage everyone to scroll on Instagram. Sorry to say that. once you get on your page, it's very hard to stop scrolling and checking the detail and doing like a zoom in check all the delicate settings and the stones. So I would really encourage that. And thank you so much, Michael, for sharing a little bit of the life of a jewelry artist with us today. I and I'm looking forward to seeing your new creation, the autumn part of the series.

Don't share them publicly, I'll send you a private message.

Great. I feel very privileged. This podcast, no one listens to, so we're good. It means thousands of listeners. I'm sorry. This is just for me.

Yes, exactly.

Thank you so much, Michael.

Great team. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to the Jewelry Connoisseur podcast by Rappaport Jewelry Pro. This episode was hosted by Sonia Ester Soltani and produced and edited by Vanina You can find all our episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and read more about diamonds, colored gemstones, high jewelry designers, estate jewelry, and the latest jewelry trends on Rappaport. com slash Jewelry Connoisseur. Please subscribe to get all our new episodes and if you liked this one, leave us a review.