Artists live in very inventive paces – not necessarily inspiring (although most of them are) but remote, taking a lot of energy to get there, and a lot to maintain them. Sometimes it seems to take remoteness to stir the creative juices.

So it is with jeweler J.B. Rea whose studio and home overhang West Kuiaha Gulch. In the artist's studio, tools are arrayed meticulously, in shelf after shelf, case after case, including in an antique chest that once had belonged to J.B.'s father, a dentist, for his tools. There J.B. showed me an intricately designed hammered-silver box, his thesis is antisynclastic forming, which is how most of his art pieces are made. My visit was also a lesson in this particular way of metalworking. J.B. told me that antisynclastic forming involves four processes: "raising", or hammering sheet metal into shape: "forming", or hammering the surface to define it more: "forging", using heavy hammers on thick bar stock as in the necklace Guardian on the invitation: and "chasing" or detailed work hammered into the surface with tools.

Guardian - Necklace

The artist remarked that "I am a thing-maker. It's what I do." He has always worked in silver but now, more and more, uses gold, often combining both. For 2001 Space Odyssey, he has designed Guardian a dramatic formed-silver necklace with pendant of turquoise and moss agate set in gold, and also pieces using mabe pearls, sometimes using the whole pearl, in a gold or textured silver setting. J.B. also showed me some amazing silver hollowware pieces -- a coffee pot and a lidded "casserole", the latter meant to be presented as a golf tournament prize – both dramatically reminiscent of Jensen silver, and also a chalice reminiscent of liturgical arts, of which the artist also is master. J.B. Told me that he had been a student of Hans Christiansen, former Royal Court goldsmith to Danish kings, at the Rochester Institute of Technology School for American Craftsmen. There he fell under the spell of teachers dealing with form without embellishment.

J.B. said he had been teaching off and on for 34 years. In this new show, each piece is a different process. Some works are experimental, for instance a dragonfly image, run through a printer, then a duplicating machine transfers the image into plastic, then from plastic to metal to etch out the silver in ferric nitrate, this all a process out of "computer etching".

The artist remarked that there is a connection between printing and jewelry making. Now how to etch whole images onto precious metal?

Some pieces in the show were made with a rolling mill, some were made with lace or found objects, some were made with wire forms, or some the artist used sandpaper to get a "nice texture" on the metal. J.B. commented that he was "dealing with jewelry as fine art, not commercial, ending up doing unique original work." However, in this case, while using many different stones, and making smaller pieces, "people tend to look at the stones as the value".

J.B. came to the Islands first in 1975 after a student told him about some classes he had taken on Oahu. The artist has been here on Maui for 18 years, teaching at the Hui, and as an original member of Viewpoints Gallery for 12 years. At first he worked for Jack Lord on Oahu, making jewelry for Lord's wife for three years. Finally he settled in Lahaina, then Kihei. "Silverchild" was the name of his business, a shop in the Lahaina Marketplace, making tourist art. What made him change? "I got tired of whales" they are moneymaking objects!"