Miles Davis, from the Miles Davis Archives.
There’s that familiar sentiment: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But this idea marks only one side of the relationship: The audience, the receiver. Where is beauty for the creator? Should an artist aim to be the beholder of their own work? Is this even possible? And if so, at what point does the beauty of something manmade materialise? Well, undoubtedly the answer lies deep within a focus on process.
For Dowse, there is immense beauty in craft. The notion that there are no undo buttons when working with tangible three-dimensional elements instills something beautiful to the process. Although a comparison between jewellery making and jazz may not be entirely true, there are some interesting links as Dowse notes in his current way of working. Still developing his craft, trials and errors are part and parcel of the creative experience. And much like jazz, Dowse has developed a profoundly mature approach to his art by, as he notes, “Not being so tied to the end product.”
We all, on some level, seek this way of working. Even if our craft is based in more abstract work.
We often want our art to be an exploration. But, that said, there is always a small inner-voice that always wonders if the easy way were possible, and if a straight forward step by step process could lead the artist to their imagined magical end product without stress, failure, or disappointment. But this is never the case. Nor do we truly want it to be. Because if it were so, we would lose that experience of suddenly stumbling across something unexpected and magic and perhaps even beautiful.
It raises the question, does beauty have to come from an attempt to control and shape the things we ultimately cannot? Is this how, as artists, we create something we ourselves find beautiful. When we know we were not in full control of the end product, but rather a channel for something bigger.
And it’s interesting to think in these esoteric ways in regards to jewellery. Often with painting and writing, there’s more freedom in process. But with jewellery, its a science based endeavour. Every tool existing for a specific job. One would think, therefore, that there would be no room for instinctual improvisation to take over. And yet, there is. With the beauty of the craft emanating from both a jeweller’s learning phase and their eventual mastery.