 I am the last person you would expect to be a jeweler. The only piece of jewelry I've ever worn is my wedding ring - and that's so light and comfortable I don't even notice it's on my finger any more. I've never gone to art school to learn my craft, not that there is an art school that teaches what I do. I have no long list of credentials, no list of awards I've won, not even a list of shows and galleries that I've showed my work at. I'm just a guy who figured out somewhere along the line that I have some skill at doing finish work - I'm just as surprised as you are about that.
It all started when mechanics in bike shops would cut sections off titanium handlebars to wear as rings. Not being interested in wearing jewelry I paid no attention, until the day I saw the ad for One-Off titanium with line at the bottom that said "titanium wedding bands". I looked at what the mechanics were wearing for rings and I looked at the price for a titanium wedding band and Ti Designs was born. At first it was just plain rounded and polished bands, like others were making. One day I read an interview with one of the people who made titanium wedding bands who said "traditional jewelry can't be made in titanium" - it sounded like a challenge to me!
Most titanium jewelers are machine shops, and Ti Designs is no
exception to that rule. Working as a machinist and understanding machine
processes has always come easily to me, so as titanium jewelry designs
evolved I had no problem keeping up. My shop grew from the tiny bench with
a drill press and grinder to the full machine shop it is today. Today most
titanium jewelers go way beyond offering simple wedding bands. They do
multi-facet machining and indexed drilling to make their produce more
interesting. While I do like some of the rings offered, I feel that just
plain machine work falls short of true art. It's the difference
between a painting and a print. One takes the artist hours to finish, the
other can be produced 100 times exactly the same. What makes my work stand
out is what happens after the piece comes off the machines. Ti Designs is a
creative outlet. Making passes on a milling machine by measurement is about
as creative as painting by numbers. It's the work with hand files or rotary
burs where Ti Designs pieces get their signature look. With a few strokes
of a hand file and some finishing work with abrasives I create complex
curves that can't be copied on a milling machine.
Cycling has been a big part of my life for over 20 years. I started out
riding a bike as simple transportation, but I quickly realized that not
many people rode bikes where I grew up. It could have something to do with
all of the hills - Colorado is known as a cycling mecca because of it's
hills and spectacular views, Wayne New Jersey is a place that people would
rather drive.
I survived riding in New Jersey and moved to the Boston area to go to school.
Boston is no cycling paradise, the area boasts some of the worst paved
roads on the continent, and the drivers aren't much better. Still, the
cycling community is alive and well in the Boston area and I've become a
part of it. In 1985 I started working for a bicycle shop in Belmont (my
"real" job) and I've never left. It may seem hard to justify working in a
bike shop when you have a degree in computer science, but it's a hard life
to beat at any salary. I see all the people driving to work in a bad moods
commuting to jobs which they hate while I'm out riding my bike. I ask
myself, does this world full of overweight couch potatoes need another
computer jockey?
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