kelly johnson designs

“My work is based upon enticing inherent properties of materials to create design, which emerges through intense torch fusing.  My hope for the viewer is to enthrall the imagination as mine has become with the spirit of the metal.  Materials traditionally viewed as 'precious' have value beyond currency and aesthetics; contained within are secret lives which dramatically play out according to chemical and physical natures.”

 

"Metalworking techniques, thousands of years old, combine synergistically with our post industrial availability of reclaimed and repurposed luxurious materials.  This enables the viewer not only to see the design, but also to interact and be affected by the uniquely personal experience that decoration provides.  I am fascinated that universally, across any modern or ancient culture, the essential nature of the human animal after food, shelter, and comfort, is to ornament oneself, and the space one occupies with  personal expressions of pure spirit.  Forge and fire provide the stage for spirit to emerge from metal and stone, affecting artist, collector, and viewer.   All must participate or the experience is diminished, the circle incomplete.  It is analogous to the larger cycles of existence in which we find ourselves.”

METAL + FIRE + PASSION^tm