Artist Showcase

Participating Artists - Loren Damewood

I was born and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida. Since the age of ten I've been interested in knots and knot-tying. Sometime in my early teens I was given a copy of "The Ashley Book of Knots", by Clifford Ashley, and I began learning and tying various complex knots, most particularly the "Turk's-head", but also various sinnets and splices and ordinary knots that one might encounter in everyday life.

It wasn't until the early '80s that I made my first attempt to tie a knot in wire. My early experimentations at creating jewelry with gold wire were somewhat misshapen and crude. I still have one ring from that time, but most were either untied and the materials recycled, or are in the hands of relatives and friends. My more recent work is generally much more smooth and even, though none of them is ever perfectly symmetrical, due to the stresses of the forming process.

I am deeply honored that so many couples over the years have chosen the symbolism represented by my matched ring sets to wear as wedding rings, and that continues to be the largest part of my work.

Since 2002 I have been conducting workshops to teach others the methods that I've developed over the years, and I find that this is becoming a major source of both my income and my satisfaction.

Where I'm going:

Knots are beautiful in their intricacy, and will continue to be my primary interest. I've been creating more and more ambitious pieces, some requiring hundreds of hours of work and thousands of individual knots. I like working in silver, best of all, but any precious metal is acceptable, especially when I can combine them to make pieces with contrasting colors that set off the complexity within a knot.