Brooke Stone and Company

We are blessed with good friends and neighbors in Spencer Creek Valley. And they are talented, too! On a recent misty afternoon I went to visit husband-wife team Jim Clement and Brooke Stone Clement, master metal artists of the famed Brooke Stone and Co. Brooke made a lovely lunch, simple and delicious. The center piece was her oyster mushroom soup. Like their gourmet, down-home cooking, Brooke and Jim served up some tasty talk about the art and craft of being working artists. The old calico cat came in and sat in her warming box, which has a light just to make her old bones comfortable! While their chickens ranged and clucked and the frogs sang in the sun and rain patchwork of the day, we sat by the fire and explored six new pieces of work. Here are some highlights of my conversation with Jim and Brooke.

M.G.Hudson: "How did you two meet?"

Brooke: "We have been working as a team for ten years. We met at Lane Community College. I was teaching a metal art class. Jim Clement was a rather special student, a fast learner, very skilled. And very sweet! In a while, we became partners in life and in work. I had been in business as Brooke Stone for about five years before we meet. Now we are Brooke Stone and Company."

Jim: "I was in school relearning a trade. The timber industry was losing jobs right and left, closing mills, wholesaling forests. They were logging in South America and Southeast Asia. Not much for a logger in the Pacific Northwest to do... So I decided metal arts was a good craft to learn, a body could make a living. Now we are production partners. I do the casting - and all the technical things. I don't design. But I tell Brooke what I like and don't like. I am a craftsman, Brooke is the designer. I do believe, however, that form and function must be unified to be a good design. Sometimes, we discuss the best way to carry out a concept. Every piece is handmade, limited edition."

Brooke: "We use an ancient method called lost wax casting with some fabrication around the cast piece."

Jim: "There are a lot of steps but it is worth the effort. We made the mountain lion in wax - , invested it in a kind of plaster to form the mold, put the mold in a burnout oven, the wax burns out and is 'lost'. I heat up the metal in a crucible and 'throw' it in a centrifugal casting machine. The metal flows where the wax was, there you have your rough cast piece. Now the other half of the process comes in to play, the metal cleaning, finishing, stone cutting, shaping, polishing and setting.

M.G. Hudson: "Pretty labor intensive. Brooke, I know you were a respected fiber artist before you took up metal. Why metal? Fiber is soft, metal hard. And why is it possible to make a living producing handmade metal art rather than fiber art?"

Brooke: "I am an artist, period. Metal and stone are just a change of medium. The issue is the changing economics of the North American crafts industry. Fiber art as a craft was being devalued, it was not possible to make a family wage at that time. The metal arts have higher market value. It is possible to make a living as long as one is willing to live simply, " she laughs wryly.

M.G. Hudson: "Let's talk about the six limited edition pieces you are introducing. You have two lynxes, two wolves, one mountain lion and one kestrel, all with mixed metal working techniques and stones. Such interesting stones, people may want to know you do your own lapidary work ... Why animal images?"

Brooke: "I have always worked with animal images; in high school I cut block prints that were already stylized, analyzing planes and forms. I used house cats as my source. I guess I have come full circle."

Brooke: "This is Lynx With Ice Crystals . The lynx face is over a piece of Brazilian agate held by 'ice crystals'- a loose silver basket act as bezel. Every element is part of the story of the piece. The lynx is an endangered northern species that must live with ice in the mountains. The stone, pale, cool with ice-like colors, visually echoes the theme of 'cat with ice'.

"This piece is Lynx With Pine Boughs. The pine boughs are holding the stone. Notice the spots in the Eastern Oregon Polka-dot Agate? It echoes the lynx's spots. I try to make the stone relate to the animal's environment through its texture, color, and sometimes, geographical origin. The lynx was historically part of the Northwest's ecosystem so I linked it with a stone from its range."

Jim: "There may be a few lynx left in the Northern Cascades or in the Wallowa Mountains."

M.G. Hudson: "I see a mask-like aspect to your images. This lynx is no cutey critter."

Brooke: " Right. I deliberately avoid anthropomorphism. Nature is an amoral force with its own rules humans don't understand. We have separate rules for ourselves that don't encompass nature. That's another discussion! I am not sentimental about animals lives ... a goat baby dies...

Brooke: "I seek a totem quality that is hard to talk about, really an abstract concept to most modern peoples. The totem is the connection between the person and the spirit or essence of an animal. If everything in the world is composed of spirit, you can converse with everything in the world. There are still people alive today who believe everything is animated by Spirit, animas, that everything is sacred. I think our art sells to people who are attracted to our pieces because some totemic message speaks to them."

Jim: "People who are attracted to our work often have had a personal encounter with a particular animal, have had a significant meeting."

M.G. Hudson: "How would describe your work in context of a Native American art influence?"

Brooke: "I draw on what I know about the environment of an animal. I abstract and stylize. I deliberately avoid using American Indian motifs. I make my own, careful not to duplicate other peoples' work. But remember this, too. My ancestors have been here for four-hundred years. We all share a culture shaped and influenced by the First People here. My culture is of the American earth. My designs celebrate my relationship to this earth."

M.G. Hudson: "Let's look at The Kestrel. On Nest. Tell us about this piece. Isn't a kestrel a kind of hawk?"

Brooke and Jim laugh. Jim : "Yes, it is called a sparrow hawk. But it is really a little falcon. He's modeled on our neighbor. He sits on the telephone wires out here. We see him when we take our walks down the valley road. The kestrel has longer, pointed wing than a hawk. This piece has dendrite agate, a spotted stone denoting a speckled breast, and bronze and carved sheephorn."

Brooke: "We used an ancient Japanese metal technique called 'Kumbo' which is kiln fusing twenty-four karat gold on a silver substrate. Birds images aren't big sellers. I give myself permission to have fun. Some buyers are beginning to respond."

M.G. Hudson: Let's look at the two pieces,Wolf With Rattlesnake and Wolf With Raven . We know the wolf is an endangered species in the lower forty-eight states. There are divergent opinions about the reintroduction of the wolf. Are your wolf pieces speaking to this issue?"

Brooke: " While we have environmental concerns personally, our pieces are not trying to convince anyone of anything. I am not a political activist with my art. Let the wolf speak for herself. She has a silver face, her stone is a red plume agate held by a gold rattlesnake setting. The wolf and the rattlesnake usually share the same environment. There is a red garnet as the snake's eye."

Jim: "In the Wolf with Raven,the wolf is cast copper. The metal is 'Mokume', from sheets of fused silver and folded copper - that is one of the few things we don't make ourselves. People can't help but think about the state of the environment and what's happening to wolves and the stories that our pieces tell."

Brooke: "There is the copper wolf, the red jasper jaw, and blood coral eye of the raven. The color palette here is blood red of stones, day white of silver and night black of oxidized mokume silver. These power colors are found in tribal art worldwide and often in modern art..."

Brooke: "This is an evolving design. The bronze mountain lion is hunting in the mountains and in the desert. His body colors blend him in with rocks and dry earth. There are silver clouds and gold lighting. He lives in storms. The stone is Bruneau Jasper. Its image formation reminds me of rain drops. And it is found in mountain lion's environment. "

M.G. Hudson: "It's clear you both are passionate about your work, your pieces but what are the problems and joys of working as an independent production studio and business?

Brooke: "Our biggest problem isn't technical or design related - it is affordable health insurance rates! Since we are self-employed, we are self-insured. It is very expensive. We postpone important projects because having adequate health insurance is more important!"

Jim: "Well, we won't grow rich with this life, this work. No trips to Europe, no luxury cruises to exotic places, but we have a freedom you don't have when you are working for someone else. On that wonderful sunny day in February, we can put on the answering machine and go for a hike. We can plan our year's production schedule and go camping, take the canoe up to the mountain lake.

M.G. Hudson: "If you 'had it to do over again', would you take this path in life or go for something more financially rewarding?

Jim: "You have to like this production studio life to make it work for you. We live modestly. This is our choice. We are doing the work we love."

Brooke: "I've been thinking about this lately. I am developing a women's perspective on this issue. I am grateful to be born now in this country, in this era , at this time in history. Having a middle class background, not from a privileged background, where else, when else, could I have made a living as an artist? If art by contemporary artists was an endeavor that made a lot of money, we wouldn't have the freedoms we do. The industry would be tightly controlled by corporations. We also own a debt to the previous generations of artist and craftsmen who having been building an audience, educating consumers, building a network of galleries and co-operatives... it if it wasn't for them, what we do today wouldn't be possible. And our customers ... I am grateful that they support this kind of art.

Conversations with Artists

By M.G. Hudson

Brooke Stone and Company