Jewelry maker inspired by life and nature
Charlotte Fine Art Show comes to Charlotte, May 10-12
by Matt Comer Editor editor@goqnotes.com
Published: April 26, 2013 in A&E / Life&Style, Featured Stories
Dennis Ray's electroforming technique allows him to take any botanical sample from around theworld and turn it into a beautiful jewelry piece. Not many people in the world get to see their childhood hobbies turned into careers. For those who do, it's even rarer for passion and career to come into complete alignment. Dennis Ray of Nature's Creations (leafpin.com), a jewelry artist whose love for nature has inspired every piece in his collection, is one of the lucky few.
"I was a high school kid who was an Eagle Scout with the biggest chemistry set on my block," says Ray, whose tinkering for a high school science project turned into a lifelong development of electroforming, a metal forming process that allows Ray to preserve the natural samplings he collects. "There's every part of the cycle of life within nature," says Ray. "There's the budding tree or the fragile leaf when it's young and then it grows to maturity and then into a decay period. Each one of them is fantastic bookmarks in art-meets-nature-meets science. I'm actually able to freeze frame one of those moments, almost like catching and covering a snowflake with metal. It's just a fleeting moment."
Ray initially set out to be a geologist and studied at the University of Utah. But, a D-minus average forced him back home. "My father's always said I came back to Maryland to fall back into the leaves," says Ray. "That forced me to take a hobby and turn it into a viable art form and a living. It's been 30- plus years. It's been amazing."
