One day in 1968, a friend of my introduced me to a communal group of gemcutters who lived in a building (now a restaurant) that still stands on the Speedway, near Windward. I was amazed at the racket and dust and activity. There were guys running around and weird machines shaking and rattling. I was impressed.
And I was easily impressed. I was eighteen, just out of high school (arts major), and had reams of drawings, posters, and paintings I had compiled – some of them good, most of them bad. I knew I wanted to make things, beautiful things, but I was groping for a way.
That day, I met the boss, such as he was – a wild haired and eyed guy in his forties named Warren Jones, who seemed to be vaguely in charge. He was impressed by my ambitions, and my portfolio, and within a week I was working there, maintaining bead-making machines at the princely wage of a buck fifty an hour.
And so began the next ten years of my life.
This is the story of a guild of craftsmen that worked and often lived together from 1968 to 1978 – only ten short years, but it was one hell of a ride. We made some beautiful things, won acclaim, and made a bunch of money that I don’t remember where it went. Still, I’m proud of what we did, and I want to tell the story.
