KENNETH JOHNSON SOUTHEASTERN VIRTUOSO

Muscogee-Seminole jeweler makes dazzling designs that stand the test of time

BY STACI GOLAR (WELSH-CORNISH-AMERICAN)

IT’S EASY TO IMAGINE

Kenneth Johnson’s jewelry coming straight out of a newly opened treasure chest. Whether made from gold, silver, platinum, palladium, or repurposed coins, inlaid with rubies, diamonds, or other fine gemstones, it’s intricate, sophisticated, and stunning. His important gorgets and statement bracelets have graced the likes of Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, chiefs of Oklahoma tribes, actors such as Jennifer Tilly, and even baronesses and kings of other countries.

Johnson (Muscogee-Seminole) has been a professional artist for almost 28 years, but didn’t always know he would follow this career path. After spending his childhood in Oklahoma (Tahlequah, Tulsa, Wyandotte, Norman, and Oklahoma City), he thought he would be an engineer, so he eventually transferred to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque to pursue this field.

It was in New Mexico that his trajectory changed permanently. He met Choctaw silversmith Johnson Bobb and, after a few months of studying with him, left the engineering track to pursue jewelry and metalsmithing. Johnson also took as many classes as possible to learn about the technical side of jewelry making. He dove in to diamond setting, platinum casting, engraving, inlay, and more, eager to make his designs come to fruition.

Johnson’s designs and overall aesthetic have remained recognizable and distinct, even as they’ve evolved. While Johnson never became the mechanical engineer he thought he might be at one point in his life, the precision and craftsmanship associated with engineering are ever present in his work. Surfaces are almost always stamped and/ or engraved and overflowing with designs. “I tend to fill up negative space. I have to resist filling every space with detail,” he says with a smile. “I like the use of materials with patterns. I look at every piece as a canvas to fill.”

The finished work is precise and elegant. Sometimes it’s completed with the help of high-tech CAD/CAM technology. Johnson is quick to point out that using computer-aided drafting came with an eight-year learning curve, meaning computer technology doesn’t automatically make the work easier. Rather, it’s just another tool for the virtual jeweler’s bench. “I am fortunate to now be able to pair CAD design with hand techniques. I understand what I’m making on the screen because I understand how to make it by hand. It’s complementary.”

Adept at balancing the tension between the old and new, he is well known for using Mississippian-era Mound Builder designs in his pieces (named for the Native American cultures that built colossal earthworks or mounds between 800 and 1400 CE that span from present-day Oklahoma to the Atlantic Coast). But this wasn’t always the case. As one would expect, the work has morphed and matured as Johnson has come into his own as an artist, exploring subject matter and absorbing ideas that aren’t always taught a classroom setting.

“I had a desire to build upon Southeastern designs, but I had to learn within the context of the Southwest. I had to develop the characters of my own ‘Southeastern alphabet,’ which includes the iconography of the old Mississippian pottery and shell designs,” Johnson notes. One will see spiders, woodpeckers, turtles, and more in his work, drafted in much the same style as the Southeastern art of the past. Johnson’s work, in large part, has been influenced by a Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) fellowship that allowed him to travel to the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and later a residency award at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center in New York City. These experiences gave Johnson the chance to carefully study the ancient Mississippian cultural artifacts and art that inspire him, providing depth and context—and lack of context—to his understanding of the work.

“The fellowship and residency granted access to collections and gave me more time to be up close with things,” Johnson says. “When I studied the work of the ancients, there was such attention to detail. I could tell if someone was right handed or left handed, who used broader strokes, who liked finer details. I could follow an artist through their lifetime of work, and I enjoyed that. In contrast,

I was deeply affected during this museum journey, seeing warehouses of ‘us’—rows and rows and rows of our things. It was disheartening to see that we, our ancestors, had been dug up and stored and collected. But, what I brought from that was we are still here creating, speaking through our art now.”

Constantly trying new things, honoring the “living arts” as he says, Johnson has been a regular collaborator, student, and explorer during his career. He made the RAIN jewelry line for Cochiti Pueblo artist Virgil Ortiz in 2012. Two years later, he was one of several Native American artists selected to create immersive, edgy content for the New Mexico Arts Experimental Dome Project. Last fall he completed a class on repoussé with a master silversmith from Bulgaria and is already turning out beautifully chased pieces with Mound Builder designs that seem created specifically for this technique. He and Hopi jeweler Emmett Navakuku will reveal a repoussé embellished piece at the 2017 Heard Fair—an art market Johnson’s enjoyed participating in for almost 22 years, missing it only once or twice.

When he isn’t learning new techniques or making new work, Johnson gives back to his communities. He has taught jewelry at workshops for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Council House, judged art competitions for markets such as the Red Earth Festival, served on SWAIA’s board of directors, and more. Most recently he joined poet Joy Harjo (MuscogeeCherokee) and textile and basket artist Sandy Fife Wilson (Muscogee Creek) and founded the Mvskoke Arts Association, Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Oklahoma that exists to curate important art and promote Muscogee Creek and Seminole arts and culture on the local, regional, national, and international level.

While the organization is still in its infancy, it has already developed a young Native women’s writers program and the Dugout Canoe

Project. Because of the canoe project, Johnson can now add canoe paddle carver to his résumé. He helped create the Genesis paddle, which sold at the NAYA Family Center Auction and Gala in Portland, Oregon, for $3,000 in 2016. While it may seem unusual that a Santa Fe-based, MuscogeeSeminole artist carved a canoe paddle out of a tree from Alabama, it actually makes perfect sense.

Coming from the same tree that the Muscogee Nation created their first canoe with since being displaced more than 180 years ago, the five-footlong paddle was initially cut out by Muscogee Creek canoe carver John Brown, who sent it to Johnson to design. Johnson then engraved it with Muscogee cultural imagery. A fuco (pronounced “foo-joe,” Muscogee for duck) adorns the piece, representing the paddle’s ability to glide through the water, while pink mussel shell and copper inlay create subtle accents. Johnson and Brown donated the piece as an act of reciprocity after several Northwest tribes extended an invitation to pull with their canoe family during the 2016 Canoe Journey in the Pacific Northwest. In February 2017, Johnson and the Mvskoke Arts Association plan to travel in the opposite direction to collaborate with Seminole artists in Florida and carve canoes from cypress trees. While Johnson’s career achievements and experiences continue to grow, past highlights include a one-man exhibit at the Creek Council House Museum in 2007 and being chosen for the Museum of Arts and Design’s Changing Hands: Art Without Reservations 2 exhibit in 2006. Johnson also received the “Most Creative Use of Stampwork” jewelry award at the 2005 Santa Fe Indian Market and the 2003 Grand Award at the Red Earth

Festival. In 2001, he was Tulsa Indian Art Festival’s featured artist. Even after all of these accolades and awards, Johnson says the best thing about being a jeweler is the connection that it brings. He looks thoughtful when he says, “The work I do makes people happy. It elicits a positive response. I get to commemorate and be associated with positive events.” And just like the skilled, ancient artists who have inspired him, Johnson will surely be remembered for his own masterpieces for years to come. ? KENNETHJOHNSON.COM