For jewelry designer Douglas Magnus, the past 50 years have gone by in a whirlwind of creativity, lucky breaks, and hard work, with Santa Fe—the New Mexico city where he feels most like himself as an artist—as backdrop and inspiration.
Magnus (pictured) will share his stories, hint at an upcoming book, and look back on his half century of jewelry in a talk Aug. 17 at Sorrel Sky Gallery in Santa Fe. He tells JCK it’s hard to encapsulate everything he has learned and done in a single evening, and he’s not sure he even wants to rattle on about himself for that long.
Yet he agreed to speak at the gallery about his journey through the jewelry trade, his love for Santa Fe and the southwestern United States, and his dedication to preserving the legacy of the region’s Cerrillos turquoise in hopes that his talk might spark a kinship in the audience and among those who love his jewelry.
In anticipation of his Sorrel event, Magnus gave JCK a short walk through his career.
“Quite honestly, I don’t aspire to or enjoy public speaking. Especially talking about myself. It’s one of the worst things you can do as an artist—talk about yourself. The work should hopefully explain itself and stand on its own,” he says.
“That is really a key part of the way that I approach my work. The whole idea is to make it so beautiful and desirable you don’t have to explain anything,” says Magnus. “It’s instantly recognized as something of value, beauty, and desirableness and enhancement to a person’s life who is wearing it.”
His got his start as an artist with photography in high school, where a teacher recognized his eye for images and encouraged him to develop his skills.
“I’d run around the school with my camera, going wherever the action was. I loved being in the darkroom. I was in my element,” Magnus says.
At junior college, the photography program failed to live up to Magnus’ expectations, so he switched into the art department. Then, in 1966, he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was based in El Paso, Texas, observing supposedly enemy aircraft on radar.
“It afforded me the opportunity in a relatively easy situation in the military to meet a great number of people and enjoy the [outdoors] environment,” says Magnus, for whom this love of nature would continue.
When he reentered civilian life, Magnus resided in Los Angeles before moving to New Mexico. He settled in Santa Fe, where he felt immediately at home in its beauty and art scene. He also felt newly motivated in his new home.
What was motivating him? “In a word, starvation,” Magnus says. “I had no money at all, so I got a job working for a small publication in town as a staff photographer. That enabled me to set up a darkroom and do some experimental photography on the side.”
By 1971, the publication was out of business and Magnus needed a new gig. He and a friend starting buying things from flea markets and gathering materials, which they would repurpose and sell. Magnus also began collecting turquoise.
He saw indigenous craftspeople and local jewelers making goods out of turquoise and silver and got inspired. Magnus’ first pieces were made from copper and then conchos, which he used to create decorative belts. He moved onto silver, and his world expanded rapidly as an artist and jeweler.
Magnus is now working on a book that will explore his life in art, jewelry, and photography. Want to know more? You’ll have to come to the Santa Fe talk on Saturday or buy the book when it is published.
“It will be 50 years broken down into nine volumes or chapters following a timeline of my incredible odyssey,” he says.
(Photos courtesy of Sorrel Sky Gallery)
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