An inside look at the design process of Robert Lee Morris as told by the jewelry artist himself.
Robert Lee Morris is a contemporary jewelry artist icon whose designs are worn by celebrities and incorporated in apparel designed by Donna Karan - who also wrote the foreword for this book.
This coffee table book offers a fascinating look at the creative process and career of Morris. The book is very stylishly laid out and is full of beautiful, well-done photography. There are numerous photos of not only the jewelry itself but also the artist, his wife, family and staff and travel and runway shots.
The book is written along the lines of an autobiography starting with Morris as a child in the late 1940s through the date of copyright in 2004. His style of writing is quite casual - kind of like a chat between friends so that you actually do stop to read the text rather than just flip through the pages looking at the pictures.
Morris details not only his numerous successes in this book but also his defeats such as proudly showing a piece to gallery owner and being told that perhaps he should pursue another career - such as driving a truck or the law. This brutal critique of his work caused him to take a step back and evaluate what he was attempting to create and lead to his signature style of forging and using sand filled bags to shape base metal into knuckle rings, disks and shapes such as crosses.
Morris states in the book that he has little interest in working with precious metals such as karated gold or sterling silver. Instead he is interested is the process of forming the metal into invocative shapes relying on the design process and not the quality of the materials themselves to bring value to the piece.
Representing that theory, a look at page 38 of the book presents a classic, immediately identifiable Robert Lee Morris design. Shown is a green patinated raised bronze disk representing a shield. Holes are drilled on either side of the disk so that rawhide strips are attached to form a belt.
Bronze is a very inexpensive base metal. The chemicals used to create the patination effect (cat litter can be used for certain effects) and rawhide strips are not exactly pricey raw materials. What brings value to this piece of artwork is the design process itself.
In addition to working with Donna Karan, Robert Lee Morris also has designed jewelry for such clothing design icons as Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfeld and Michael Kors. So this book also gives you a thumbnail sketch of the fashion industry as a whole.
As detailed throughout the book his list of celebrity clients include Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, Sandra Bullock and Candice Bergen - just to name a few.
Link to Robert Lee Morris: The Power of Jewelry at Amazon.com.
