Michael Sugarman Bio
"At Michael Sugarman Designs, All of my work is hand fabricated. I literally build each piece one at a time. When a design leaves my shop, it is my goal that it be the finest work of its kind in the world. I let simplicity and grace guide me in my designing. I focus on simple, sensual lines. I do not reject, but embrace the classic forms of jewelry and try to bring to them something fresh. I hope that each new design brings a sort of visual poetry into the world."
"If a piece is not comfortable, then all is lost. I try to achieve the perfect weight and balance to suit each object. An earring must be light and balanced. A ring must feel smooth and sensual. The wearing of an object, how it feels, should give as much pleasure as looking at it."
Michael Sugarman grew up in Northern California. His teenage years were during the 1960s, the era of surfing, hot rods, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles. It's hard for anyone to say what his influences have been; we are all surrounded by so much in this life, but it is certain that the time we grow up in has a strong pull on us. His first career was as a musician playing in folk and rock bands, but by 1975 realized there was little future for a modestly talented musician. He had been working part time for a jewelry maker and found his abilities far better suited to this art form.
Music is rather a Zen art in that its creativity grows out of preforming and re-performing the same passages over and over Practicing scales and tunes until they are thoughtless in not unlike the classic Zen archery notion of becoming the bow and arrow rather than handling them as tools. Michael brings that same aesthetic to his jewelry design. He produces very few one-of-a-kind pieces, preferring to make and remake a design: allowing it to evolve until it reaches as near a peak of perfection as possible. The beauty of his design relies on the simplest balance of proportion.
Michael has been living in Santa Fe, New Mexico since 1990. He sells his work through a select group of stores and galleries internationally.
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Contemporary Artists, Legendary Art.