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Coffee Miklos and his wife Pat discovered the
beauty of the Pacific Northwest on a vacation in 2002. They
moved to Dungeness (a tiny village just outside of Sequim, Washington)
in 2005 and together formed "Dungeness Studios".
Although he still enjoys a long distance design relationship
with some retail venues, he is now incorporating small scale
forged steel in combination with more traditional jewelry metals.
His combination of various metals as well as the famous Pacific
Coast beach rocks is evolving into a series of more casual jewelry.
According to Coffee, "Pat and I have always picked up the little
treasures that presented themselves to us as we traveled about.
Whether it was those cute little pine cones under the trees
at the farm where we stayed in Italy or those wonderful bits
and pieces of sea shells from the beaches of the Outer Banks
of North Carolina or the frosted shards of sea glass we would
swim up on while snorkeling off Cozumel, Mexico these wayfarers
became instant treasures to us". Their first trip to the Olympic
peninsula was to be no exception.
As soon as their feet hit the beach they started "acquiring"
treasures. This first encounter with the colorful rocks that
line the coast of the peninsula was Sand Point on the Pacific
side. Both Coffee and Pat quickly realized that each of the
scores of individual beaches that surrounded the peninsula was
to have its own special type of rocks and treasures.
At first they wanted to create some jewelry that incorporated
the driftwood that they found into our beach rocks jewelry.
Although they found fascinating pieces of driftwood in great
abundance, they never seemed to be able to put the found wooden
objects and the beach pebbles together in a pleasing and ascetic
manner. So this whole project theme was redirected.
Coffee & Pat avoided the direct translation of found wooden
objects and beach rocks. Instead, what they found themselves
doing was recreating or more properly, mimicking, the sticks
and twigs that they found into precious metals. These facsimiles
were a much more familiar material to them both. These precious
metals were more easily manipulated and yielded more quickly
and exactingly to their hands and thoughts than any wood could.
The result was "stix and stones".
A playful incorporation of the driftwood theme and the common
beach pebble. Coffee started finding ways to involve these "gems"
in their everyday life. This is the first of three themes they
found themselves following. They call this one "the beach rocks".
Although Coffee has been lucky enough to receive many accolades
and awards during his professional career as a jewelry designer,
he was nearly always fulfilling a commission and therefore the
aesthetical concerns of his client.
Now that he has relocated to the great northwest he is pursuing
his own images for the first time since graduate school…and
loving his craft with a renewed spirit. The flow of water, the
power and dynamics of wind and the dendrite patterns of trees
and the ever-present microcosm of spirals have influenced his
recent series of designs. Coffee uses a fairly structured approach
to the design and execution of these pieces.
He keeps several sketchbooks going at one time. Some of these
books lean more towards ideas and images while others concentrate
on technical information and science. All of the work is hand
constructed and so no two pieces are exactly alike. This current
series contains a vocabulary of abstract images and vignettes
that hopefully invite dialogue from the wearer. |
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914
water street, port townsend, washington 98368 | telephone (360) 385-3630