Outside the UICA, the snow is blustery and swirling on Sheldon Avenue's sidewalks. Through the windows at the annual Holiday Artists' Market, eager holiday shoppers clamor from booth to booth in search of a unique gift. There are children chasing each other around corners, diving under tables, spilling drops of hot chocolate.
Inside, I find local artisan Jarrod Napierkowski leaning against a wall, conversing Jeremy Pyne, bassist for local rock act Chance Jones (signed to local label Friction Records), in which Jarrod is the keyboardist.
With only 20 minutes remaining on the final day of the event, one might expect Jarrod's wares to be present, but picked through. Instead, one table is completely barren, save a lone pair of earrings dangling from one of the many tree branches Napierkowski has affixed to a piece of PVC to display his work. At that moment, a gentleman breezes by, knocking the remaining pair of earrings to the ground.
"You break it, you buy it!" I croon with a chuckle, as the man sheepishly bends to retrieve the unscathed earrings from the floor before returning them to their place.
"They're lighter than I thought they would be," I say, examining them. "What kind of wood is it?"
"California redwood," Napierkowski replies. "I got the wood from some guy who was carving bears. He was just throwing it away."
Carving bears? Oh. Out of wood. Got it.
Napierkowski is striking, with tightly curled hair and blue eyes. He is unassuming, strangely silly and quirky, and genuinely, effortlessly funny; he snaps his fingers habitually when a thought remains in his mind.
Napierkowski is many things: a homeowner, a musician, a longtime bartender and taproom manager at Founders and an incredibly talented jewelry maker.
Jewelry making began for Napierkowski four years ago when a friend came over and noticed a scrap of wood in his workroom, remarking that it would make a great pair of earrings.
"The first pair was made of redwood, about two inches long and curved. Then I started taking slices from tree branches," he says. "It kind of snowballed from there."
His workroom, a tiny walled square nestled in a basement corner, is constantly blanketed in inches of sawdust and wood chips. At any hour of the day, you can hear the whirs of a wood lathe or the gentle drone of a saw emanating from within.
"The time spent in my workroom helps me balance my life," Napierkowski says. "My job at Founders is very busy, constant, often stressful. (With woodworking), I get to spend hours focusing on one thing, something small. It helps me balance my life and is very meditative."
A significant portion of the wood he uses is locally found material, from beachside driftwood, to fallen backyard trees, to branches brought to Founders by eager and supportive patrons.
"It's nice to find something local and give it back to the community," he remarks. "I've noticed that a lot of people want to buy locally and support local people, and specifically local artists."
Taken from organic masses, each piece is wholly unique and one-of-a-kind. No bracelet or pair of earrings look exactly alike, and when cutting into a piece of wood, Napierkowski is often surprised by what he finds inside.
"When I cut into a piece of old wood that didn't look like anything special from the outside, I've found purples and yellows, from what appeared to be dead wood," he says.
Some of the designs are awe-inspiring, even eerie, as the ring patterns and inner workings of the wood emerge. His work is respectful to and representative of a tree's life and history, and can quietly speak volumes about past weather patterns or stresses and time itself.
Napierkowski's primary medium is wood, though he's been known to fashion handmade jewelry out of bone, antlers and seeds, 75 percent of which is locally found material.
"Most of the found wood is from Michigan; a large portion of the found bone and antlers comes from walks in Seidman Park," he says. "The seeds are from a vine in the Bahamas that look like marble made of cracked porcelain. I found a moss-covered bone in Colorado that could have belonged to a bear."
Crafting jewelry out of bone makes perfect sense to Napierkowski.
"The fact that it was grown, either inside or outside of a body is something that I find interesting," he reflects. "It looks like granite or marble when cut the right way. It keeps me in touch, and makes me think about other living beings."
When asked if there were any similarities between making music and making jewelry, Napierkowski muses: "The creativity of making a song kind of stems from the letting the music come from inside you. In the same way, as the rings and curves and colors come out from the wood, I let that lead the way."
In the future, Napierkowski plans to do more specialized work, creating even more intricate designs and shapes, trying to integrate more objects into the wood, such as feathers and thorns.
"I'd like to get into some local shops, maybe make a living off of it, but right now, it makes me so happy when I see people around town wearing a piece of my jewelry, my art."
Joe Basch is a freelance writer living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has written for Urb Magazine and The Lanthorn, and is multi-publishd poet. He is currently employed as a Talent Buyer and Bartender at Founders Brewing Company. He is a cat person.
Photos:
Jarrod Napierkowski and his workshop (5)Photographs by Brian Kelly -All Rights Reserved
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