A Sea Change
Alex Boyd
Alex Boyd Studio, Denver
Alex Boyd likes stepping outside his comfort zone. “The best feeling for me is making something that I haven’t made before and thinking about things I haven’t thought about before,” he explains. So, when he was asked to participate in MJSA’s annual Mystery Box Challenge, it was a no-brainer.
He wasn’t disappointed when he opened the box and discovered materials he had never worked with before. (His first reaction, he recalls, was, “Oh boy!”) Sorting through the materials, he was drawn to the idea of incorporating the background of some materials into the concept of the piece. The box of abalone shell and seed pearls “screamed the ocean at me,” he recalls, noting that he wanted to make something that looked vaguely like some sort of sea creature. And because he normally makes a lot of rings in his work, he settled on creating a necklace. “I thought that since I could make anything I want, why not step away from my ring addiction and try something else?”