Achieving flow in art and life: Cedar jeweler Dana Fear

By Bronwyn Jones

Sun contributor

There was great beauty in the design: the raised sterling circle and the bezel-set rose-cut pink sapphire and blue/black spinels drew my eye. But it was the sound accompanying the movement of rounded sterling wires as they slid from their slender tubes and tapped gently against the inside of the raised circle that called out to me, a group of tiny chimes giving gentle voice in response to the movement of my hand and body. Such is the magical multi-sensory aesthetic of Dana C. Fear’s unique and stunning hand-crafted kinetic jewelry. It must be seen and touched within the context of her compelling studio and retail space on Kasson Road in downtown Cedar to fully comprehend its brilliance. That ring became mine; its fluid movement speaks as I write.

“I feel like I’m closing a circuit by being able to sell out of my shop because when someone has that sort of response to one of my pieces, that is what I feel at the bench, like there’s something that I’m trying to achieve with this ring, bracelet, or whatever I’m working on, so when it’s finished, I feel, Yes, this is it! And when I see someone else pick up a ring and say, ‘This is it!’ I feel like I’ve just completed a circuit. It’s pretty cool.”

When Fear works on new pieces, she is thinking about wearability and durability, but the ethos of her creative process is expansive. It embraces and channels deep wisdom from sustained work on emotional healing, parenting her three children, and embracing a life and living as an artist, a brave path of self-renewal and roller-coaster economics in a world dulled and anesthetized by the mass-produced.

Her powerful jewelry designs originated during her time completing a BFA in metals at Ball State University, and specifically with her senior project, an award-winning design of a wide sterling bracelet with hinged moving scales that flip and turn with the movement of the wearer. (You can see and touch this striking metal cuff in her shop.)

“I asked myself back then, if I do this for a living, how do I offer something unique? I thought our human bodies are constantly in motion, and we want to decorate them, so how do I put those qualities together? I wanted big impact, to create pieces with complex engineering. I was like, go big or go home.

“It’s not an easy or graceful process working on creative growth in tandem with complex emotional growth. My childhood home environment wasn’t supportive of artists. Declaring yourself an artist was considered pretentious. But all these years later, I think I can finally assert that I’m an artist. And the human connection with those who respond to my jewelry makes all of the work so worth it.”

On the wall to the left as you step into Fear’s shop is an exhibit of three sculptural pendants entitled “Meditations in Metal,” inspired by poems from The Prophet by Kahil Gibran. They are not for sale. The first, titled “On Love” gives unique dimension and life to these haunting lines: “When love beckons to you, follow him,/ Though his ways are hard and steep./ And when his wings enfold you yield to him,/ Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.” Because touch along with sight is necessary to comprehend the brilliant engineering and artistic execution of these pieces, instructions guide you: “Gently but firmly pull sword out of feather sheath and let go.” Such a wise directive could apply to much in life. But I will leave the surprising beauty of what happens next for you to discover on your first visit.

Fear has been invited to offer a special in-person workshop next July at the Pocosin Arts School of Fine Crafts in Columbia, North Carolina. “I could choose what I wanted to do, so I will invite attendees to come with poetry or a song lyric that really speaks to them and then to design and make a piece with one mechanism inspired by that work. I will have to do the workshop like I did ‘Meditations in Metal’—wandering and voyaging into the creative unknown with my students, solving problems as we go.”

Describing everything she does as “a passion project,” Fear is also passionate about rowing. A Level 1 Certified professional rowing coach with the Northern Michigan Rowing Club, she is working this summer with 13 novices, teaching them what she describes as a “choreographed combination of dancing and flying on water, learning the synchronization with others that ultimately leads to harmony.

“There is a neurological similarity for those obsessed with rowing and what I do with jewelry; we’re all perfectionist nerds. There’s the precise engineering of my metal work, and the repeated striving for the perfect stroke while rowing. And that’s life in a nutshell. We keep chasing the opportunity to be fully present, and along the way we find little pockets of magic. Rowing is like yoga on water: you set an intention and leave the trouble behind as you get into the boat, for two hours totally trusting yourself and the group. After a decade of working to sort through my emotional stuff, I am in flow this summer, sharing the peace and the focus with others through art and rowing.”

And how cool is that?!

Find Dana C. Fear’s studio at 9044 S. Kasson St., in Cedar. (231) 499-7345, DanaCFear.Etsy.com. More of her work can be found at Gold & Jaye Jewelry, 412 N. St. Joseph St., in Suttons Bay.