TL Goodwin is an Artist.

And this is his brain.

I have been making art since childhood. This is not at all a new thing. But things change. In high school I started painting in oil. I stopped in my mid twenties. I tried to write science fiction from age 15 to 27 but no one would take my work. I wrote poetry till the age of 30. You might wonder now why I stopped any of these things. As I said, things change.

Something happened.

There was something lurking from childhood, insidiously working its way into the forefront. And it combined with something else, another creative reflection.

I started looking for gemstones

I would drive around looking for rocks in road cuts and ditches all over Washington State. I became captivated by their diverse beauty and I felt compelled to go even further with this vision and try to release an even deeper beauty, that which is trapped within stone itself, waiting for release.

Like Michelangelo

I began this pursuit of unlocking stones inner being. The difference is I'm working on a small scale.

So I started cutting cabochon gemstones and fell in love with the transformational aspects. These poorly cut stones needed to be made into pendants and things. I owned a plumbers torch, and for some reason I had some copper sheet that I picked up at a garage sale. I went to a local gem and jewelry place (out of business now) and bought some medium silver solder. I made my first pendant with a hand-freeform-faceted Ellensburg Blue Agate.

And I was hooked.

This required more cutting and more hunting of rocks to use in my jewelry. It also required more knowledge, more copper and sterling silver.

I dove into the books. There I saw examples of work that was stamped. I ordered two stamps from our supplier (my wife did wire linkwork) and realized I could make my own. That would be an advantage because I wouldn't be limited by the designs metal stamp companies felt like producing.

I <3 Stamping Metal.

I started forging on the back of a vise. I didn't forge much, but this all changed shortly after finding a 14 inch section of n-gauge railroad rail. I filed and sanded it into a shine and started beating out bracelets. As far as I can tell, no one makes them like me. Which is a shame! It's a very old technique. Oh, I love hammers too, btw.

Recently I started enameling and faceting gemstones.

I Where am I Going with All This?.

My self inflicted training in oil paint led me to see the natural artistic beauty trapped in stone and predisposed me to design. The self inflicted training in writing led me to do all this copy. The past is not wasted in us, but drawn upon.

I said "things change". I really meant "We evolve".

We constantly take a bit of our past with us each day we live. The nature of time will not allow us to take it all. This is a shame.