Bryan Lee Brown

Bryan Lee Brown was called to jewelry making at an early age. “I was 15 and in high school, living in Detroit, when my dad arranged a job to get me off the streets,” Brown recalled. “I started working for a biker that had a small store just outside of Detroit. He showed me the basics of soldering and jewelry repair work.”

After serving in the U.S. Marines, Bryan studied at the Gemological Institute of America and graduated as a gemologist. He’s been a jeweler for more than 40 years. In his small “Metals” Jewelry Studio on West Hood Avenue, he crafts jewelry and other pieces using a 400-year-old Japanese metal art technique called mokume-gane, or “wood-grain metal.”

The metal forging technique was developed by master metalworker Dembei Shoame in the 17th century to decorate the swords of samurai warriors. The samurai’s mokume-gane-embellished swords were essentially large pieces of jewelry – fashion elements intended to convey their position and status to the world.

Brown stumbled on the ancient technique some 20 years into his career. “I had been doing jewelry for a long time, and I decided to read through Jewelry Concepts and Technology, a huge reference book. I got as far as the Japanese process of mokume-gane and decided to try it – and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

According to Brown, “The traditional components of mokume-gane are relatively soft metallic elements and alloys – gold, platinum, silver, shakudo (copper with fine gold added) and shibuichi (copper with fine silver added).”

Brown stacks thin sheets of these metals together, then camps them between two steel plates, puts the stack under pressure, then into a kiln. As the temperature rises, the metals are brought up to their eutectic point, which is where they begin to mingle together at an atomic level, forming a new metal between the original layers, and binding them together as one.

“The technique has the tendency to want to do what it wants to do, and sometimes it’s a surprise to me. I just keep working with it to see what’s going to happen next,” Brown said. Twisting or denting the flattened piece can achieve different effects. Every piece is different. “It all looks so simple because of the clean lines, graceful style, and simplicity. But often what looks the simplest is the hardest to accomplish.”

Bryan does trade work for boutiques and stores around Central Oregon, including some in Sisters. His studio is also open to the public. He also creates custom pieces upon commission, including wedding bands, does lapidary work and can inlay most any type of stone. Brown also does a huge amount of repair work, including a process called kintsugi, the Japanese arty of repairing broken pottery using adhesive and 24-carat gold. “The pottery usually has some sort of sentimental value to the person, and they want to emphasize the breakage or the history of the piece,” said Brown. One of the first things you’ll notice about Bryan is his unique glasses. He made the frames himself, from gold. “I was going for John Lennon glasses, but I got more of a 1900s look. I made all of the hinges and screws, began as rough gold. I molded it, poured the ingot, poured the wire and drew the wire.” The glasses give him a look of an authentic old-time artisan in a 21st century world.

You can see more of Bryan’s work at his website by clicking here. You can also see his work on Instagram here.

Bryan’s Studio is in Sisters at:
220 S. Ash Street, Sisters, OR 97759
(On the corner of Ash and Hood)