‘I’ve become a YouTube junky. That’s how I learned the craft.’

Jeweller, artist Japheth McKinney

  McKinney is fond of fluid, colourful pieces like this which are produced using a pouring medium combined with acrylic paints. Once the paint compound is applied to the canvas in layers, the whole piece is tilted to produce the bleeding effect. "I just love the intensity," he says.

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Now a resident of Perth-Andover NB, Japheth McKinney was born and raised in Kentucky and, working for Bell, lived in many southern cities before moving here when he married a Canadian. Although he was “discouraged from any sort of artistic expression” in his youth, he did take up woodworking with his father as a hobby which eventually led to sculpture. Art history classes in university finally paid off when he moved north and, unable to work legally at the time, he confides that “my art seemed to come alive”. 

McKinney’s Two Loose Screws Studio (which he shares with his wife, an esthetician, at 31 Beech Glen Road in Perth-Andover) will be open to the public for the Art in the Valley Studio Tour (Saturday and Sunday, June 6-7). At other times, his canvas art can usually be seen at the McCain Gallery in Florenceville-Bristol NB while the jewellery is available locally at Johnson’s PharmaSave in Perth. He also plans to participate in Woodstock's Dooryard Arts Festival in July.

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Japheth, since I visited your studio during the Art in the Valley tour last year, it seems that you are concentrating much more on jewellery these days…
That’s true. Last winter I attended the Atlantic Craft Trade Show in Halifax through the kindness of the New Brunswick Craft Council. Despite the bad weather, I was very happy with the orders I got. Now my earrings, necklaces and bracelets are in gift shops from Cape Breton to Charlottetown to Shediac and that’s my bread and butter. I’m almost too busy for art.

The jewellery has a porcelain-like look. What’s it made from?
Polymer clay which a little like Plasticine in feel and comes in various colours. It’s a synthetic clay that hardens when baked at a low temperature. Once I started making earrings with that clay, they really took off.

Some of your jewellery, like this set in pink and green, is very colourful. [At centre in adjacent photo.]
This originated as a custom request from a woman in Nova Scotia who wanted those colours. After we talked, it took a few weeks before I came up with the concept. I can find inspiration just about anywhere but in this case it was a result of a craving for watermelon.

On the other hand, a lot of your art is quite dark.
I have good memories of sitting on a porch swing in Kentucky with my grandmother during severe lightning storms. Watching the storms became my favourite time with her and my art reflects those days.

I’ve had requests to lighten up:

“Can you do that again

but make it brighter?”

Not really.

Trees also seem to be a theme that runs through your multi-media canvas work.
Yes, I’ve worked with trees for quite a while. This canvas, the large 30"x48" one, is called “Our Tree”. [See photo at right.] I made it with waffle fabric that I painted all black and then added some white to the surface. It was so very dark. But I had been experimenting with glass beads and I came up with the idea of painting the flat side of the glass with nail polish which I adhered with canvas sealer.

And the result isn’t really so dark.

I’m not one for pastels but you do need to think about different approaches.