JWWINSTON
“My goal as an artist is to create large gemstone sculptures that will be discovered 10,000 years from now creating great interest in what our generation was really all about.”
At age 12 Winston cut his first sapphire with his father that sparked a life long interest in gem stones. His carving career started in 1976 with turquoise tailings he found in the Arizona copper mines…
On
the weekend of Sept 1st 1976, with a borrowed dental hand piece
and three small flats of turquoise, Winston sat down to three full days
of carving and came up with three carved and polished tiny turquoise
leaves. Now thirty one years later, he carves the same three leaves in
twenty one minutes!
The art of sculpting gemstones has been a totally self taught process constantly evolving in tactic, equipment and speed. His jewelry works are one of a kind pieces found nowhere else in the world.
Unique only to an original belt buckle crafted by Winston are hand engraved poems or stories of the carving on the back of each work, also, the total carat weight of the gem stone carved, his signature and date of it's birth.
Ironically,
Winston was quoted, “I have never had an art class in my life and I have
never really considered myself an artist." My mother and my grandmother
were true artists in the form of clay sculpture and pencil sketch; my
gemstone background came from my father and his four generation lapidary
family. “If I only sculpted large gem stone creations I would have
starved as an artist long ago. It has for the most part been my
jewelry/art forms that have financed my career over the years.”
Winston started his carving career as a hobby in his garage in 1976. Over the last thirty years he has moved from state to state while he started and ran three retail stores each in a different state. Winston started his retail store concept with a tiny shop in Fountain Hills Arizona with renowned mineral collector Cecil Storer in the late 80's and continued with a store in Laguna Beach California and later in Ruidoso New Mexico. He traveled in a “shop on wheels” motor home over half of the United States only to come full circle by working again out of his home studio in Daytona Beach Florida.
At sixty years of age Winston has a dream of finishing his life long career by sculpting a huge table mesa entering the town of Sedona Arizona. If commissioned the sculpture would be of a large horse head, Native American face and eagle head as the Trinity tribute to the Native American and their forefathers.
Winston's turquoise sculptures and art/jewelry have been included in numerous
MUSEUM AND GALLERY SHOWS:J.W.COOPER GALLERY
TIME WARNER BUILDING, NEW YORK
The six and one half year long work of art by Winston "True Forefathers" Currently is on display at J.W.Cooper in the front entrance of the Time Warner Building at Columbus Circle in downtown New York
WESTERN HERITAGE GALLERY
SCOTTSDALE ARIZONA
"True Forefathers" a three foot tall turquoise eagle with eight famous Native Americans was shown Fall of 1996.
GENE AUTRY MUSEUM
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Carefully selected works from the Spirit of America Gallery in Beverly Hills were auctioned at major celebrity charities in the Gene Autry Museum in the early 1990's
TOM CHAUNCEY MUSEUM
SCOTTSDALE ARIZONA
Chauncey Arabians purchased from Winston the thirteen pound turquoise eagle seen on the front cover of Rock and Gem Magazine Aug 1987. The sculpture was later retired to a museum by his family in Scottsdale. It sat along side of the larger than life sculpture Number 2 of John Wayne.
FISHER DIVING COLLECTION
SPRINGFIELD MISSOURI
Winston's large 75 pound turquoise eagle sculpture "True Forefathers" was shown with the famed Fisher Diving Collection – a collection of gold and gems.
GILBERT ORTEGA MUSEUM AND GALLERY
SANTA FE NEW MEXICO
Shown was the first casting of "True Forefathers" a one hundred and thirty pound crushed turquoise molded copy of the original.
PUBLICATIONS
There have been numerous articles in national magazines including:
Robb Report NOV 2006 page 329
RR listed his buckles: one of a hundred most tasteful ways to celebrate the holiday season.
winstonbuckles.com created in 2004
Rock and Gem Magazine AUG 1987 Front Cover
Rock and Gem Magazine APR 1981 pages 56-59
Jewelers Keystone Magazine
JKM listed him in the top 10 carvers in the US Mid 90 retail stores.
WINSTON’S FORMER RETAIL STORES
Winston Minerals – Fountain Hills, AZ
Studio Winston – Laguna Beach, CA
Winston the Carving Cowboy – Ruidoso, NM
please Contact Dealers
Call (386)589-4014 or e-mail winston at: WinstonBuckles@hotmail.com