In anticipation of the Walker’s Jewelry & Accessory Makers Mart on Saturday, October 12, we highlight some of the 26 local makers and artists whose hand-crafted designs will be on display and for sale.
After years of collective experience in art, graphic design, and fashion industries, ITSNONAME was founded by husband and wife Joe Johnson and Jeanju Choi-Johnson in 2007. At ITSNONAME—an anagram for Minnesota, where they were both born and raised—jewelry designs are meant to tell a story and create a statement of self-awareness.
How did you meet?
We met in 1997 as students at the University of Minnesota. It was homecoming week, and Joe was DJing at a party. Contact info was exchanged, and we started hanging out every weekend. Fast-forward five years: we graduated in May 2002, got married at the end of August, and moved to New York City in September, where we spent the next 12 years.
What are both of your backgrounds in?
We both graduated from the College of Design at the U (back then it was called the College of Human Ecology). Joe studied graphic design, and Jean studied apparel design. From 1999 to 2002, Jean worked at the Walker Art Center box office until moving to New York.
After moving, Joe began working at branding and design studios. Eventually, he found himself working on more and more conceptual assignments, leading him into the advertising industry. Meanwhile, Jean started working in fine jewelry. Later she moved to design, development, and production management for the luxury handbag and accessories industry with a metal manufacturing focus. She’s worked among some of the finest jewelers, designers, international metalworkers and overseas manufacturers, which has greatly influenced her to where she is today. Some examples include a six-month stint selling wholesale diamonds in the Diamond District, working for A. Jaffe, where she experienced fine jewelry creation from sketch to production, and traveling overseas and working directly with metal foundries and manufacturers to create and produce custom hardware for Coach.
How did you form ITSNONAME?
ITSNONAME began as a creative outlet for us, free from the constraints of clients. One weekend we were sitting at home talking about working on something together, and we landed on making “graphic jewelry.” We started thinking about creating statements of self-awareness.
We then envisioned jewelry fashioned with the periodic table of elements information to give the jewelry its “self-awareness.”
Our first collection, the Periodic Jewelry Collection, caught the attention of publishers such as Wired and Elle Magazine along with musicians such as Miguel and Dave Jolicoeur of De La Soul. This collection was an International Design Award recipient for Jewelry in 2008. We still produce this collection today on a made-to-order basis. A few will be available at the Jewelry Makers Mart on October 12.
In what way did it catch their attention?
We are typically contacted by fashion stylists if their celebrity clients are interested in our jewelry, or magazine editors. Miguel wore our Ag Silver Periodic Ring in his album cover design for Kaleidoscope Dream as well as in two of his music videos. Dave Jolicoeur of De La Soul first contacted us (through Yukimi Nagano from Little Dragon), letting us know he was a big fan of the Periodic Jewelry Collection. She eventually put us in direct contact with Dave, and we sent him the large Ag Silver Pendant Chain and Ag Silver Ring.
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Dream Catcher pendant(Lakota). Photo courtesy the artists
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Concrete pendant(Prince’s Paisley Park). Photo courtesy the artists
Can you describe the process of making an accessory for your Impression Pendant Collection?
Impression Pendants use found textures in the physical world as jewelry molds. We dismiss traditional techniques in favor of an organic 100 percent analogue, hand-crafted approach. Jean uses clay to capture a texture in an impression. She then dries it out and finishes it into the final shape. The piece is then hand-fired into solid pure silver, cooled, cleaned, finished, and polished. Pendants are made of 99.9 percent silver, attached with a 14KY gold jump ring and Italian sterling silver box chain. Each pendant comes with a story card explaining the origin of each impression.
By definition, a fossil is “a remnant, impression, or trace of an organism of past geologic ages that has been preserved in the earth’s crust” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). The Impression Pendant Collection is our take on creating connections with places and things in our world. Instead of being captured in geological matter like stone, the textures are archived in precious metal, resulting in a “modern fossil.”
What’s one of your favorite impressions you’ve found and made?
New pendants are constantly being made based on our travels, collections, and findings. Favorite current pieces would be the location based ones. Changdeokgung Palace in Korea, Marie Antoinette’s home in Versailles, and of course, Prince’s Paisley Park. Next summer we are headed to Tokyo and Osaka and are ecstatic to create a Japan-based collection while there.
How do you work together?
We work together, but in different roles. Jean leads the product development, production, and craft. Joe leads the conceptual creative direction for our projects and handles our collateral design needs, such as photography, branding, and packaging.
ITSNONAME describes each piece as capturing the beauty of “wabi-sabi.” What does that mean to you, and why is it important in your work?
Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic term that means (in the most simple context) “beauty within imperfection.” Jean’s career is rooted in mass production and quality control. She wanted to take a step back and return to working with her own hands. To create a product that tells a story through the most organic process possible. To not worry if a corner radius is off by 0.2 mm. To connect with the physical world and document it in a form that she loves, metal.
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