The Quiet Beauty and Resplendence of Harold O'Connor

Artist list

Harold O'Connor

Both a maker and a teacher, O’Connor has taught workshops across 20 different countries, covering a variety of metal techniques. His works are in the permanent collections of over 20 esteemed museums worldwide, including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among others. He has authored five books on the jewelry arts, including a staple for most jewelers, The Jeweler’s Bench Reference.

The artist’s momentous, near topographic pieces are pleasantly paired with delights more drawn to earth: A luminous gold pathway is laminated on a silvery pendant. Crystallized crevices of a geode are emulated most beautifully upon a geometric ring band. In between worlds, the adularescence of O’Connor’s personal favorite stone, spectrolite, travels across the entire prismatic spectrum before our very eyes.

Among Allison’s curation, geode’s aquatic-colored caverns emit an undulating charm as it either stands alone in composition with granulated gold, “pebbled silver”, or paired with a sculpturesque work O’Connor has created with the precious metals. A piece of lava eloquently fulfills a new purpose as part of a brooch, endowed with pools of granulation and partnered with the radiance of a rainbow-reflecting spectrolite.

Creativity abounds as the artist scores, folds, and solders portions of gold and silver to become an uncanny resemblance to agate geode. Warbly, textured surfaces, and unusual materials calm the heart as if engaging one-on-one with nature’s bounty. A premiere piece in the curation seamlessly marries boulder opal and cast animal bone. Curves and delineations of a preserved orange slice emerges as a lustrous counterpart in the same, aforementioned precious metals. 


The force that drives me to create sall metal forms, which can be worn is that I enjoy what I do & am good at creating small objects. I get my inspiration from society, nature, and my gravels. The thing that drives me is that I love to work with my hands, and to learn new techniques & design approaches. The world around me inspires me to create.
/ Harold O'Connor


>> Check more work by Harold O'Connor at Patina Gallery.