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Haymarket jeweler brings flair for Celtic designs to Sugarloaf festival
Robert Piland knows well that when the economy turns south, businesses like his can be among the first to take a hit.
“I don’t make anything that anyone actually needs. It’s not going to feed you; it’s not going to pay your mortgage,” said the Haymarket jeweler.
What he offers though feeds the mind over the body.
“There is something art does for the soul of people,” said Piland. “It uplifts their spirits; it gives them something to feel good about. It creates a certain beauty that translates to what the society was.”
Some of the ‘beauty’ Piland worked on himself will be on display this weekend at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly for the Sugarloaf Crafts Festival. Every year since and including 1994, the artist has displayed his own handmade crafts at the weekend event designed to showcase hundreds of artists from across the country.
Though he specializes in handmade Celtic designs for his jewelry, the Texas-born, Scots-Norman descendent has been influenced through what he has seen and studied throughout the world, even skipping school to watching a Japanese craftsman work while he grew up in Japan during the 1950s.
While his heritage plays a predominate role in why Piland focuses his work on Celtic designs, the art itself has a certain aura to it that keeps him intrigued.
“It speaks to me; that’s why it’s significant,” he said. “It has a certain mystery to it. It has a range of time from 500 B.C. all the way to Victorian England.”
The process by which an idea turns into art starts with a sketch that is later translated on to a template for sheet metal.
“I actually hand-fabricate them by cutting them out in metal,” he said.
Details added by hand gives the soon-to-be jewelry three dimensions before precious stones are also included. His pieces go from form to form, including rubber molds, waxes and eventually metals.
“The finishing of a piece can take everything from a few minutes to hours depending on how (complicated) the piece is,” he said.
By the time everything is said and done, every individual piece he makes will have been through a multi-day process.
Given that he is able to work with modern-day technology, Piland is left awestruck at the way his ancient counterparts produced similar designs.
“It was always fascinating to me what these people could do under the circumstances they were work with,” he said, singling out the jewel-making process that involved chisels and charcoal furnaces instead of the power drills he is able to use. “I’m always just totally and completely humbled by what I see from these ancient masters could do.”
Studying how Greek, Roman, Asian and Mesopotamian artists worked has helped him refine his own knowledge to the point where he can tell if certain antiques are made by a master or apprentice.
For instance, the self-described lover of “old things” recognized a coffee pot made in London that he bought must not have been crafted by a master sculpture because he could see the pouring-end stout of off-center. Such an act would be the mark of an apprentice.
Piland stated rather bluntly that he moved to western Prince William County from Annandale 26 years ago simply because he saw a For Sale sign on a house off of U.S. 29 that was away from the busy city life closer to Washington, D.C. The surrounding community does not influence his art as does the wilderness of his mountain property, he said.
Because he sells his goods at trade shows and events like the Maryland Renaissance festival, his home in Haymarket – equipped without cable television – simply provides a quiet place where he can work and read with his wife and business partner Elizabeth along with their teenage children.
“This is my home. I really do not do a lot of selling in this area,” he said.
While an economy in recession is not good for his craft, Piland struck an optimistic tone about its future.
“It’s been around for thousands of years, what I do, and it will probably be around for thousands of (more) years,” Piland said.
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