I’m Dawn Wilson and I’m in love with the desert. For 28 years I’ve lived in New Mexico making art, artifacts and jewelry inspired by the land around me. At the moment my focus is almost entirely on jewelry, my talismans. I think the desert translates best through shape, texture, and abstraction, and my pieces are distillations of its energy. They’re all about that feeling expressed through form.

The desert is a source of strength, tranquility, and spiritual nourishment for me and I try to convey those qualities through my pieces. They’re a kind of medicine, an antidote to our modern world. They’re about slowing down and being still. Ultimately, I want you to feel what I feel when I’m in the desert when you wear my talismans.

My approach is deeply aligned with the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi: gentle but astringent, about not too much of anything, informed by a natural state of being. The desert speaks in a syntax made of slow light and the suspension of time, of sun etched across form, of the lines of bones and the sharp distance of horizons. Its vocabulary is anything uneven, erratic, asymmetrical, and primal.

So each piece begins out there in some way. For many years I’ve wandered across the Southwest and back again. White Sands, New Mexico, the Mojave of eastern California, Arizona’s Sonoran desert, the arches and canyons of Utah, and countless places in between are all beloved places. As I go, I gather rocks and earth and dried plant remnants and take many photos. But mostly I like to just go to an empty place and sit and listen to it with my whole being.

In the studio my process is very simple although I draw from a wide variety of techniques. I keep it low tech and use just a few hand tools, augmented with a torch and a kiln for firing metal clays. I’m very much in the moment as I work, letting the piece tell me what it wants to be and I usually go without a plan.

My materials vary widely and come from around the world. I use found stones and plant remnants, ancient, antique and modern beads, fossils and artifacts of the deep past, and antique silver and elements from desert tribes. I work leather, weave cords in natural linen, forage and grind earth pigments found on the land. It’s an ongoing process of engagement and experiment.

At this point I’ve made thousands of talismans. Each one is unique and in time they each seem to find their person. Have a look and see if you find one that resonates with you!