I’m wearing something meaningful to me each day this month, and today I come to a bracelet I bought at an estate sale about a dozen years ago. I was just starting out with my vintage business and watching every cent coming in and out of the coffers. This bracelet absolutely caught my eye, and I purchased it to sell.
Really enamored with the bracelet, I then saw the signature on the back and could not consider selling it. Harold Balazs is an artist whose work has constantly inspired and uplifted me. His work is all over Washington State, and Spokane especially. At that time I hadn’t realized he made jewelry. My bracelet probably dates from the early 1960s.
Here I am in 1985, across the Spokane River from the Spokane Opera House (now called the INB Performing Arts Center). I had just won the position of Principal Horn in the Spokane Symphony and I felt like I owned the place! The grandly-scaled lantern behind me is by Harold Balazs, and several other sculptures by him are in close proximity.
I consider the abstract totemic images on the bracelet to be my good luck symbols!
Harold Balazs is still creating (see Washington State Magazine’s recent article
Finding the artist: An absurd and incredible journey.) He seems unstoppable, or at least I hope he is.
