Jack Rink Works

Jack learned how to cut gemstones just after finishing college at age 20. He found it both technical and artistic. As part of this first apprenticeship, he also learned how to make jewelry in wax and cast it into metal when gold was still affordable. While providing stones for local jewelers and learning some tricks from them, he picked up some custom design work through friends and word-of-mouth. People seemed to like his designs, especially custom designs for engagement and wedding rings, which he still offers to clients today. His work began to mature when he joined the trade as a repair jeweler, which led to three more apprenticeships, the last under master jeweler Don Vodicka of the Gem Collection in Tallahassee, Florida. Wielding the torch day-in and day-out for intricate repair operations, and setting thousands of stones, led him to the joy of creating one-of-a kind pieces working directly in the metal (fabrication), as opposed to casting, which is suited to multiple reproductions of a single design.

He began anew in the jewelry world as an artisan jeweler at age 60 when he retired in 2016 from a career as a professor of Geology, setting set up his new studio in Port Saint Joe, Florida. With his background in science, now joined to his art, the intrinsic qualities of the materials themselves inspire his work, especially the gemstones. The colors of the gemstones coupled with the flash and brilliance of the metal brings his love of art and science together. The style of his work is Contemporary, incorporating planar elements with curved edges and smooth bezels. He has moved away from shiny polished metal to brushed textures, which provide more contrast and interest. He created his fine silver and gemstone Earth and Sky Series in 2021, which featured contrasts between hammered and brushed surfaces. More recently in the series, he has been creating brushed mixed-metal pieces, incorporating bronze and gold with the fine silver. They respond completely differently to the brush and sandpaper, challenging him to find new ways to create complementary textures. He also is moving back to his earlier love of transparent colored gems, especially opal.

He began photography while still in his teens, imaging the underwater beauty of Florida's springs. Through the years he focused on landscape photography whilst traveling on expeditions around the world as a research geologist. He discovered  astrophotography in 2021, and with a mentor's guidance (Kathyrn Stivers) bought an appropriate camera/lens combination and started experiments photographing the night sky, slowly learning the times of night and year when he had a chance to open the shutter on the Milky Way.  His focus is on coastal environments. Finding dark venues with accessible foregrounds, and balancing forces of landowner permission, anthropogenic lighting, time-of-night galactic visibility and orientation, cloudy skies, sleep-time, wind, and tides, he completed his first season in 2022, comprising 49 night sessions in all. Each journey, having the feel of an expedition into the night, is thrilling, escalating his desire to find a new moment of Florida starlight.