Peculiar Creature
Chicago, IL
Although he studied painting and drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago, his jewelrymaking skills were developed by practice, not through classes. His knowledge of wood initially developed with his work in furniture. His wife Juanita managed to provoke Reyes’s curiosity the day she asked whether making a wooden ring would be possible. “I drilled out a piece of wood and shaped it, seconds later it would break because of the grain crossing across the ring. So I dismissed it, but after letting me simmer a couple of days, she came back and asked, ‘Can you bend wood?’ I said, ‘Yeah, but wood can only bend within certain tolerances, then it breaks.’ ‘But what if you get it thin enough?’ she asked. Picking up a little piece of paper she started rolling it up, and that’s when it clicked.” Now, Reyes makes wooden rings inspired by that day, taking a thin sheet of wood that has been soaked in water, rolling it up on itself with glue, binding the wood upon itself. Taping it, he then heats it to set the shape.
“As a woodworker you’re told literally the world is flat, you gotta cut it, drill it and force wood. Now I realize that it’s not flat, and you can get wood to do things you never thought it could,” Reyes enthuses. Nothing eloquently expresses this more than his finished work. Reyes has spent years exploring the capabilities of wood, and a beautiful progression of pieces speaks to the all-encompassing curiosity he evinces for the material. Cornucopic winding bracelets are created from a single piece, spiraling around itself to suggest plasticity, motion and animation that turns the normal conception of wood on its head. Like coiling springs, Reyes’s work seems to store potentiality. If one looked at a time-lapse video of a growing tree, one would understand that living wood moves. It is this spirit, that stored energy, that Reyes conjures with each of his pieces.
Reyes continues, “I think for me, the most human thing a human can do is create. That is, as far as I’m concerned, what we’re here for. Some people create drama,” he laughs lightly, “Some people create different things in their life, and for me to have that feeling that you’re at the cutting edge of creating, well, you’re epitomizing humanity. You’re being what you’re here to be, you’re here to evolve, and to grow, and to be the best person, the best human animal that you can be in this world, and for me, creativity is at that cusp.”