Tucked on the second floor of a building on Wai‘alae Avenue is a jewelry studio that feels equal parts fabrication workshop and science lab. The cozy, sunlit space is filled with machinery and tools, including nearly 20 pairs of pliers, a hand-built computer, a microscope, and a three-dimensional printer. For nearly 25 years, this is where jeweler Jason Dow has been crafting wearable art with a sensibility and precision rooted in his lifelong fascination with math and science.
Dow’s passion for making things began from an early age. Growing up in Denver, he would often lose track of time building toy models in the basement—a pastime that eventually led to his introduction to jewelry making through a metalworking class in high school.
Dow loved art and sculpture, but he was also intrigued by science and mathematics. Curious to explore both disciplines, he studied biology and studio art as an undergraduate at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He had been considering a career in dentistry when, right before graduation, he took a leap of faith and dropped out to pursue jewelry design. After gemology school in California, he moved back to Hawai‘i to join Maui Divers Jewelry for a few years, then branched out to create his own brand.
His style is influenced by the complex geometric motifs found in nature and throughout South Asian and Islamic art and architecture. Some of Dow’s earliest inspiration came from the hypnotizing tile mosaics, inlays, and light fixtures at the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design. “I had that idea of paradise in my mind,” he recalled of a visit that inspired one of his first collections.
It’s the learning process that is always the most rewarding.
Jason Dow, jewelry designer
These motifs have continued to be an ongoing presence throughout Dow’s work. In his Lotus collection, gold mandalas abound, their intricate patterns dotted with diamonds and opalescent moonstones. The exquisite pendants from his Prakāśa collection—named after the Hindi word for light—hang from their chains like miniature lanterns, light glimmering through their laser-cut patterns and bouncing off their embedded diamonds, pearls, and moonstones.
Dow’s designs begin with a basic sketch, which he perfects using a computer-aided design program and prints on a three-dimensional printer. From there, he casts the jewelry by hand, setting the stones, engraving and polishing the designs, then welding the components with a laser. He refines the most intricate details with the aid of a microscope. “[The work is] time-consuming and laborious, but then it becomes meditative,” Dow says. “Just like most artists do, right? They get lost in what they’re doing.”
Currently, his passion is fueled by fine-detail engraving—carefully carving metal with a chisel for bright, sharp edges that can only be achieved by hand. Tilting the band of a silver timepiece he’s engraved with complex English scrollwork, light illuminates the spiraling florals that took him nearly 30 hours to produce. Soon he’ll be collaborating with local jeweler and kumu hula Sonny Ching on a collection of Hawaiian heirloom jewelry.
To keep the creative spark aflame, Dow has purposefully kept his jewelry business small. “Once things start becoming routine, you realize what you need to do to change,” Dow says. “It’s learning something new, trying something hard, screwing up. It’s the learning process that is always the most rewarding.”
