Page 71 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2023 - Online Magazine

MUSIC & ART

rented a booth at I’ve done this thousands and thousands of times.”
KK’s for about a
year,” he stated. Loy admits that he is the kind of person who, if you tell
him he can’t do something, is more determined than
He had attempted ever to do it. His wife says he is stubborn, but he says
silversmithing he is just determined. Yet he’s often wondered where
before but just his jewelry business might be today if he had started it
couldn’t seem to when he was young.
master it. Several
years earlier, he For this self-taught artisan, who has lived his life
had purchased creating, the pictures accompanying this article speak
the material for volumes. It seems Loy has lived every little boy’s dream:
jewelry-making to get to play in the dirt and fill his pockets with rocks.
from a lady Readers might also enjoy the February 1982 issue of
whose husband Texas Monthly for an article about Loy Kerns: “Being
had passed away, Texan, Way out West in the Land of Cotton.”
but they remained stored in a couple of Loy’s toolboxes.
The day came when he finally decided he needed to quit https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/way-out-
thinking about it and just do it. west-in-the-land-of-cotton/
“I tried it again and was still having problems, so I Interested in his jewelry? Look for Loy Kern on
went to the Mahon Library and got an old Indian book Facebook.
[about jewelry making] and found out what I was
doing wrong.” For 30 years, Loy had created stained
glass works of art, but that came to a screeching halt
when he “got into the silver.” He started in October
of 2007, and by Christmas of that year, all of their
daughters had a turquoise ring, and to date, he has
not slowed down.
So, how does he determine what to design? He sees
it in his head and thinks about it in bed at night.
He draws no patterns, but after the stone is cut, the
piece is built around the stone. Everything is created
by hand with patience and a small acetylene torch.
The stones, equipment, and silver are expensive,
but as he explained, “In order to do it, you have
to sell some of it.” After he joined other jewelry
groups on Facebook, the door opened to sell his
jewelry in other states, like New York, Florida,
Nevada, and Wisconsin. But most of his sales are to
friends in Morton and people he’s known for years.
A lot of pieces are sold through The Salon in KK’s
Courtyard, his wife’s nail business.

“I used to turn out a piece or two every day, but
now maybe every other day I’ll turn out one,” said
Loy, leaning back in his chair. “I learn something
every day, and every so often, I will still mess up a
piece. One little slip and the whole thing is ruined. It
is very seldom that I have to junk some now because

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