We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Carson Davis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Carson, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

Funny enough- creative entrepreneurship actually found me. There was a point back in 2019 where I reached a moment of desperation and discovered a technique of mixing metal that I hadn’t seen before. This process rendered really exceptional results and I ended up building my business from it. The best I can describe it, and it sounds so dreadfully pretentious, is I paint with molten metal and then paint on top of that with a torch. Since I am currently the only person I am aware of who uses this process, I won’t explain any further.

After discovery of this technique, I started using it to make earrings that were lightweight and striking. By some miracle, a lady in Los Angeles saw my iconic butterfly earrings and invited me to showcase my work at a gifting lounge in February of 2020. Long story short, I was able to get my work on to the red carpet at the Oscars that year (pre-pandemic, of course).

Since then, I haven’t really pursued the ‘this celebrity wore this, that, and the other’ gauntlet. Instead, I’ve spent the years since pushing my limits as a jeweler and designer, biding my time until I was ready to see where my metal technique was going to take me.

Which leads me to NOW and another ‘funny enough’ moment- in my hour of desperation this past year, I started messing around with turning my metal painting into metal paintings. Now that I’m finding my rhythm artistically and am ready to face the music of the instrument I’ve strung, I’ve been asked to tell my story at just the right time. I was also recently approached to do my first solo show in May, where I will be (for the first time) making an entrance in to the art world, sans jewelry. Now that I’m ready, I find doors opening.

I choose to live serendipitously; there is never really a moment where I plan in advance. Instead, I usually find that the best laid plans find ME. Often I feel like I will fail, but I also will not allow myself that options. My only job is to continue taking a step in a joyful and edifying direction every day. It is positively terrifying, but I do keep chanting to myself “You’re a badass, you paint with molten metal and fire. Just keep going.”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Becoming an artist was never my ambition when I was at the age of determining my life path- a ripe age of 18 years, sidled with the clear convictions that 18 years of life experience offers. Originally, I was urged to become an engineer, based on my academic successes. However, life had other plans for me. After making some poor decisions and falling to the proverbial wayside, I found myself back home in the local community college and required to take an art class to complete my Associate’s. I’ve been making art ever since and have never looked back in longing for the prior path I divulged from.

The years between then and now have been tumultuous and anguished, but not without their beauty. When I set out on this journey in 2019, I had no idea what would come to pass. I genuinely don’t feel like trauma-dumping because it’s long-winded and complicated, but I’d be happy to elaborate if you’re interested in hearing all about sick parents, toxic relationships, poverty, etc. I’ve been there, done it, and kept the receipts. But the cost of who I am now is worth what I have paid.

I have seen the view from the other side- stability and security were never meant for me. How tragic it would have been to shut myself in an office for the sake of safety. My creativity and artistic drive is just as intrinsic and natural as breathing and I’d rather face that particular brand of adversity than live without air in my lungs. If I can’t build my life around who I am, then what would be the point? I’m either going to make it or I won’t, but my chance to become an engineer has long-since passed and the person I was who could have pursued such an endeavor has long-since been gutted and gone. I chose to toil and I would choose it again.

There is, of course, fear; there’s always fear. But the greatest fear for a wild soul is allowing it to quiet.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice

Oof, I love this question.

Though I find NFTs to be an exceptionally fascinating concept, I don’t necessarily find them to be palatable, for lack of a better word. Furthermore, I hate their environmental impact, but I won’t touch on that at present. We’re going to speak strictly art and the medium through which it travels.

You see, I prefer to live in a more rudimental fashion. I don’t have television or internet in my home. I don’t care to follow societal norms. I haven’t got a chip on my shoulder that urges me to collect and horde pretty, shiny things. I don’t enjoy the digital world and I care less for pretentious acquisitions, which is how I (personally) view NFTs. I can understand their appeal and I would never fault an artist for pursuing whatever avenue they require to sustain themselves, but I find the surge in NFTs to be a waste of tangible life.

The process that I use to create my work allows me the opportunity to create compositions that are completely and totally unrepeatable. It is quite actually mathematically impossible for me to make the same work of art twice. You can see it, you can feel it, you can smell it, some of my pieces are designed to age. My work is living and breathing and just as rare and unique as WE are individually. I feel like NFTs digitize that which is meant to be beheld, and I find that to be quite sad.

On the contrast, I have given thought to using NFTs to verify and validate the authenticity of my work in the future. There will never be a world where NFTs never happened and it’d be silly to not consider using them to my advantage at some point. But that point has not reached me and that time has not come to pass. So until that point, I’m a hater.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

Oh boy, I’m going to tell you the LA story.

It was mid-January 2020 when I got the call from an event planner in Los Angeles who had seen my work on the internet. She invited me out to a gifting lounge for the Oscar’s and asked if I could make it. The trip would require giving away 100 pieces of jewelry to various celebrities in the hopes that they would like me, my work, and my brand enough to promote my work. At the time, it sounded like a once-in-a-lifetime trip so I obviously said yes.

I am now realizing that I have failed to mention that I grew up in a small fishing community on the East Coast, which I never managed to wander away from. My graduating class was less than 100 kids and a significant portion of them were my relatives. My days were often spent on the water and my nights were often spent under the stars. I keep my circle small and I don’t care for the hustle and bustle of cities and city-slickers. I am the antithesis of LA-culture.

So I obviously said yes.

The odds were stacked against me. I had no money, no inventory, a 1 year old child to take care of, and a family restaurant to help run.

So I obviously said yes.

Miraculously, in two weeks I managed to make 100 pieces of jewelry to give away, procure the funds to travel, and sort my affairs. I got on the plane with a suitcase with three outfits, my Xtra Tufs, and a power drill. I had no idea where I was going, what I’d be doing, who I was going to meet, how I was going to get around, how I was going to display my work, etc. My plan was this and ONLY this:

After getting off the plane I would have 24 hours to figure out how I was going to display my work, since I couldn’t fly with display equipment. The next day I would rent a truck and transport what it was that I had found to the event site. And then I had to be ready by the third day. Easy peasy.

I spent a significant portion of my time on the first day figuring out public transportation. At one point I took a wrong turn while I was walking around and got the sneaking suspicion I was probably in a part of town I shouldn’t have been in. My suspicions were confirmed by the bullet holes in the wall beside me, so I hopped on the closest bus and got off on La Brea avenue.

When I hopped on that bus, the other riders could tell I was ‘other’ and didn’t belong to the city. If my southern accent didn’t give it away, my Xtra Tufs sure did. When I sat down, all of the hobos moved away from me like I was some kind of marsh-monster who was going to contaminate them with my southern charm. I am constantly thankful for little miracles.

So the bus stops at La Brea and I hop off. The first store I walked in had some beautiful antique furniture and I thought to myself “Brilliant! I’ll use some kind of beautiful old furniture to display my work! It’ll be innovative and refreshing!” And it was! Until I looked at the price tag and it said $15,000. I held my breath as I was walking out, just in case I managed to blow some crystal off of a chandelier and spent the rest of my life paying for it.

So I walked in to the thrift store nearby and found an old China cabinet, art deco style, that would work perfectly. I paid $50 for it and said I’d pick it up the next day.

The next day rolls around and I’ve got to figure out how to get from Santa Monica to some hotel on the other side of the city. I took an Uber this time since the hobos didn’t care too much for me and it was really quite a long distance to terrorize hobos. It was much warmer so I wore my daisy dukes and fishing boots and went to go get my truck for the day.

I get to the hotel, they hand me the keys, I go out to get in the truck and it is the LARGEST Dodge Ram they could have possibly had to offer. I’m all of 5’4”, 5’5” on a good day. I could hardly reach the pedals, but I pulled that seat up, said a few bad words, and proceeded to start my endless drive back to La Brea to pick up my art deco china cabinet from the thrift store.

I remember people asking if I wanted help loading it, but I was such a nervous wreck that I just hoisted that china cabinet on my back like a turtle shell and waltzed out the front door like it was a normal occurrence.

So I load up the china cabinet and plug in the location for West Hollywood, during peak traffic conditions I should add, and proceed. If you’ve never driven in LA, you should know that the roads aren’t quite wide enough to accommodate a massive Dodge 1500 and every car racing past is worth most houses. I was crying and shaking by the time I got to the event site.

And the event site? It has a brick facade, but once you pull in to the valet the building opens up in to a 5 star hotel, complete with Moroccan tile work and chandeliers, the whole shebang. So I hop out of the truck, crying and shaking in my daisy dukes and fishing boots, with a china cabinet from the 1920s in the back and the valet runs up to me and says “You must be here for the event”. Yes- because I was obviously not a part of the crowd that was actually staying in the 5-star hotel. My massive truck couldn’t even pull around the loop so we had to unload it in the street. It was a spectacle.

So I ask this very kind valet if I can bring half of my stuff up and come back for the rest since I was alone and didn’t know where I was going or what I would need. He says “of course”, loads up my piece of furniture, and we head to the roof.

Y’all…this event was on the roof of a 5-star hotel overlooking Hollywood. And I somehow, miraculously, managed to get the best spot. It was incredible.

I get my things situated and am ready for the next round of setting up so I head back down to the valet to get the rest of my inventory. I tell the so-very-kind valet “I’m ready to head to the truck to get the rest of my stuff” and he tells me ever-so-sweetly “oh no, I’m sorry. We can’t do that. It’s a liability concern. You can’t see the cars in the parking garage. We have to bring the truck up for you.”

Well, shit. There is no other option. So while I’m sitting on the bench waiting for my truck, a sweaty guy walked up with a sweatshirt that said DOGPOUND on the front. Since he was so sweaty, I asked if he was okay. He said “Yeah, I was just working”…or so I thought. Because my following thought was “Wow, he must be working at an animal shelter nearby.”

WELL, two more people in the same condition walked up in the same sweatshirts and so I asked them “Whoa, what kind of animal shelter are you working at?” and the very beautiful, very mean girl says in that very beautiful mean-girl way “Ohhh…we were working out”. And I, who manages to stay super cool and calm under pressure, said “OH! That makes sense. Y’all look like you’ve been wrangling Clifford.”

They did not laugh at all and began to talk about what they were doing for the Oscar’s. The first guy I talked to was telling the other two about how he was going to take his helicopter to Vegas for the weekend to get away. Cool, cool. The girl said she was going to Miami to one of P. Diddy’s parties (that didn’t age well). And then the last guy said “Well, I don’t know why either of you are leaving- we all know Beyoncé and Jay-Z throw the best parties”.

And here I am in my daisy dukes and fishing boots, thinking they were working at an animal shelter. I remember thinking “Who ARE these people?” And I feel like I probably should have known who they were and that’s why they were rude to me that day- because they thought that I knew who they were and cared that they were famous. I obviously didn’t.

However, I did care quite a bit when that very sweet valet returned with my big ol redneck truck that he couldn’t pull through the valet loop. If I could have melted in to the bench, I would have. So I grabbed my things and hustled back to the rooftop and played the scene over and over in my head so that I would remember it forever.

The third day is the first day with the celebrities. They gave me a dossier and, since I don’t watch television, I didn’t know many people on the list. They told us a bunch of rules and I think I broke almost every one. I met a few bigger names. One of the guys accepted some award in one of my rings that weekend. The fourth day was the second day with the celebrities. I ended up selling the china cabinet to a lady named Goldie for $50 and turtle-shelled it to her car for her when the event was done. La-di-da, it was over and I flew back home and came to the conclusion that I would not return to Los Angeles unless I had a chauffeur.

So that’s probably my favorite marketing story.

Contact Info:

• Website: HTTPS://www.dvandvadesigns.com
• Instagram: @dvandvadesigns

Image Credits

N/A