Michael Good
Michael Good, whose name is synonymous with anticlastic raising, has developed and expanded the definition of jewelry and metalsmithing to sculptural forms that are a natural extension of the human form.
“Tucked away in beautiful and secluded pockets of the vast American landscape are goldsmiths whose work rivals the best the world has known. Pre-eminent among them is Michael Good, a goldsmith whose use of what he calls the anticlastic process has forced the commercial jewelry world to expand its definitions and ideas about how American jewelry should look and how it can be made.” —Ettagale Blauer
Background:
Michael Good spent his youth in both the US and Europe. In the late 50s he moved to NYC where he worked as a social activist. It was in NYC that he started working with a sculptor who taught him some very rudimentary metalsmithing skills.
In 1969, Michael and his wife, Karen, moved with their son “back to nature” to a minuscule town in northeast, Maine. They spent several years logging, clamming, and any other odd jobs possible to make a living, while at the same time, Michael continued to work on jewelry.
In 1977, he took a workshop with Heikki Seppa, a Finnish metalsmith who showed him the basic techniques of putting a compound curve into a sheet of metal (like a saddle form). Michael was fascinated with the process and figured out how to continue forming the curve into a tube. From 1981–1986, he won several prestigious awards, including Intergold, Diamonds Today, and Diamonds International. This laid the foundation for a long career designing jewelry and sculpture using the now well-known technique of Anticlastic Raising.
Michael has been a member of many organizations, including the AJDC (American Jewelry Design Council), Gruppe Aspects, SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths), MJSA (Manufacturing Jewelers and Suppliers of America), MCA (Maine Crafts Association) and more.
He has taught workshops at many professional institutions, schools, and universities around the world and continues still to teach 6–8 workshops each year.
Michael has shown his work in both jewelry stores and galleries since the early 1980s. Over the past several years, he has concentrated his efforts on a more limited number of elite stores, as well as his own gallery located in Rockport, Maine.
