I woke up to another sunny day in Long Beach and did some morning stretches as I took in Josh’s extensive sea creature collection, 80s paraphernalia from his partner, and their shared menagerie of baby doll heads. After Josh ambled out of his room, he gave me a tour of his precious succulents and cacti in the sun room, “I want to water this one so badly.. but then it will die,” he said pointing to a succulent with new offshoots. We ended up lounging on a rug going through some of his books and I pulled out his high school yearbook. I immediately spotted him hunched over a project in his school’s ceramic classroom. He said, “that project was what started it all for me. Something about working on that ceramic fish just clicked.”
After a cup of coffee and some eggs, we headed downstairs to his garage studio. I loved seeing his exhibits throughout our years at SCAD, but being in his workspace and seeing his equipment mixed in with sketches, inspiration books, shells, and prototypes was even better! He was a bit reserved at first, hanging back towards the entrance while I poked around. As I asked more questions, he started to open up about his process. Josh held up a ceramic fish with movable parts. “Recognize this? This is the fish in that photo,” he said with a small, sheepish laugh. I noticed that a lot of his latest work seemed to mirror his earliest prototypes in bronze from over a decade ago. “The motifs, the shapes you see repeating throughout my work – they seem to calm me.”
Josh has always been inspired by the ocean – perhaps even before he knew what inspiration was. Even though he grew up in Ohio, he spent a lot of time with his grandmother in Savannah on Tybee Island. “I would go out to visit her and we would collect shells.”
“When I got to Savannah [for college] I was so excited to get away from the little town I grew up in, I went a little crazy and didn’t take school seriously. I ended up failing out and moving home.” Luckily, he was able to secure a position at a local glass studio called Brazee Street Studios that was hugely transformational and helped him hone his craft. One day he got a call out of the blue from SCAD. “They said they started a forgiveness program and I would get my full scholarship back.”
“When I went back to school in the fall I was laser focused and finally took my classes seriously.” Josh learned tons of new skills and ended up showing at the Atlanta Jewelry Show and ultimately getting the department scholarship in the jewelry department. At the Atlanta Jewelry Show, he displayed large wearable pieces like the bangles/ hair art (pictured below), which he wants to continue to explore in other ways.
“I think it was really life skills I learned the most. I learned how to read people and how to anticipate their needs.” Intro to Jewelry with Bonnie Kubosta was profoundly impactful – “we got really close and she encouraged my glass work. She taught me metal and I taught her glass! She was so excited to be a student again. [Kubosta] even got a grant from SCAD to come to Cincinnati so I could teach her glass in the summer of 2013.”
Josh continued to work at the glass studio during his summers off and for a while after school. Most recently, he worked at the Cincinnati Museum Center in the Dinosaur exhibits, mounting specimens and descriptions. “I think some of the things I learned there were how to keep track of a large collection of specimens, and everything had to go through an insane amount of people.”
It was so refreshing getting to spend the weekend with Josh and his partner exploring different parts of Los Angeles. One of my favorite parts of the trip was hanging out with another design buddy and getting to speak what sometimes feels like a lost language after art school – when artist friends are much harder to come across. Josh Bass is an incredibly talented designer and I can’t wait to see his art installations and wearable art continue to grow and develop. It was exciting to see how the plants, shells, starfish, and tiny prototypes throughout his apartment continue to inform his recent iterations. When I asked him where he sees his work going, he mentioned delving more into flora inspiration, and creating installations combining art with plants, and having them “[work] in tandem.” I can’t wait to see Josh’s work grace the arms of models on the runway, necks of celebrities at fashion shows and galas, and see his installations fill the walls of the hottest parts of LA.
