John Lewis Jensen spent six years of his life studying art and design at leading schools in Georgia, Rhode Island, Italy, and France before ever considering making art knives. Furthermore, during the same period, he exhibited his art at many worldwide galleries and has been the recipient of numerous art awards.

He states that regarding his creations, his most important consideration is to make each piece the exact manifestation of his vision, starting with innovative design and working through to a perfect finish of the finest and most appropriate materials for each particular piece. He informed us these standards are also implemented on the design and fabrication of the sheaths and display boxes, since they are an integral part of the overall completed pieces.

Jensen states, "My work for me serves the more profound functions of art that have always had to do with personal and collective empowerment, personal growth, communion with this world and the search for what lies beneath and above it. Life is both beautiful and ugly, the universe is both orderly and chaotic. Such contradictions are fundamental to our existence. It is this ideology of dualism that I undertake; I work to achieve a balance between violence and aggression, with beauty and harmony. I believe all of this is infused into my work during its creation, and in so doing, the pieces become conduits to others, into territory that is perplexing, mysterious, and overwhelming, so that I may share the things that I seek and find with others."

Fascinated with weapons of all types his entire life, he had been intrigued by the psychological implications of being attracted, yet repelled by the same object. He claims this is a phenomenon that does not occur in many instances, a reaction not associated with many objects.

Jensen informed us that he has also always had a high interest in archaeology - looking at different cultures, history and art. And, of course, in doing so, he has become aware of the blade in all its contemplations. He feels the blade holds a varied significance throughout history, in every culture. The history and diversity of knifemaking is vast, and he feels a strong need to explore and enrich it.

He feels "it is an artform unlike any other, both rich in form and function. It is aesthetic and quite obvious in its direct use. This fact poses an interesting challenge, but one I welcome, and have personally found less limiting than most other artistic pursuits; it is an exercise in pushing boundaries within a certain parameter, but this is simply not an issue with me, because that parameter is a form that I both love and admire - the knife."

Jensen made his first knife as a history assignment to make an object our primitive ancestors might have made and used. That was in the sixth grade at age 11. He carved it out of a pig's bone his mom picked up at the butcher shop - crudely carved, it featured a bark handle wrapped with rawhide and twine. His teachers decided not to give it back to him, evidently because it might have a dangerous influence on the other kids.

Throughout high school, he studied and worked in photography, but when he entered college, he succumbed to art with his first course in three-dimensional design. Schooling in sculpture and jewelry design would prepare him for the future, although his interest in jewelry did not lie in jewelry as objects. He was not interested in functionality or wearability of jewelry, but rather is aesthetics and technical processes used in making jewelry and shaped metal. In fact, the objects he made early in his career were not very wearable - they were odd-sized, odd-shaped, heavy and uncomfortable. He was working subconsciously with the knife form in abstraction.

During summer breaks, Jensen would spend time working on sculptures, and one summer, he taught at an art school in Brittany, France, an area rich in Celtic history and lore, and while working on some abstract found-objects that fellow artists/friends dubbed as swords, he then set out to make real swords on his own.

After this experience, upon his return to the United States, he decided to look more formally into knives and sought out knifemaker George Dailey, also an alumnus of Rhode Island School of Design. Invited to George's shop, his goal was to satisfy his curiosity and educate himself. As Jensen puts it, they "hit it off" and before he knew what was going on, George had taught him how to hollow-grind - he was addicted. That was four years ago, and they're still great friends. (More importantly, from that moment on, Jensen has done little more than design and make knives.)

The artist tells us that after six years of studying and traveling, he finally graduated from R.I.S.D. with a B.F.A. in Jewelry and Metalsmithing, but more importantly, he convinced the very rigid school to permit him to create art knives rather than jewelry, because it made sense. During this period, he attended many shows, but his first major knife show was Stephen D'Lack's '97 East Coast Custom Knife Show, to which he is indebted for giving him the opportunity to show his art to the world.

His main goal in knifemaking is to create innovative designs that will stand out as uniquely his. With each knife, he attempts to do something new and go beyond the one before it. He constantly draws new designs and attempts to stay ahead of himself and knows where he's going. While he may spend 30-60 hours per week working on knives, he spends another 10-20 designing.

The artist states that the hardest part of knifemaking for himself is staying focused on working on one knife at a time. This art excites him so much that he wants his designs and ideas to all come to fruition at once. Fortunately, he has enough self-discipline to stick with each knife to complete it before moving on to the next.

His goal for the future includes wishing to see knifemaking gain more public acceptance, especially from the art world and media. He feels it is the responsibility of everyone involved in the world of cutlery to present themselves in a better manner outside of their community, simply because that is where the future lies - in new makers, new collectors and through equal acceptance by our peers. He feels we must improve our image to raise public opinion, awareness and appreciation of one of the most historically important tools, and to give the knife its honor and a new sense of dignity.