Today we’d like to introduce you to John Baine.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My story begins three years ago on the sunbathed streets of Los Angeles more specifically the heart of old Los Angeles Olvera Street. I ducked into a candle shop to escape the sun and while looking around I saw in a case one of the most unique rosaries I’d ever seen. I’m a lifelong Catholic from a huge Catholic family with two ants who are nuns.
I have gotten a rosary for every conceivable life event and holiday you can conceptualize so suffice it to say over the years, I’ve been able to figure out what separates a good rosary from a bad and this one was like none I had ever seen before. But please don’t get me wrong when I found this rosary it was a bad rosary. It was a series of center-drilled coffee beans that somebody had strung together. Many of the beads had broken or disintegrated leaving only naked wire where they had once been. But not only that it didn’t have a real centerpiece or crucifix just a metal ring and some tin foil twisted into a cross. But I saw something there I saw its potential.
So when I got home to St. Louis, I read up on how to build a rosary and immerse myself in the history and the minutia of the process and this thing that I have used in my life but didn’t really know about. So I fixed it, I replaced the 11 missing coffee beans with brand new seed beads that look now is the basis for a good majority of my pieces and my signature style. So after I restored this piece to its full glory, I showed it to people in my life they were like this is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and that was the impetus for my whole business.
And in three years since I restored that rosary, I have made pieces for comedians, luminaries, and celebrities. For first communion classes confirmations and funerals. My work appeals to people of all faiths and Faith levels and I have found a truly warm and joyous medium of work that allows me to greet every day with a smile and a joyous fervor to experience each morning. It’s funny how an unseasonably warm day in October changed the course of my life forever.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Well, I’d be lying if I said my work didn’t touch the nerves of a few people. I’m making pieces of art out of objects that people hold very near and dear to their hearts so I get it but I’m happy to say that for the most part, it has been a smooth road the overall response to my work has been very positive but there have been some controversies like I said previously my work is for everybody on the faith spectrum so not only do I make rosaries but I make malas for Buddhists and Hindus.
I also make cross faith and interfaith pieces that appeal to a more spiritually-minded individual. Today many people exist on a spiritual spectrum and while they are lifelong Catholics or Christians they’ve Incorporated philosophies from Hinduism or Buddhism or even Zorianism into their everyday prayer life and my especially appeals to those individuals. My whole thing is I don’t care what team you root for as long as you root meaning I want to get as many people praying and putting themselves into a godly place that I can because I believe if I do I can make the world a better place. This stance has been extraordinarily positive for me personally and also for me as a designer and a business person.
I’m very happy that my work has such a cross-sectionality between different walks of life and different groups I’m so blessed to have so many supporters in the LGBTQ+ community and in the general spiritual and spiritualist community as a whole but I’m also happy to have my lifelong Catholics give me words of encouragement and support they are my brothers and sisters and I would be nowhere without them. I get to speak to so many people who have so many different beliefs and I get to make art for all of them and it’s an incredible thing that I get to do.
So while the road hasn’t always been smooth and I’ve had to deal with some true zealots through social media all the people who have blessed me through their patronage and kind words have really smoothed out all those rough patches.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I make the most unique prayer beads you’ll ever see; rosaries, malas, or worry beads, I make tools of prayer that excite people into praying. I want to create prayer beads that people can see themselves reflected in. Because the more a person identifies with their tool of prayer the more likely they will be to use it.
All of my work is about identity and helping you find a closer connection with your higher power each one of my pieces is an individual art piece never to be exactly repeated. So each one of my pieces is as unique as yours. Think of it as Ollivander’s from Harry Potter it’s not exactly the person who chooses the prayer beads but the prayer beads who chooses the person.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
Like I said before, I come from a huge Catholic family. So for every birthday, holiday, graduation, and championship victory a rosary would enviably be given to me as a gift. To me, the rosary is like an old friend that has been with me and with me in all my highest points and gotten me through my lowest lows. I can’t think of another object besides maybe the internet or television they can bring people so together as the rosary can.
Some of my happiest memories as a child were about community rosaries being said for sick friends or family members or the peaceful return of soldiers from war or whatever it may be the rosary has always been there for me and my community. On a daily basis, it is my shield against the negativity and the poisonous nature of the world it centers me and gives me the strength I have had a very blessed and beneficial relationship with the rosary and I just want to share that relationship with as many people as possible.
Contact Info:
- Email: Olverastreetrosary@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/OlveraStreetRosary
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rosary314/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosary314/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosary314?lang=en
- Other: http://www.greenearthart.com/
