Proudly Worn
The colors of the rainbow appeared on a crosswalk, the bridge over the Cuyahoga River and in storefronts throughout downtown Kent. In March, Main Street Kent hosted its inaugural Rainbow Weekend, and Danny Likar’s artistic jewelry was showcased.
“I’m very, very proud to be part of the LGBT community, which inadvertently impacts my art,” says Likar, who identifies as a gay man. “It opened up the opportunity for me to be part of that pride festival.”
Likar graduated from Kent State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and now has a studio in Cuyahoga Falls.
He made eight brooches for the festival that were displayed at Squirrel City Jewelers. Each brooch represents a stripe on the original pride flag, which had eight colors instead of today’s typical six.
Charms like a fire, flower, turtle, dove and pink triangle (a reclaimed symbol of the LGBTQ community) hang from each of the brooches. Each color — pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo and violet — has a meaning associated to it: sexuality, life, healing, sunlight, nature, magic, harmony and spirit. He linked each color and meaning in its own brooch.
“I wanted to touch on this LGBT icon,” Likar says. “That was definitely one project that I feel embodies me a lot. It has a lot of personality, personal issues from the LGBT community and also embodies my bold, playful, iconic vibe.”
His passion for art began long before Rainbow Weekend. “I always liked to draw and get crafty,” Likar says. “I used to draw my mom thousands of pictures.”
He started making jewelry during a crafts class he took in high school, and he honed his skills at Kent State as a crafts major with a concentration in jewelry, metals and enameling. Once, he spotted someone he didn’t know wearing a piece of his jewelry in class, and that solidified his desire to make jewelry that’s both artful and functional.
“I’m like, Wow, random people who I don’t know want to wear my jewelry,” he says. “That meant a lot to me.”
He wants his jewelry to be exciting and appeal to everyone’s inner child. His creations for sale on his website or at Kent shops Squirrel City Jewelers and Handcrafted include a bright watermelon pin, a warm pair of sunset orange disc earrings, a yellow Bee Happy Pin and a keychain depicting a UFO with the words “I believe (in myself).”
“I want people to take away from my art the idea that you don’t have to be too serious with anything. Just have fun with it,” Likar says. “I want something that they can wear regularly and get as much happiness the 30th time wearing it as they did when they bought it.”