John George Martin Artist Profile
John George Martin, the youngest of three children, grew up in a seemingly typical middle-class American family in Omaha, Nebraska. But it was quickly obvious that John was anything but typical – even as a preschooler he had an unusual talent for creating his own playthings. So, from a very early age, his parents encouraged him to indulge his budding artistic impulses in any direction they led, as long as he cleaned up after himself. As a grade-school kid, he scavenged the neighborhood for anything that caught his eye – odd-shaped fallen tree branches, unusual stones, bird feathers, leaves and desiccated insects, old castaway tools or wooden boxes, even empty picture frames displaying nothing. And from this scrounged detritus John would assemble artful creations that revealed his unique visual imagination.
John’s father’s job eventually took the family to Indiana, where John finished high school and enrolled in college. But when his father died suddenly after his freshman year, John moved back to Omaha with his mother, and he went to work selling men’s clothing in a department store. John’s taste in clothes made him stand out and he was quickly promoted to Assistant Manager of the department and soon after that to manage and buy women’s designer sportswear and women’s couture. It was a challenging position for such a young man who had just turned 22, and it enabled him to travel and expand his horizons.
In 1977, John moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he found work as a floral designer for a prestigious firm that catered to wealthy clientele. There he met David P. Turner, a true kindred spirit, who like John, had ambitions to segue beyond floral design and into interior design. So they struck out on their own and created TURNER|MARTIN DESIGN. Over the next eight years, their floral designs for events became legendary, and they broadened their services to design entire aesthetic plans for parties and weddings and corporate events. They were much sought after and soon found themselves accumulating a growing inventory of distinctive and stylish objects that included furniture, special lighting, and all kinds of collectibles. Indeed with a little more focus and effort they had all the makings of a unique kind of retail store that could also provide custom design services.
In the late 80s, John and David opened an atypical and noteworthy boutique in Palo Alto. TURNER|MARTIN was a small store but, boy, did it make an impact. No one had ever seen anything quite like it before (still to this day, no one has!). The store was a collection of original art by TMD, found objects, jewelry, limited edition prints, sculpture, and personal luxury items. Monthly the store would visually change its visual theme, attracting locals, as well as people from all over the country who’d heard of this wonderfully quirky venue. Even Stanford University design professors brought their students to see the store.
“The essence of Turner Martin, the store, was difficult to capture. While its content changed constantly-its personality did not. Clean blacks and whites contrasted against a natural background. Neutral colors soft and warm. Collections of natural objects and organic forms inspired by nature gently challenged the senses. Delightful and unexpected visual puns and metaphors were creatively presented with each object treated like a rare piece of fine art. Original gift wrapping which surrounded chosen items was usually left unopened by the recipient, left to admire the artful wrap.” (SF Magazine 1995.)
TURNER|MARTIN – the store – drove demand for John and David’s interior design services. Meanwhile retail real estate prices in downtown Palo Alto skyrocketed in the 1990s, to the point that many other small, locally owned shops struggled to make ends meet. In 1999 John and David decided to close their labor of love and focus on the world of interior design. They continued to scour the world for unique objects from antique dealers, flea markets, craftsmen and artisans, and estate sales on behalf of clients. Meanwhile, John revived his own art-making in a variety of unusual media, from paintings to 3-dimensional items. David and John continued working together until David’s passing in 2019. As with most of what has happened in John’s life, he had to reinvent himself again. His deep sense of aesthetics, the tonal/linear/structural explorations in nuance, narration, texture, illumination, movement, and emotion makes his interior designs dramatic and bold in scale. When you walk into a TM designed house it immediately makes you feel something, a quiet, organic grandeur that you want to spend time in; you want to take it all in, and to see every corner and nook, and marvel at how it goes together so seamlessly.
Today John continues to work as an interior designer in Arizona, where he moved in early 2000s. As part of his self-reinvention has created a large artist’s studio in his home, where he creates paintings and three-dimensional art sometimes “getting lost” in his art all day. For John it’s the only way to live. And though there have been many iterations of John, he still approaches his life as he did as a child back in Omaha: He is a perpetual aesthete who has always found a fresh new way to blend his unique artisitic creativity with each intriguing new object he discovers.
We at Saffron Communities are so happy to be part of this new path in John’s life by introducing JgM Objects, a collection of unusual items and found objects from all over the world. Often featuring a selection of treasures by talented artisans and tradespeople from around the globe, John will be offering many collections to us, all one-of-a-kind pieces for the discerning buyer and for that extra special touch in your home.
