We must limit the trip to 25 members (and we have 22 already) in order to give each participant a first-class experience. While we can't yet set a price for the trip, if you want join us from Oct. 3 through 5 (arrive on Oct. 2 and depart Oct. 6), please email to say you would like to be placed on the trip list. It's easy, just click here.

Here's a little NYC trip preview...

• Curator of Jewelry Ursula Neuman leads us on a tour through the newly opened Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Ursula shares the museum's jewelry ambitions in the article below.
• Visit Susan Grant Lewin's house and collection. She is the author of "One of a Kind; American Art Jewelry Today".
• Charon Kransen welcomes us to the International Arts + Design Fair where author Toni Greenbaum takes us on a special jewelry tour.
• Patricia Faber treats us to cocktails and the Michael Zobel retrospective at Aaron Faber Gallery.
• We view "From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith" at the Brooklyn Museum.
• Loupe Gallery sponsors a special artist presentation by Kathleen Browne.
• We visit the Metropolitan Museum to go behind the exhibits and see some of the jewelry collection recently given by Donna Schneier.
• And even more -- we're still finalizing special visits to collectors' homes, and artists' studios.

In anticipation of our trip to New York we talked with Ursula Neuman, jewelry curator and AJF member.

When the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) opens its doors in its new space on Columbus Circle in New York City this fall, it will inaugurate the Tiffany & Co. Foundation Jewelry Gallery. "The opening jewelry exhibition, Elegant Armor, draws from the museum's entire jewelry collection, with works from the 1940s to the present," says Jewelry Curator Ursula Neuman.

"Half of the pieces will be on view in cases," she describes, "and the rest in drawers allowing viewers to find unexpected treasures in the country's only gallery dedicated solely to contemporary jewelry."

"The gallery also features a stimulating interactive computer screen with highlights of the collection juxtaposed with works in the collection including other media," she adds. "We plan to work on this interactive project steadily, increasing the range of thematic propositions."

Ursula looks forward to "working with well-known exhibition designers, artists, and other innovators to install meaningful exhibitions that will promote this highly innovative art form." Continued on our website.

Kelly L'Ecuyer on Windgate 2008 Fellowship Panel
The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design invited 64 universities across the country, in fall 2007, to each nominate two students for the 2008 Windgate Fellowship Awards. The panel met for the final deliberations the first week of April 2008 and selected ten graduating seniors to each receive a $15,000 Fellowship including two metalsmiths.

The panel for the 2008 Windgate Fellowship Awards included Kelly H. L'Ecuyer, Ellyn McColgan, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Art of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Michael Sherrill, sculptor (clay, glass, metal); Grace Cochrane, author and past director of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia; and Alan C. Elder, Curator of Canadian Crafts, Decorative Arts and Design, Canadian Museum of Civilization. Have a look at the results, click here.

Library Society Honors Cindi Strauss and Helen Drutt
The Museum of Fine Art Houston's Ornament as Art exhibition catalogue received the prestigious George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award from the Art Libraries Society of North America. Learn more.

Mary Lee Hu wins the Twining Humber Award
The Twining Humber Award is an unrestricted award of $10,000 given annually to a Washington state female artist, age 60 or over, who has dedicated a significant portion of her life to her art practice. The award recognizes creative excellence, professional accomplishment and dedication to the visual arts. More information at www.artisttrust.org.

PHOTOS: