December News from AJF

AJF NEWSLETTER
DECEMBER
2009

Dear ,

We send you all our best wishes for happy holidays and the New Year to come!! Before we bid farewell to 2009, let us take a moment to reflect on the accomplishments of the Art Jewelry Forum during the year. We have worked together to do the following:

Our major achievement for this year was to completely revamp our website and turn it into a beautiful and archival resource for all the history of AJF's activities as well as a reliable source of news and information for the studio jewelry collector and curator. This was a total labor of love on behalf of Sally von Bargen our board treasurer.
Raised the Grant for institutions from $2000 to $5000
Gave a $5000 grant to Emerging Artist, Sharon Massey
Continued to present compelling lectures at SOFA as well as at the SNAG conference. We supported Helen Drutt's panel of curators in Philadelphia at the SNAG conference; Elisabeth Agro, curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, at SOFA New York; and Namita Wiggers, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, at SOFA Chicago.
Organized a trip to Philadelphia in conjunction with the SNAG conference
Kept our membership level above 100
Built a wonderful committee to contribute to the newsletter and website: including Ron Porter, Mike Holmes, Karen Lorene, Jennifer Cross Gans, and Ahna Adair, Elise Winters and Rachel Carren. Read Karen's latest review of Read My Pins, by Madeline Albright, click here.
Commissioned 4 articles for the website from curators and writers on topics worthy of our consideration

The AJF board is proud of the work we have done together during the past year. We are grateful for all of your assistance, support and enthusiasm. We give thanks that we are part of an exciting and wonderful world created by those great professionals- artists, curators and galleries in the field.

Please remember our gallery members, especially at this time of year when you are considering your holiday gifts. We put a call out for galleries to send us their holiday announcements, we have listed those who responded here, for your convenience.

We've published this gallery list and other news items on our blog. Visit the AJF blog, just click here!

Wishing you peace and happiness with a splash of bling,
Susan Cummins
Sally von Bargen
Susan Kempin
Trish Rodimer