Greetings! 

We are off to a running start for the New Year. We are planning trips, exhibitions, catalogs and books this year. And while we are at it we are continuing to publish stirring content on the website.   

Most importantly we are planning an AJF trip to Seattle in May in conjunction with the SNAG conference. (The Society of North American Goldsmiths is an organization of mainly American makers.)  We will have time to visit studios - Lori Talcott and Andy Cooperman - and lots of exhibitions with behind the scenes explanations. We will visit the collections of Edie Adams, renowned art collector and jewelry enthusiast, our own Sally von Bargen, as well as curator and former museum director Michael Monroe, all of whom will host us in their homes.

 

SNAG has picked some impressive speakers for the conference including Glenn Adamson, Lola Brooks, Valeria Vallarta Siemelink, and John Grade. Our editor Damian Skinner will also speak and we will be leading a panel with Namita Wiggers, Benjamin Lignel, Monica Gaspar and Kevin Murray.

 

Mike Holmes and I have curated a smashing show called Geography from jewelry suggestions made by our member galleries, which will also be on display in Seattle. You will have the pick of the show as soon as you arrive. There will also be opportunities to dine at some of Seattle's best restaurants along with other members and the international writers we have selected to write for our book. We are going to see a lot and have a blast.  Please see Count Me In below to let us know your interest.  

 

We are also in the midst of building display cases for our exhibit in Seattle and gathering information for the catalog. The catalog will be designed as an online book made to order. It is exciting to actually be doing our first real publication.

 

It is time to take a look at the events that occur early in the jewelry calendar year and start making reservations to get to these locations. We have recommended the important dates below for your convenience. These are mostly events that take place on an annual basis and that offer opportunities for talking with makers, seeing their work, and contemplating a purchase. Your membership in AJF offers you VIP passes to SOFA New York and COLLECT in London. We'll be getting you information about SOFA as soon as it is available, but if you want to order your VIP pass for COLLECT, contact Matthew Turtle at the British Crafts Council at m_turtle@craftscouncil.org.uk. The deadline for registering is 7 March 2011.

 

It is time for many of you to renew your memberships and if you haven't done so yet please click here. Don't forget that you will receive a specially commissioned pin by Arthur Hash when you join in 2011. We feel privileged to have such a robust list of the most important makers, curators, writers, teachers, gallerists, and collectors as our members. If you know of someone we have missed please direct him or her to the membership page. Thanks for your help.

 

Cheers to you and the New Year.

Susan Cummins
AJF Chair

TO MARKET, TO MARKET

by Jillian Moore
When artists hear the word marketing our toes tend to curl up. Savvy self-promoters are usually castigated within the creative community as sell outs, cynics, and punch lines. Within the rarefied air of the fine art world there's big money to be had, but for the niche world of art jewelry it's more like sink or swim. Click to read more.

by Kathleen Browne
Adornment and Excess: Jewelry in the 21^st Century was exhibited at the Miami University Art Museum in Oxford, Ohio from 21 January - 10 July 2010 and was curated by Lena Vigna (Curator of Exhibits) who recently moved to the Racine Museum of Art. Click to read more.

by Lindsay Pollock
Gallery Loupe, a bustling commercial street in downtown Montclair, New Jersey, is the unlikely venue for a knockout exhibition by 74-year old American jeweler Thomas Gentille. Click to read more.

by Susan Cummins
Driving into the city of Palo Alto (named after a type of redwood tree) is deceiving. It looks like a little village town with movie theaters, restaurants and various shops lining University Avenue, the main street. It's apparent quiet quaintness belies the actual supercharged capital of technology that it is. Click to read more.

RING MASTER: TWO EXHIBITIONS BY KARL FRITSCH
by Vivien Atkinson

The recent renovations at the Wellington City Gallery have seen some significant changes, particularly the Hirschfeld Gallery. This gallery is for the exhibition of local artists and used to be an odd lower-case t shaped space tucked in beside Nikau Café. This location, next to a bustling Wellington food venue, seemed to reflect the diverse shows that were installed there. Click to read more.

There is something so irresistible in the prospect of tying up loose ends and making honest work out of our starts and stutters. It's an urge that permeates across disciplines and vocations. At some point we've all yearned to find a home for our unfinished things, a place where they can rest and, in turn, put one's mind at rest. Click to read more.

Spectrum was an invitational exhibition focused on contemporary jewelry inspired by color. The four artists selected utilize a wide variety of formats, processes and materials, but are connected through the importance of color in their work. Color has played a dominant role in the Fine Arts for many generations, from the specific hues of paintings to the bold use of color in modern and contemporary sculpture. Click to read more.

In the late 1950s Dr. Ümit Bir set out with his stethoscope in his bag, traveling around the world and including frequent visits to Turkey, his home country. In 1960 he met an architect, Dr. Rudolph Steinbach, who gave the order to 'start collecting!'. Click to read more. 

by Damian Skinner
Recently I have become fascinated by the way jewelry features in science fiction. In the distant future, or in distant galaxies, it is somehow both edifying and slightly depressing how the authors of Sci-Fi imagine the future of adornment. Click to read more.

 

On Saturday 18 June 2011 the Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Artifacts (ASJRA) is organizing a curator's tour of The Jewelers of the Hudson Valley exhibition at the Forbes Galleries, New York City, at 2 p.m. This show features the work of seven prominent studio jewelers - Pat Flynn, Tom Herman and Jennifer Trask, Jamie Bennett, Sergey Jivetin, Arthur Hash and Myra Mimlitsch-Gray - as well as jewelry loaned from the collection of the Samuel Dorsky Museum and work by graduate students in the Metals Program at SUNY/New Paltz. There is no charge for the tour but you do need to R.S.V.P. Contact: ekarlin@usa.net

 

Nervous System, a design group based in the United States, have created Cell Cycle, a line of jewelry that customers create themselves using computer algorithms and an iPad app. You can find out more by clicking here.  

 

You can watch a video about pioneering Australian contemporary jewelers Gray St Workshop and Gallery in Adelaide by clicking here.

A retrospective exhibition of jewelry by Georg Dobler opens on 8 April 2011 at the Schmuckmuseum in Pforzheim, Germany. Called Georg Dobler: Jewellery from 1980 to 2010, the show is a survey of the organic turn in his work during the mid-1980s, and the way that his engagement with nature in a time when naturalism was out of fashion has become a trailblazing gesture. To learn more about the exhibition, click here to visit the Schmuckmuseum's website.  

 

Want to learn more about Rene Boivin, a Parisian jeweler who grappled with the possibilities of modernism in jewelry at the beginning of the twentieth century? Click here to read the New York Times article.

 

Seth Papac and Ruth Koelewyn are looking for sponsors to help them fund a catalog for their exhibition Us, In Flux, which will take place alongside the SNAG conference in Seattle in May 2011. If you'd like to help, or are just interested to learn more, visit their page at Kickstarter by clicking here.

The big brains of the craft scene will be gathering in San Francisco on 1 - 3 April 2011 for the Craft Forward Symposium at the California College of the Arts. 'Craft Forward examines the multifaceted practices that both distinguish and blur the historically charged boundaries between craft, art, design, architecture and writing. The symposium brings together a diverse group of makers and thinkers to explore the ethos of craft and its resurgence in the 21st century.' You can find out more by clicking here.

Newark Museum in Newark, New Jersey, has opened a dedicated space for its jewelry collection, with an exhibition called The Glitter & the Gold: Jewelry from the Newark Museum. The Lore Ross Jewelry Gallery is named in honor of Lore Ross, a benefactor and supporter of the museum. You can read more by clicking here.

The Legacy of Atelier Janiyé, an exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, has just opened. This project received an AJF exhibition grant in 2010. The opening reception will be held on 27 February 2011. To visit the Fuller Craft Museum website, click here.

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