Podcasts about american craft council

For more than three decades, trailblazing artist and activist Joyce J. Scott has elevated the creative potential of beadwork as a relevant contemporary art form. Scott uses off-loom, hand-threaded glass beads to create striking figurative sculptures, wall hangings, and jewelry informed by her African American ancestry, the craft traditions of her family (including her mother, renowned quilter Elizabeth T. Scott), and traditional Native American techniques, such as the peyote stitch. Each object that Scott creates is a unique, vibrant, and challenging work of art developed with imagination, wit, and sly humor. Born to sharecroppers in North Carolina who were descendants of enslaved people, Scott's family migrated to Baltimore, Maryland, where the artist was born and raised. Scott hales from a long line of makers with extraordinary craftsmanship adept at pottery, knitting, metalwork, basketry, storytelling, and quilting. It was from her family that the young artist cultivated the astonishing skills and expertise for which she is now renowned, and where she learned to upcycle all materials, repositioning craft as a forceful stage for social commentary and activism. In the 1990s, Scott began working with glass artisans to create blown, pressed, and cast glass that she incorporated into her beaded sculptures. This not only allowed her to increase the scale of her work, but also satisfied her desire to collaborate. In 1992, she was invited to the Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington. Continuing her interest in glass, Scott has worked with local Baltimore glassblowers as well as with flameworking pioneer Paul Stankard and other celebrated glass fabricators. In 2012, Goya Contemporary Gallery arranged to have Scott work at Adriano Berengo's celebrated glass studio on the island of Murano in Italy, creating works that were part of the exhibition Glasstress through the Venice Biennale. Scott has worn many hats during her illustrious career: quilter, performance artist, printmaker, sculptor, singer, teacher, textile artist, recording artist, painter, writer, installation artist, and bead artist. Her wide-ranging body of work has crossed styles and mediums, from the most intricate beaded form to large-scale outdoor installation. Whether social or political, the artist's subject matter reflects her narrative of what it means to be Black in America.  Scott continues to live and work in Baltimore, Maryland. She received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Selected solo museum exhibitions include The Baltimore Museum of Art (2024); Seattle Art Museum (2024 – 2025); and Grounds for Sculpture (2018), Trenton, NJ. She is the recipient of myriad commissions, grants, awards, residencies, and prestigious honors including from the National Endowment for the Arts, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman, American Craft Council, National Living Treasure Award, Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for the Arts, Mary Sawyers Imboden Baker Award, MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2016), Smithsonian Visionary Artist Award, National Academy of Design Induction, and Moore College Visionary Woman Award, among others. In March of 2024, Scott opened a major 50-year traveling Museum retrospective titled Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and Seattle Art Museum. Also in 2024, Scott opened Bearing Witness: A History of Prints by Joyce J Scott at Goya Contemporary Gallery. Her latest exhibition, Joyce J. Scott: Messages, opened at The Chrysler Museum of Art on February 6, 2025 and will run through August 17, 2025 at the Glass Projects Space. This exhibition is organized by Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge, MA. Says Carolyn Swan Needell, the Chrysler Museum's Barry Curator of Glass: “We are thrilled to host this focused traveling exhibition here in Norfolk at the very moment when Scott's brilliant career is being recognized more widely, through a retrospective of her work that is co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Seattle Museum of Art.”  In Messages, 34 remarkable beaded works of art spanning the artist's career express contemporary issues and concepts. Included in the show is Scott's recent beaded neckpiece, War, What is it Good For, Absolutely Nothin', Say it Again (2022). A technical feat in peyote stitch, infused with color and texture, this multilayered and intricate beadwork comments on violence in America. Embedding cultural critique within the pleasurable experience of viewing a pristinely crafted object, Scott's work mines history to better understand the present moment. The visual richness of Scott's objects starkly contrasts with the weight of the subject matter that they explore. She says: “I am very interested in raising issues…I skirt the borders between comedy, pathos, delight, and horror. I believe in messing with stereotypes, prodding the viewer to reassess, inciting people to look and then carry something home – even if it's subliminal – that might make a change in them.”   

What you'll learn in this episode: Jennifer's unique process of layering acrylic and art images, and how she discovered her signature technique. Why the most important thing a young artist can do is find their voice. Why Jennifer rarely uses images her customers request in her jewelry. How Jennifer's work ties into the history of pop and op art. Why Jennifer sees other art jewelers as inspiration, not competition. About Jennifer Merchant: Jennifer Merchant is a studio t based in Minneapolis, MN. She graduated with a BFA in Metals and Jewelry from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is a full-time artist showcasing her work in galleries, museums and exhibitions. Her work has been published in several national magazines such as American Craft, Ornament and Delta Sky Magazine. Merchant is best known for her innovative layered acrylic process in which images and prints are layered between solid acrylic. Her work is graphic with clean lines and modern aesthetic. Pieces confound viewers, appearing transparent from one angle of view while showcasing bold patterns and colors from another. Photos available on TheJewelryJourney.com Additional resources: Website Facebook Instagram Twitter Transcript: Like the op and pop art that inspires it, Jennifer Merchant's jewelry challenges your eye. Clear from some angles and bold and colorful from others, the jewelry is created by layering acrylic with images from art books. Jennifer joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how she developed her technique; how she chooses the images in her jewelry; and why art jewelers need to work together to push the discipline forward. Read the episode transcript here. Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it's released later this week. Today, my guest is Jennifer Merchant. Jennifer was also a guest several years ago. She thought she would be a metalsmith but segued to acrylic jewelry, which is what she has become known for: creative and innovative acrylic jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches. They have eye-catching graphics embedded in them. I was also surprised to learn that hand carving is sometimes involved. Jennifer exhibits all over the country. She's been an active member of SNAG, the Society of North American Goldsmiths. She is also a member of other major jewelry organizations. Jennifer is going to tell us all about why she has chosen this route and her process in general. Jennifer, welcome to the program. Jennifer: Thank you so much for having me, Sharon. Sharon: I'm glad to have you. Why did you start working with acrylics? Jennifer: I actually started working with acrylic while I was still in college at the Savannah College of Art and Design studying metalsmithing and jewelry. Our professor gave us little chunks of acrylic one day, probably with the thought of using it for die forms. But I decided, “Hey, you can cut and sculpt this very similarly to working with waxes for lost wax casting.” I liked the immediacy of the acrylic, that once you carved it and sculpted it and polished it, it was a finished piece. It had a lot of really cool optical properties. So, I always kept it on the back burner as an interesting material. Then when I graduated from college and I moved back to my hometown of Minneapolis, I didn't have the tools and equipment to keep working with metal. So, I kind of fell into, “Hey, there was that acrylic I worked with a couple of times in school. It was very interesting. Let's see what we can do with that,” because it was cheap, and I could cut it with simple tools. I started experimenting with it from there. Sharon: And you make all sorts of jewelry with it. Do you know when you start out that you'll be making a necklace or a bracelet with the pieces you have, or do they talk to you as you put them together? Jennifer: I make pieces both ways. Sometimes I'll design a piece very specifically and have an idea and a picture in my mind of what I'm making. But then there's other times, especially when I'm working with the scraps that are left over from pieces that I've made in the past. A lot of those scraps are still very interesting, and they'll be in weird shapes. Those will speak to me, and I'll create something new and different with some of those. I kind of work both ways. Sharon: I know you're in a lot of stores and galleries. Do stores tell you what to do, or do you just say, “Here it is, do you like it”? Jennifer: I'm more of a, “Here's what I've been making. Let me know which ones you like.” I think sometimes it's important to follow your own inspirations. People tend to be drawn to the things that I'm most excited to make. That being said, some galleries have different clientele bases with different price points, so they'll tell me, “Hey, these pieces were working really well.” I'll take some feedback. But ultimately, I focus on making the things that I'm drawn to. Sharon: Do you have a studio inside your home or do you have a place that you go? Jennifer: For years I did have a studio outside of my home that I really loved, but a few years ago my husband and I bought a home, and I decided to move my jewelry practice into my home. So, now I work from home. But who knows, maybe in the future I'll expand a little bit and have another space in addition outside the home. It can be kind of a challenge working at home sometimes, but I've done both. I like working both ways, so we'll see what the future has for me. Sharon: Do you have assistants who work with you? Jennifer: I've had assistants in the past. I don't anymore. I scaled my business way back during COVID and took a breather to reevaluate what I'm doing and where my motivations are. I'm only just beginning to build it back. At this point, I don't work with anyone, but hopefully in the future I can find someone to help out with some of the production. It's a little challenging to find an assistant because my process is very unique. It's not something that people know how to do, so there's a lot of training involved. When I do work with people, it takes quite a while to get somebody that can help finish pieces to the quality standards that my galleries and clients expect. Sharon: When you were reevaluating things, what did you decide? Did your method change during COVID? Jennifer: I think things just slowed way down during COVID. 2020, honestly, it was going to be my year. I had a couple of really big events planned, one of which I got to do because it was in February, but the rest all moved online. There was such a lull in events and things to participate in. I had started questioning what my motivations are, because you really have to love what you're doing in order to be an artist as a profession. We had bought a house and were settling in. I've just been taking the last few years to figure out life so I can bring my A-game to my business again. Sharon: Did you stop production because you were doing it yourself during COVID? Jennifer: I did slow way down on production. If I had a client that was interested in something, or if I had an online event or that kind of thing, that would motivate me to produce some new pieces. But there were just fewer things going on to spark that creation. I have a harder time making things just because. I like to have an outside influence, like a show that's coming up or events that are going to happen and people are going to see my pieces. When I don't know when those things are going on, I have a little bit of a harder time. I think that is why during COVID, everything slowed down for me especially. But it also gave me a lot of time to think about what I want out of my business and where I want to go. And in May, I'll be launching my first web shop where you can actually buy my pieces directly from me. Sharon: Wow. I know that's a Herculean task. Jennifer: For me personally, the web shop is an extra big step because all of my pieces, even my production work, is one of a kind because of the images I'm using within my jewelry. They're all found images from art books and other sources. So, even if it's the same shape, like the marquee hoop earring, no two are going to be the exact same. So, every time I list a piece online for sale, I have to photograph each and every single one of them. It's taken a long time to get some of those things down where I could do it quickly enough and efficiently enough to be able to post all of these pieces with the right listings. It's a lot more work than having a design where you can put a picture of it and sell 25 of them. It's been a daunting thing to tackle. Sharon: Did you have to wait until you were efficient at photographing and making them so you could just churn them out? Jennifer: My work is very difficult to photograph because it is clear and transparent from some angles, and then it's bright and colorful from others. It's also very reflective. So, trying to photograph it cleanly and communicate the piece in a single image is very difficult. My work tends to resonate more from multiple angles. It has taken years to figure out the best way to represent these pieces in an image or two. Sharon: The online shop, do you think it's your most valuable social media outlet? Is there one? What do you think that is? Jennifer: For me, I'm not huge on social media. Instagram, I think, is the most fun. It's very image forward, which is something I really enjoy. Definitely, as I launch my website, I will be on social media a lot more to market. I think up until now I've mostly worked with galleries and shops or done specific events, so I haven't cultivated my online audience as much. I'm excited to explore that new chapter and get more into it and see what I can do from my home. That way in the future, when something happens where in-person events may not be happening as much, I can still have a connection to my audience. I've been getting asked for years, “Where can I find your pieces?” Because everything is one of a kind, if it's at a gallery in California, someone in Georgia is going to have a hard time getting their hands on it. I think it'll be really nice having my own shop so that people can have one destination to go, as well as all of the others, to be able to have that access. Sharon: How did you start getting galleries and stores interested in you? Jennifer: I have been contacted by most of the places that I work with. Earlier in my career, I did a lot more events and shows and I was able to meet gallery owners. Also, early on in my career, I met some of the people that work for the American Craft Council, which is based in Minneapolis. When they saw a local Minneapolis artist at a show in Chicago and met me and thought my work was cool, they were like, “You're in our city. Let's invite her to some events.” They really took me under their wing and wrote about my work and got me out there. I got a lot of contacts just from people seeing the articles that they had posted. For me, it's been a lot of just doing what I do, and because my work is so unique and different, people that it resonates with will remember and contact me, like, “Hey, we've never seen anything like this. Let's try it out at our gallery.” I've been very fortunate in that way, where I haven't really had to go out on my own, cold calling and trying to get appointments and that sort of thing. I just try to make really interesting work, get it out there as much as I can, and then hope that it snowballs from there. So far, that's been working for me. Sharon: Wow. I think it's great that you didn't have to cold call and that people were interested in your stuff, which is very unusual. I don't know anybody who does anything like that. So, you're very lucky. Jennifer: I'm very lucky that it worked out for me because I can be a little socially awkward with the cold calling and things like that. That was never my favorite part of the business. I am fortunate that my work speaks for itself. It's kind of a love it or hate it thing, which can be its own challenge, but it's definitely unique enough where when people see it, if they're interested, they will hunt me down and ask me about it. That's been very nice. Sharon: If an outlet wants more than one, maybe they want five bracelets, do you tell them right away that you can make the five bracelets, but they'll all have different graphics? Jennifer: Yeah. I did a couple wholesale shows a while ago where it was that challenge of, “Well, here's a design, but they're all going to be different, and you're not really going to know until you get them.” I think most people that are interested in my work like that one-of-a-kind nature of it. That's part of the interest, so they trust me. If they get pieces that maybe that imagery doesn't speak to them or their clientele, we'll talk about it and I can swap it out, get them some prints and patterns that they like better. It's kind of a back-and-forth process. And the longer I work with a gallery or a person, the more I get to know what works there. Then I can tailor my offerings to them for what works. Sharon: Where do you find your images and the pictures that you put in your jewelry? Jennifer: When I first started, I was using magazines because they were readily available, fairly inexpensive, and that's how I started this whole process of layered acrylic. But the paper in those is not very good quality and the pictures fade. It's also a challenge to find enough usable content. So, then I started purchasing art books. I would become interested in a specific artist and start collecting books about their work, and those books always had a lot of really amazing images. They're printed on really nice paper with good quality inks, and they're much more successful layering than magazines. Now I exclusively use books. I've become somewhat of a rare and vintage book collector. It's a really fun part of my job, hunting down these different books, figuring out artists that inspire me to start collecting things about their work and then finding really cool images. If there's a particular book that has a lot of really great images that I like, I will start looking for other copies of it. There are certain books about Roy Lichtenstein's work. There's one about posters that has a catalog in the back with all these smaller thumbnail images, and they're so great for making earrings, things like that. I must've bought that book like 10 times. So, that's where I get my images. It's all purchased materials like books that I then rip up and cut up and put in between the acrylic. Sharon: Well, you answered the question. I was going to ask you if you cut the books up or what you do. You also mentioned that magazines got you going with layered acrylic. Can you tell us about that? Jennifer: When I was younger, I subscribed to all kinds of fashion magazines and fun things, and I would keep them after reading them. I had shelves and shelves of magazines. When I first started working with acrylic, I had this idea that acrylic has pretty cool visual properties, optical properties, and when you put images underneath it, it looks so interesting. That's when I started going through my fashion magazines, lots of issues of Vogue. I would see cool prints on dresses and things like that, and I would rip those pages out and try to fit the prints and things that were in there within my jewelry designs. That's how I got started with the whole thing. It was just cheap materials I already had. Sharon: What are your sales policies? Do you accept returns? If I'm a client and you give me something and I say, “No, that's not what I want,” do you accept returns? What do you do? Jennifer: Yeah, I do accept returns. I think it depends. If it's a piece that already existed and they buy it and it just didn't work out, or it doesn't fit quite right or it wasn't what they were expecting, absolutely. It becomes a little more of a gray area when it's a custom piece, when someone wants specific imagery and this and that. That tends to be a little more delicate. That being said, I want people to keep my jewelry because they love it, not because they're trapped. So, even a custom order, if it doesn't come out quite as they were expecting, I try to work with people to either make it right or try something new. Some of the events that I do, it's a museum show where they're handling the sales and they're getting a commission, I'm getting a commission from the sale. Even though I'm selling to the customer directly, because it goes through the museum, usually it's an all-sales-are-final type situation, just because of the nature of the commissions and if they've already paid me and then the person changes their mind. It depends on the venue through which I'm selling the work. I would say most times, yes, returns are acceptable within a certain time frame, but there are certain instances where they are final sale. But even in that situation—I had a client come a couple of years later to a show, and she had this ring. I decided, “You know what? It's a really cool ring. Let's swap it out.” She wanted a pendant. I like to be a little flexible. Like I said, I want people to have my jewelry because they love it, not because they're forced to keep it. Sharon: I'm curious; in your studio, do you have pets that keep you company? Jennifer: I do. I've got a dog and a cat. My cat, Shackleton, likes to work with me. I have two workspaces in my home. Downstairs is the shop, the studio, and then upstairs I have an office where I do the bonding and the image gathering and looking through layouts. The cat, Shackleton, likes to hang out upstairs in the office and sit on all my papers and be in the way, but be very cute. Then my dog, her name's Sophia. She tends to stay out of the studio because it's loud and dusty. She'll come in the office and hang out, too, sometimes. But I don't know. She kind of does her own thing. She lets me work. Sharon: Well, it sounds like nice company. Do you make more than one piece at a time? All the pieces and extras, let's say, do you put them in a closet and then pull them out if somebody wants them? What do you do? Jennifer: I definitely always have some inventory on hand. I think as far as when I'm making pieces, as I was saying earlier, I tend to make when I have an event or I'm preparing for something coming up. Then I'll usually go above and beyond and make extra just to have. Also, because my pieces are one of a kind and the imagery is different on each earring, each ring, each bracelet, I will make more than I know I'm going to need or sell at a specific time, mostly to have options for my clients, because all the pieces are different and have different images. You never know what someone's going to be drawn to. It's especially difficult with things that have a size, like a ring or a bracelet. Then I make tons of them because you have to have lots of options. With those kinds of things, I'll take a lot more custom orders because someone will see something in person that they love, but it's not their size. I do my best to recreate things for people. I don't generally remake things with the exact same images because usually it's impossible, but I will do my best to get something with a similar aesthetic or feeling for people. We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out. Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

​Born in 1942 in Espanola, New Mexico, Arturo Alonzo Sandoval is a fiber artist and educator best known for his weavings and for incorporating unconventional recycled materials – including vinyl and microfilm – into his works. Arturo taught at several schools around the country before accepting a faculty position in the art department at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, in 1974, where he remained until his retirement. Sandoval has gained wide recognition for his experimental approach to working in fiber, receiving fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1973 and 1992) and the 2003 Artist Award from the Kentucky governor. Arturo has had his fiber art exhibited regionally, nationally as well as accepted into numerous international juried exhibitions. His work is represented within numerous collections and museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council.He is one of five artists whose work will be in the show RADIANCE opening at the Headley Whitney museum mid April thru June.The others exhibiting work will be glass artists Guy Kemper, Stephen Rolfe Powell and Travis Adams as well as jewelry designer and artist Daria de Koning.

Join host Rob Lee in an engaging episode of "The Truth in this Art," as he explores Baltimore's vibrant maker scene alongside Andrea Specht from the American Craft Council and ceramic artist Whitney Simpkins. Together, they dive deep into the essence of the American Craft Made Baltimore Marketplace, sharing their passion for the event and the tight-knit community it fosters among artists. With a personal flair, they also dish out their baking delights and go-to local eateries, all while underlining the significance of genuine, in-person connections within the art sphere. Tune in for a genuine and lively conversation that celebrates creativity and community.Episode HighlightsAndrea and Whitney's insights on Baltimore's art community [00:02:30]

In the 71st episode of Perceived Value, host Sarah Rachel Brown is in Asheville, NC. In January of 2023, Sarah was making the drive from Florida to Pennsylvania and planned her trip around the opportunity to interview craft historian Andrew Glasgow. The two were introduced the previous summer while at the Penland School of Craft, and Sarah, having known of Andrew's vast career within the craft community, was thrilled when he agreed to an interview.The two craft appreciators sat down in Andrew's mid-century modern home to discuss how the Alabama native went from thinking he'd be a dentist to being an executive director of a non-profit in New York City. A year into his position as the executive director of the American Craft Council, Andrew was diagnosed with Lymphoma, and he shares with Sarah how his mindset, hope, and being his own advocate helped him through the estimated 806+ drug infusions and being declared cancer-free in 2013.Are you going to Munich Jewellery Week?Follow @3xUSA_MJW2024 on Instagram for all details regarding the exhibition your host is participating in! Hope to see you there!Visit listener Nora Kovats at the Handwerk & Design fair in Booth B1.741 next to the FRAME exhibition in hall B2. Thank you Nora for sharing a pass into the fair!__________________________________________________RECOMMENDED BOOKS: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell.Works by the author Temple Grandin.__________________________________________________Help Kristin Rebuild: A Heartfelt Call for SupportPerceived Value Podcast is donating all Patreon support from February - April to our community member and friend Kristin Mitsu Shiga. If you can, please donate HERE.__________________________________________________Join Perceived Value in being a Futurist for Crafting The Future! A CTF Futurist commits to taking consistent action toward achieving the CTF mission by giving a recurring monthly donation of $5 or more. Futurists understand the power of community; when we work together to make change, big changes happen._________________________________________Don't forget to Rate AND Review us on iTunes!SUPPORT PERCEIVED VALUE!Become our Patron on Patreon. Sign up for a monthly subscription to support the podcast financially. Instagram + Facebook: @perceivedvalueFind your Host: @sarahrachelbrownThe music you hear on Perceived Value is by the Seattle group Song Sparrow Research.All You Need to Know off of their album Sympathetic Buzz.Find them on Spotify!

Talking Out Your Glass podcast kicks off 2024 with our first episode of Season 9! This  fascinating panel discussion on flameworking features four of the technique's most well-known artists: Paul Stankard, Carmen Lozar, Dan Coyle aka coylecondenser and Trina Weintraub. At different points in their careers, these four artists compare and contrast their journeys and experiences working glass behind the torch.  Considered a living master in the art of the paperweight, Paul Stankard's work is represented in more than 75 museums around the world. Over his 52-year artistic journey, he has received two honorary doctorate degrees, an honorary associate's degree, and many awards within the glass community, including the Masters of the Medium Award from Smithsonian's The James Renwick Alliance and the Glass Art Society's Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a Fellow of the American Craft Council and a recipient of the UrbanGlass Award—Innovation in a Glassworking Technique.   Stankard's current exhibition From Flame to Flower: The Art of Paul J. Stankard can be seen at the Morris Museum, Morristown, New Jersey, now through February 4. A documentary film titled Paul J. Stankard: Flower and Flame by award-winning filmmaker Dan Collins, premiers on January 31. On March 16, the film will be shown at Salem County Community College, Carney's Point, New Jersey, at the International Flameworking Conference, presented there by Collins. Born in 1975, Carmen Lozar lives in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, where she maintains a studio and is a member of the art faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University. She has taught at Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Craft, Pittsburgh Glass School, Appalachian Center for Crafts, The Chrysler Museum, and the Glass Furnace in Istanbul, Turkey. She has had residencies at the Corning Museum of Glass and Penland School of Craft. Although she travels abroad to teach and share her love for glass – most recently to Turkey, Italy, and New Zealand – she always returns to her Midwestern roots. Lozar is represented by the Ken Saunders Gallery in Chicago, and her work is included in the permanent collection at Bergstrom-Mahler Museum of Glass, Neenah, Wisconsin. Besides continuing her work at Illinois Wesleyan University, Lozar will be teaching workshops at UrbanGlass, June 4 – 8, 2024, and at Ox Bow School of Craft, Saugatuck, Michigan, August 4 – 10, 2024. Menacing monkeys. Peeled bananas. Bad-tempered bears. Uniquely original Munnies. Daniel S. Coyle's whimsical, toy-inspired aesthetic in concert with mind-blowing skills on the torch have earned the artist a hefty 116K following on Instagram. The artist recently celebrated 12 years of being a full-time pipe maker. Coyle's work has been displayed in galleries around the world, and has been seen in print and web publications including Vice, Huffington Post, NY Times, and in the books This Is A Pipe and his self-published Munny Project book. Now residing in Western Massachusetts, he works alongside some of the state's top pipe makers. Coyle's 2024 events include: Community Bonfire (Maine), January 27; Michigan Glass Project, June 21 – 23: two-week intensive class at Corning Studios, Corning, New York, June 24 – July 5; Parlay Philly in September TBA; and Bad Boyz Do Basel 3 (Miami), September TBA. Creating playful objects and curious scenes inspired by childhood memories and dreams, Caterina Weintraub uses glass, a fragile and heavy material, to recreate iconic toys or re-imagine personal memories that evoke a sense of sentiment, wonder and discomfort. She utilizes a variety of techniques to create sculptures and installations in her Boston-based studio, Fiamma Glass. From intricate torch work to large-scale kiln castings and hot blown pieces, she chooses the process best suited to realize her vision. In 2024, Weintraub will participate in Habatat's Glass Coast Weekend, Sarasota, Florida, February 1 – 4; Glass52, International Glass Show, Habatat Gallery, Royal Oak, Michigan, May 5 – September 6; and the International Glass Show, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana, December 2 – February 18.  Enjoy this panel discussion about how these four artists crafted careers using the techniques and appeal of flameworking and where the process is headed into the next decade and beyond.     

This week guest is Korean-American ceramicist Michelle Im aka RATxCHICKS. Michelle was born in Atlanta, GA in 1984 to Kun Sook Im, a home-maker, and Jong Seong Im, an environmental engineer. She has one brother; Sewon Im, who is a financial consultant also living in the US. Her grandmother was a poet and calligraphy artist in South Korea. As a child the family moved around from Michigan to Boston and South Korea. Michelle returned to the US for college and since graduating with a degree in Biology and Art from The State University of New York at Buffalo, she has lived in New York City. She was named one of Ceramic Monthly's 2022 Emerging Artists and is an award recipient of the American Craft Council's 2022 Emerging Artist Cohort Program as well as a grant recipient of the Center for Craft's Teaching Artist Cohort in 2023. Michelle was a Visiting Artist in Residence at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in 2022 and she was selected for a Distinguished Fellowship at Penland School of Craft during her winter residency in 2023. Before becoming a full time ceramicist, Michelle spent time in the service industry and since 2021 she has had her own studio in Queens where she lives with her partner, artist, John Almanza and her dog Inky. She teaches ceramics at Greenwich House Pottery in Manhattan, NY. Michelle on Instagram: @ratxchicksMichelle's website: https://ratxchicks.club/Michelle's PlaylistWu Tang ClanTalking HeadsThe Velvet UndergroundKendrick LamarRichie HawtinJeff MillsMike ParkerLSDXOXO Michelle's favorite female artists:Christian JoyHaylie JimenezSydnie JimenezKristy MorenoSoojin ChoiMary CassattJoanna PowellEun Ha PaekSulo BeeShea Burke…and many more. Host: Chris StaffordProduced by Hollowell StudiosFollow @theaartpodcast on InstagramEmail: hollowellstudios@gmail.comThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4769409/advertisement

This week guest is Korean-American ceramicist Michelle Im aka RATxCHICKS. Michelle was born in Atlanta, GA in 1984 to Kun Sook Im, a home-maker, and Jong Seong Im, an environmental engineer. She has one brother; Sewon Im, who is a financial consultant also living in the US. Her grandmother was a poet and calligraphy artist in South Korea. As a child the family moved around from Michigan to Boston and South Korea. Michelle returned to the US for college and since graduating with a degree in Biology and Art from The State University of New York at Buffalo, she has lived in New York City. She was named one of Ceramic Monthly's 2022 Emerging Artists and is an award recipient of the American Craft Council's 2022 Emerging Artist Cohort Program as well as a grant recipient of the Center for Craft's Teaching Artist Cohort in 2023. Michelle was a Visiting Artist in Residence at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in 2022 and she was selected for a Distinguished Fellowship at Penland School of Craft during her winter residency in 2023. Before becoming a full time ceramicist, Michelle spent time in the service industry and since 2021 she has had her own studio in Queens where she lives with her partner, artist, John Almanza and her dog Inky. She teaches ceramics at Greenwich House Pottery in Manhattan, NY.Michelle on Instagram: @ratxchicksMichelle's website: https://ratxchicks.club/Michelle's PlaylistWu Tang ClanTalking HeadsThe Velvet UndergroundKendrick LamarRichie HawtinJeff MillsMike ParkerLSDXOXO Michelle's favorite female artists:Christian JoyHaylie JimenezSydnie JimenezKristy MorenoSoojin ChoiMary CassattJoanna PowellEun Ha PaekSulo BeeShea Burke…and many more.Host: Chris StaffordProduced by Hollowell StudiosFollow @theaartpodcast on InstagramEmail: hollowellstudios@gmail.com

Rob interviewed Gwynne Rukenbrod Smith and Sehar Peerzada for the American Craft Council, their work and what to expect from the American Craft Made Marketplace's return to Baltimore. Gwynne Rukenbrod SmithGwynne Rukenbrod Smith, a widely respected member of the national craft community, has been named senior director of programs and partnerships at the American Craft CouncilSehar PeerzadaPatricia Sehar Peerzada creates clothing influenced by traditional sources in Africa, Asia, Native America, and Europe. She often uses natural fibers which she hand prints using the ancient art of block printing which she learned studying traditional arts in Pakistan. Controlling the placement, intensity, and content of the prints in her limited edition separates and ensembles, makes each piece a wearable art treasure. Concentrating on the drape and fall of the fabric, Sehar flatters the figure of all types of women with her simple, unique shapes. Peerzada's work has been carried in Nordstrom, Toast and Strawberries, Origins, C'Est La Vie, Metamorphosis, Sankofa, Zawadi, and many other boutiques. Her lines, Urban Masala and Saharah, have been featured in magazines, books, and fashion blogs such as Ebony, Heart and Soul, the Washington Post, Dubai Times, Pakistani Glamour, Today's Black Woman, "Threads of Time: The Fabric of History," Essence Online, Guyana Fete BHF Network, CIAA Africa, and many more. Her work has been worn by Sweet Honey In The Rock, Aretha Franklin, T'Keyah Crystal Kemah, Danny Glover, and others. Sehar is a local artist participating in the The American Craft Council (ACC) emerging artist program. American Craft Made Marketplace Returns to BaltimoreAmerican Craft Council to bring 350 contemporary craft artists together March 3-5, 2023 The American Craft Council (ACC), a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting craft and its artists, is bringing its in-person flagship event to the Baltimore Convention Center March 3-5, 2023. The three-day American Craft Made marketplace is a celebration of all things handmade featuring a juried selection of artists from across the country working in a variety of mediums, including ceramics, glass, jewelry, clothing, furniture, and basketry.  With 350 contemporary craft artists selected following an application and jury process, the 2023 event will allow collectors, supporters and enthusiasts of design, craft and art to discover and shop the best quality craft in the country. This year's marketplace will once again feature the Emerging Artist Program, an initiative that provides a pathway for early-career artists into ACC's established craft marketplaces. With lower-cost booths, extensive exhibitor support, and marketplace award opportunities, this program gives emerging artists an unparalleled opportunity to grow their clientele and careers. The event will also include ACC's School-to-Market program which bridges the gap between higher educational curriculum in craft and the marketplace by providing undergraduate and graduate students a public venue for a curated, collective exhibition of their work.  The Truth in This Art podcast's current season is sponsored by The Gutierrez Memorial Fund and The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, both of which are dedicated to enhancing the quality of life in Baltimore and beyond. The Gutierrez Memorial Fund focuses on supporting artists and art organizations that serve Maryland communities, while The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation invests in innovative individuals, projects, and ideas. We appreciate their support in making this season happen. ★ Support this podcast ★

Christian Vistan and Josephine Lee illuminate the threads that connect their work and the ways that materials and water serve as keystones to both of their practices. Both of these artists, one working in painting and the other in bio-materials find that they share interests in the roles of regeneration, repair, and nourishment in their work. Josephine Lee Informed by a lifetime of movement through the United States, Canada, and South Korea, Josephine Lee’s interdisciplinary practice addresses the psychic violence of cultural assimilation and naturalization through migration, alongside issues of ecological and racial justice within technology. Lee received an MFA in Fine Arts from the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons, and is currently receiving a practice-based PhD in Contemporary Arts from the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. Lee has exhibited in Canada and the United States, and is a recipient of funding and awards from the BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Vera G. Sculpture Award, Oscar Kolin MFA Fellowship, American Craft Council, and College of Arts Association. Lee resides and works on the unceded and occupied ancestral and traditional lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Christian Vistan Christian Vistan is an artist and curator originally from the peninsula now known as Bataan, Philippines, currently living and working in Vancouver and Delta, British Columbia on xwməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, Sc̓əwaθn Məsteyəxʷ, and Səl̓ílwətaʔ territories. In their artworks, they translate embodied experiences of distance and diaspora into hybrid forms that fold together elements and processes that involve memory, place, poetry, and abstraction. They are particularly interested in working with water as a material in painting and in personal, familial, and migrant histories. They make paintings, texts, and exhibitions, and often collaborate with other artists, writers, and curators. Their artwork and curatorial projects have been presented in galleries in Canada, US and the Philippines. They received their BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2017. With Aubin Kwon, they run dreams comma delta, a room for artist projects and exhibitions located inside Vistan’s family home in Delta, BC.

What you'll learn in this episode:   How Wayne used his trip around the world to learn the art and science of metalsmithing Why it's important for emerging metalsmiths to understand they are part of a global mosaic of creatives How Wayne made jewelry for the Grateful Dead and Blues Traveler Why Wayne is selective about the jewelry shows he attends Why teachers benefit from living as an artisan before teaching   About Wayne Werner Jeweler, goldsmith, and educator Wayne Werner is a third-generation metalsmith from Maryland. He has been jewelry maker for over 30 years with clients worldwide.   Wayne Werner has traveled around the world to learn with metal workers from Italy and Egypt to Java and Bali. Specializing in cold forging precious metals, Werner has incorporated the traditional techniques of gold and platinum smithing with his artistic vision of paying homage to the fertility cults of the ancient world.      Werner's work explores the relationship to metals liquid opus and the opus of mankind, both being a product of the earth cooling down. Through his work Werner attempts to remind people of the miracle of life and the cosmic happening that we all are.      Primarily making a living retailing his work, Werner has participated in over 250 high-end craft shows nationally. He has received many awards for his work including the World Gold Council's Gold Distinction award and the MJSA Vision award for Mokume Gane. Werner is a former instructor at the Fuji Studio in Florence, Italy, and was adjunct faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore for 17 years. He has also taught over 100 workshops in universities and craft schools around the country. In 2006 he was asked to demonstrate his craft at The Mint Museum of Craft and Design in Charlotte, NC, an event marking his 40th birthday. He is founder and host of THE ALCHEMIST PICNIC, a metalsmithing retreat at Touchstone Center for Craft, now in its 6th year. Werner is also an accomplished musician who has appeared on both television and movies as himself. His clients are some of the most interesting people on earth. Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com Additional Resources: Website Instagram Facebook Transcript Known for his psychedelic designs that reference ancient myths, fertility cults and the splendor of the sun, it's no wonder that metalsmith Wayne Werner has connected with clients like the Grateful Dead. A self-taught jeweler who learned traditional techniques by visiting metalsmiths around the world, Wayne has found success by selling his pieces at craft shows. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about his tips for building a long-lasting career in the jewelry industry; how he chooses the shows he attends; and why metalsmiths are all part of a global creative community. Read the episode transcript here.   Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven't heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com. Today my guest is Wayne Werner. Wayne is a very unusual and accomplished goldsmith. He is self-taught. As well as a goldsmith, he's an educator, artist and world traveler. Welcome back.   Wayne: I'm so lucky to have that energy be part of me profiting from a passion I have. I'm probably diverging. I'll have a sip of bourbon.    Sharon: You were talking about developing your niches. One of the things you told me was that you limit shows. You say you pick and choose your shows so you don't have to go to a hundred shows. Yes?   Wayne: Yes. I'm at the ripe old age of 56 now. I started when I was, I think, 21. I've done over 350 shows. I did actually count them a few years ago. There were 350 shows all over the United States. I had some gallery representation for a while. It was something I didn't need as much of if I were doing lots of good retail shows. These are everything from a museum show and sale to the American Craft Council's show and sales to arts festivals or even just art in the park. I had gone out and done these and ran myself ragged. I decided what I was willing to do and not willing to do.    In the course of that, I met my wonderful partner, Barbara Bayne, who is also a silver and goldsmith. Now we talk to each other and have these little executive board meetings in the hallway or wherever in the house. We say, “What do we want to do this winter? Let's apply to some shows in Florida. Where do we want to find ourselves in August? How about Sausalito Arts Festival”—when that was happening—"or go up to the mountains in Idaho.” Now Barbara works with me, and she has a lot to say about setting the course. We go out and do shows in spurts.    She's really good at throwing the applications out there, and we're really good at traveling together. Sometimes we'll share a booth, or we'll have separate booths and just help one another, but we're getting really selective. There are a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's places we want to be because they're pleasant at that time of the year. Sometimes it's the safety or the not safety of being in a big city. I have to acknowledge that running around America with all your work in a backpack can create some stress, let's say. I've never been robbed, but I'm always aware.    Now we're doing between five and eight shows a year, the ones we want to do, the ones where we love and respect the promoter and we feel the love and respect back from the promoter. That's very important to me, because what I really want is that warm feeling. I made it and you bought it, and there's no middleman. I have grown to cherish that. It's become a focal point of my business, to say, “I make it, you buy it.” There's nobody between the love or the affection towards my work.    Michael Good grabbed me and said, “You know what your job is, Wayne? Your job is to connect and reconnect with the people that connect with you and your work.” He walked away and I said, “Wow! Good lord, that's it! He just boiled it down.” I thought about the Ramones; they're a punk rock band. They knew like four chords. All the songs sound about the same. It's just a bunch of guys with leather jackets, but they found a way to connect and reconnect with people that connected with them. They weren't the greatest at what they did, but they kept doing it and they made it available to their fans, their people, by doing shows and things like that.    I've done a lot of shows around the United States. A lot of them were not worth my time, but I did learn from them. At a lot of them I met the most amazing traveling artisans of my life. The biggest and best influences I ever got were from visiting my mentors between shows and seeing their studios. I'd say, “Wow! This is what you get to do for a living.” A couple of them said, “Yeah, it's a living, but you've got to be on top of doing this stuff. You've got to have that business thing going.”   Sharon: Did you start becoming a teacher and educator because you wanted to share what you were doing? Was it because they inspired you, or it was happenstance?   Wayne: It was happenstance. It was a combination of a number of things. It was like finding another facet to your existence, another flickering point of what you were doing. In 1996, when I traveled around the world, I went to Florence, Italy and fell in with Kathy Knipple and Fuji Yamamoto. They had the Fuji Studio in Florence, Italy. I did a little residency there. They asked me to teach, and I said, “O.K., I haven't done that much teaching.” In the back of my mind, I always felt that some teachers should make a living as an artisan before they teach. I thought, “Well, I'm going to try to teach,” and I stumbled through it with Fuji Studio.   When I was back in Maryland, within a year or two after doing that, a friend of mine was working at the Maryland Institute of Art. It's a pretty prestigious private art school. It's a cornerstone of Baltimore and all the artisans there. I said, “Yeah, I'll come down and teach at the Maryland Institute of Art, but I have no master's degree. I have no degree in art at all.” They said, “That's O.K. We're going to do it by recommending you. We're going to offer you an adjunct position.” I didn't know what the hell that meant, but I knew this much: The person who hired me said, “You're going to make some waves here because you've got a job teaching with no degree.” I said, “Then I want to do it. But I'm warning you. I'm going to use you all as my guinea pigs. I'm going to learn to teach here and get paid for it, and then I'm going to go and teach all over the United States at art centers and craft campuses like my mentors, like the people I know that are mainly artisans, but they go out and teach a few workshops.”    So, I started offering the workshops. The first thing I learned immediately was I wasn't a teacher. I was a maker. People got to watch me work and then I helped them work, but I would always say, “Mistakes are good. You need to make them. I'm not here to make your piece for you.” Teaching was just another facet to polish up, and it's been very rewarding. It's been a little frustrating. I probably learned more about myself than anybody in the class doing metalwork, but I cherish the students and young people.    These workshops are all ages, so you learn how to be in a group environment where you're not in control. It's very different than being in the studio or being at an art show. I joked and said, “At least in the studio, I can leave or ask somebody to leave.” When you're in a room with 10 people and they paid money to learn to set stones, I'm a jester in the deck or a loose cannon. I've got to watch what I say. I can't joke around as much. There are powers that be that won't appreciate certain things I might say or do.    It's interesting seeing somebody on the path they're on, and then I get to play the part of the person who gets to take them a little further down their path. It could be somebody who's just retired that always wanted to make a ring, or some 20-something-year-old kid that I look at and think, “He reminds me of me when I was that age. What an asshole he's going to end up being. He knows it all and he doesn't know anything,” and then I get to be the big brother or the mentor figure. I've got some great relationships like that all over the country, all over the world now. I tell people, “Call me.” I've made that mistake before. “Call me. I'm your pal. You don't owe me anything. Call me.”    I'll tell you this funny story. In 1986, I sold my work in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead concert for $20.   Sharon: Say that again. You sold what? Something for $20?   Wayne: Yeah, I sold hippie jewelry in a parking lot when I was young. Within 10 years from selling hippie jewelry in a parking lot at a Grateful Dead show, I was selling to a gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City. That still blows my mind, but anyhow, last summer, I went up to Philadelphia and I swear I saw myself. I met this young kid from Idaho. He was doing some crystal wrapping and casting. I said, “Wow, man, it's like meeting myself years ago.” The young man came to my house a few days after this concert, and I gave him a bunch of tools and a little goldsmithing lesson. It feels great. It really makes me feel good.   Sharon: It makes you feel good because you're helping to put somebody on a path?   Wayne: Yeah. There's a vibrant community of makers around the country, making things and making jewelry, but goldsmiths and platinum smiths and stone setters, there's real demand for it. There's a big DIY movement that's been happening for many years, but there are going to be plenty of jobs for someone who wants to be self-sustaining as a metalsmith if they have experience in goldsmithing and stone setting and what I would call applicable skills to the trade. Now, you take those and do that and make a coin, but then you have money to go out and do far-out, really weird things or explore some other aspect of your libra. I'm a Libra, so I look for that balance. I still size rings and do antique restoration, but at the same time, I'm making pieces for an upcoming show I'm doing at the Boca Museum for an upcoming touring exhibition. I don't make money off my art jewelry is what I'm trying to say. I don't think my interesting pieces pay my rent and keep my boat afloat. I have to do production work to have at a show, and I do some repair and antique restoration. I spread it out.   That's kind of the thing I like to instill in these little creatures that say, “I'm going to be a metalsmith.” I say, “Well, if you have this fantasy like I did about having a surreal job with rainbows and butterflies and psychedelic lights and everybody's going to throw money at you, well guess what? You'll come down off that cloud and you're going to say, ‘Oh shit, today I've got to sweep to floor. Today, I've got to apply to shows. I've got to do my taxes or keep myself busy.'” That serpent that eats its own tail, that is the death of itself.   Sharon: Is that why you say you're the joker in the pack, the joker in the deck? You've used that expression with me.   Wayne: I think you had been to my website and looked at some of these crazy little pods and this fertility goddess worship I try to bring into my work. I heard a great word the other day, “cryptographic.” They're little stories or things I like to put down about my fascination with life, with sperm swimming to eggs or our liquid opus, everything being liquid. A lot of my pieces, they're sexy; they're fluid; they're pods; they're coming from an ancient fertility goddess world. I always thought the joker in the king's court was pretty cool because he could be a fool and make a fool of himself, but at the same time he could speak divine truth, and because it was a ha-ha joke, he wasn't put to death by the king.    When I talk about this infinite jest in making pieces that revolve around how amazing it is to be alive in the first place, a lot of people say, “Oh, this joker's just making these little designs, pressing buttons, trying to get people to think about stuff.” That's really what I want. I don't mind doing that as long as the message gets through. I think you'd have to look at my work to delve into it and understand that, yeah, I'm putting these things together. They are sperm; they are egg; they are all about life and the creation of life. Joker in the deck. If that's the job to do today, I'm here showing up and punching my card.    Sharon: Do you think about that when you start a piece? Do you have something in mind when you make a piece of jewelry?   Wayne: Yeah. The last cool piece I made—I think I sent a picture of it—was for the Tellus Museum. Elyse Zorn Karlin had a wonderful show at the Tellus Museum, and she was nice enough to tell me what it was about. It was called “Jewelry in the Space Age.” They were looking for alternative materials, so I used some meteorite in a couple of pieces. With the meteorite, I also did this little design in the middle of a pod in the form of an egg being born in the top. In the middle of the pod was a little sun. The sun was shaped like little sperm swimming at the center of the piece, so it looked like sun rays. This was something that Rick Griffin, a psychedelic poster artist that worked for the Grateful Dead—he did the Aoxomoxoa album cover for the Dead—he had done that. So, I threw that into the piece.   The curator came to me and said, “O.K., how does this fit into my show?” I said, “Well, there's meteorite in the piece and it talks about star seeds and things like that. If you go back to ancient Egypt, you end up with this idea of splendor solis, the splendor of the sun, and how we are all creatures that are made possible by the splendor of the sun, the fertility of the earth, plants, animals, everything. It all goes back to the sun and sun worship. I used this sun pattern that came from ancient Egypt. I used meteorite, but I also wanted to use these other symbols of eggs and being born and gestation phases and things like that.” She scratched her head and said, “Nobody's going to get that. Nobody's going to see that in your work.” I said, “That's O.K. If they want to talk about it, that's O.K.,” but I do think about that.   I've been told by different people, “You've got to get away from this theme of sex and fertility and things like that. You should get away from that theme,” and then I said to myself, “Well, why? This is an ancient idea. Hermes and Mercury and Thoth and all these enlightened deities, that's what they were talking about.” I try to stay true to it, but it creeps in all the time. I want to try to be a visionary goldsmith. I would like to have people scratch their heads a little bit, but whenever they get into it, they say, “Oh, that's interesting.”    Take a second and think that we're all cosmic miracles and little happenings under the splendor of the sun. If people thought about that more, I think they'd think less about walking into a grocery store and shooting up a bunch of people or going into a school and doing this. It's so disturbing to watch the news every night and see some of this creep up. If we would all just take a minute and walk around with our jaw open and go, “Wow! Far out! We're all a bunch of little miracles and cosmic happenings.” We need to find a way for this to work, for us to appreciate each other and live with each other. Deep down a rabbit hole, Alice. Here we go.   Sharon: Is that the suggestion or advice you would give someone at the beginning? Somebody who says, “I don't know. This is a really hard path. Should I do this or should I go get a job?”   Wayne: Like advice for young people?   Sharon: What's your advice for emerging jewelers, let's say. People who are just emerging, just starting out.   Wayne: I'd say you're just as lucky as I am to have found this stuff and picked it up and touched it and for it to touch you back. Automatically they're lucky. Some people aren't going to do this for a living. They just want to explore the craft. Some people are like, “No, this is my living.” I think a young person needs to know what they know and what they don't know, which means they can go about making jewelry with their skillset, but when it gets out of their comfort zone, maybe repair or doing something else for somebody, they need to know when not to do that. Hopefully they have in their group of friends or their tribe an older person or a younger person who knows how to do that.    Another thing—I had this conversation with a fellow not long ago because he was frustrated. I said, “Look, we are a big mosaic. Metalsmithing and jewelry making is a big mosaic, and we all make up the picture. You're never going to know it all, do it all, be it all. It's not all about you or me. This is about a collective community that has been lucky enough to find materials and to have the patience to make things. Look at it like a big mosaic, and don't be so upset that all eyes aren't on you all the time, because it's not going to be that way. It's very flattering to be speaking to you right now at a heart-to-heart level. It's very flattering, but tomorrow, I'm going to be just another monkey on the vine of this big banyan tree of other metalsmiths.”    I have to realize that even the metalwork I don't like, I have to find something about that metalsmith or that work that I appreciate or respect, just because they're out there doing this stuff. The big mosaic is something I like to remind people of. I like to remind young people that it's the jewelry business. It's half business, half art, and if you have to split your day up that way, have at it. I'm a musician as well, and one of the best things I learned from one of my musician friends was, “You've got to be it all the time. You've got to take care of your business. You've got to plan what you're doing six to nine months from now today.”    Today, you have to concentrate on where you're going to be six to nine months or a year or five years from now. You need to consciously address that, whether it's applying to shows or getting your résumé together or getting slides taken or documenting or putting it on, whatever the hell it is. You need to think about what's far down the road, and then stop and go to the bench and do whatever the task of the day is, making jewelry or whatever. You need to have time to wear the hat of the businessperson. If you're not willing to do that, you've got to get somebody to do that for you, because business is everything; everything business. If you want to have a surreal job and be surreal busy, you've got to ride that surreal white horse to that job and do that job.    Sharon: That's a great piece of advice—well, pieces of advice, but the last one resonates with me in other areas, not just jewelry. Thank you very much for being here today, Wayne. I greatly appreciate it.   Wayne: Thank you. Again, I'm flattered to be here, and I love what you're doing.   Sharon: We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.   Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

What you'll learn in this episode:   How Wayne used his trip around the world to learn the art and science of metalsmithing Why it's important for emerging metalsmiths to understand they are part of a global mosaic of creatives How Wayne made jewelry for the Grateful Dead and Blues Traveler Why Wayne is selective about the jewelry shows he attends Why teachers benefit from living as an artisan before teaching   About Wayne Werner Jeweler, goldsmith, and educator Wayne Werner is a third-generation metalsmith from Maryland. He has been jewelry maker for over 30 years with clients worldwide.   Wayne Werner has traveled around the world to learn with metal workers from Italy and Egypt to Java and Bali. Specializing in cold forging precious metals, Werner has incorporated the traditional techniques of gold and platinum smithing with his artistic vision of paying homage to the fertility cults of the ancient world.      Werner's work explores the relationship to metals liquid opus and the opus of mankind, both being a product of the earth cooling down. Through his work Werner attempts to remind people of the miracle of life and the cosmic happening that we all are.      Primarily making a living retailing his work, Werner has participated in over 250 high-end craft shows nationally. He has received many awards for his work including the World Gold Council's Gold Distinction award and the MJSA Vision award for Mokume Gane. Werner is a former instructor at the Fuji Studio in Florence, Italy, and was adjunct faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore for 17 years. He has also taught over 100 workshops in universities and craft schools around the country. In 2006 he was asked to demonstrate his craft at The Mint Museum of Craft and Design in Charlotte, NC, an event marking his 40th birthday. He is founder and host of THE ALCHEMIST PICNIC, a metalsmithing retreat at Touchstone Center for Craft, now in its 6th year. Werner is also an accomplished musician who has appeared on both television and movies as himself. His clients are some of the most interesting people on earth.   Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com Additional Resources: Website Instagram Facebook Transcript Known for his psychedelic designs that reference ancient myths, fertility cults and the splendor of the sun, it's no wonder that metalsmith Wayne Werner has connected with clients like the Grateful Dead. A self-taught jeweler who learned traditional techniques by visiting metalsmiths around the world, Wayne has found success by selling his pieces at craft shows. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about his tips for building a long-lasting career in the jewelry industry; how he chooses the shows he attends; and why metalsmiths are all part of a global creative community. Read the episode transcript here.   Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it's released later this week.    Today my guest is Wayne Werner. Wayne is a very unusual and accomplished goldsmith. He is self-taught. As well as a goldsmith, he's an educator, an artist and a world traveler. He has traveled from Italy to Egypt, Java and Bali to learn different metalworking techniques and to be the best possible metalsmith. We'll hear all about his journey today. Wayne, welcome to the program.   Wayne: Thank you, Sharon. I'm flattered to be here.    Sharon: Thank you so much for being here. Tell us about your jewelry journey. You came from a family of goldsmiths, you said.   Wayne: Yes. I hope the journey has not already happened. I think it's still happening as we speak. But, yeah, I came from a family of makers, I would say. My one grandfather worked on the World Trade Center in New York and the George Washington Bridge among other things. He was an ironworker. My grandfather on my dad's side worked for the government. He worked for Aberdeen Proving Ground. He did metalwork. He made hand grenades and guns that shot around corners and weird things like that.    My mom was a decorator, but it was my uncle Russ Springer who really blew my mind and affected me when I was a child. Russ Springer, a German immigrant on the east side of Baltimore, was a watchmaker, clockmaker and repairman. He made jewelry, but he also did movie projections. He was a projectionist. He did things like help put movies on airplanes back in the 60s. When I went to see uncle Russ, he was working at the Essex Movie Theater on the east side of Baltimore. My mother took me there. She would leave me at the movie theater because he was working in the projection room, and she would go shopping. I was there to watch 101 Dalmatians, but Russ had a work bench in there, and while he was running the projectors in this small projection room, he was working on watches and clocks and carvings. Imagine being six years old, walking into a tiny room with flickering lights and big wheels turning, movies turning, and there's an old man with a skinny moustache and a German physique hunched over a workbench over little mechanical things that look just like that movie projector. I didn't want to watch the movie; I wanted to be in this little room with flickering lights and my uncle Russ. For me, that was the most fascinating. It was something out of a carnival, but all on a microscopic level. It really affected me.    The highlight of my six-year-old life was to go to Russ' house. He had a hundred clocks, and they would all chime or go off or do something. If I could just be at his house to hear all these clocks chime and go off at noon. It was Pink Floyd time. It was bing, bong, boom. It was so exciting, the anticipation and all that. So, Russ Springer was the one to hand me some wax as a child and light a fire of fascination with small things.    One thing led to the other. I started sculpting with Sculpey and things like that. When I was a young kid, I'd go to Bethany Beach and pretend to be a sculptor. I'd hang out under the boardwalk and do sculptures out of clay. Lo and behold, a man came up and talked to me and gave me a commission—I think it was for six dollars—and these little things fuel your fire. So, I was sculpting and doing wax carvings.    When I hit my teenage years, I was really getting into wax carving. The Grateful Dead came to town and my friends took me to a Grateful Dead concert. There were all these crafts in the parking lot and really cool counterculture stuff, so I started doing little wax carvings at 17, 18 years old and selling them in the parking lot of Grateful Dead concerts. I ended up selling work to the Psychedelic Shop in San Francisco and the Psychedelic Solution in New York City. These pieces were $12 to $20 each, but it fueled the fire for the next step.    That next step was to discover the American Craft Council. That was a really enlightening thing for me. I had a teacher at community college who was upset that I wasn't an art major, and he said, “Go down to the Baltimore American Craft Council's show. I want you to see the business of art, of jewelers and silversmiths, glassblowers, leatherworkers, all those kinds of people.” So, the American Craft Council in Baltimore was the first place I experienced contemporary craft.   Sharon: Did that make you want to go around the world?   Wayne: It's funny you should say that, but it did. I found myself, God forbid, growing up and needing to make money and do something, and I felt like I was getting good at metalwork. I was in California. I went to the Revere Academy for a few classes. I wanted to be in San Francisco around the Psychedelic Shop, but I was getting involved with shows. I met some successful craftspeople, and I realized it was something to commit to. Between the ages of about 22 and 29, I began doing ACC shows. I wanted to do crafts at Lincoln Center, which was interesting, but I put the brakes on it. I thought to myself, “I see how this could become you.” Becoming a craftsperson was a commitment. I would do it, but it was a commitment. Before I committed to being in a bunch of galleries and doing a bunch of shows, I wanted to pause and take a trip around the world. At the time, I had just done a commission for the band Blues Traveler. They commissioned me to do platinum rings for the band. I had worked for other rock bands before.   To get back to your question, if it made me want to travel around the world, absolutely. My 30th birthday gift to myself was to take a trip around the world, and I did that. I planned it for close to a year. This was 1995. I wrote letters to some galleries, artists and schools saying I had an intent to travel and visit these places. I literally paused my creative endeavors of trying to have a studio and trying to be a contemporary American craftsman. I paused and said, “Wait, let me take a trip around the world first, because I don't think I will be able to do it later.” This was pre-millennium and everything else, pre-9/11. I knew in my stomach that in the future, I felt like the world wouldn't be as easily traveled. Does that make sense?   Sharon: Yes.   Wayne: How did I decide to do that? I just wanted to do it. I wanted to say I did it. I wanted to visit metalsmithing places and villages, everything from King Tut. I wanted to see King Tut. I wanted to walk the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. I wanted to go see the metalsmiths in Java and Bali and get into their world, walk in and out of the door, at least for a day.   Sharon: Did you know they were metalsmiths? Did you know they had something you wanted to learn, something specific? Or did you just want to see what they did?   Wayne: A little bit of everything. One of the first things I did was go to Goldsmiths' Hall in London and see the show there. I had some friends there, made some friends, interviewed people like Wendy Ramshaw and Gerda Flöckinger. I was meeting people and I would interview them. I ended up in Pforzheim, Germany and Italy, but where it really got interesting was when I went to Egypt. I was in Cairo hanging around with metalsmiths in the market, who had all the time in the world but not the technology.    One of my destinations I had to see was Java, to see the kris-makers of Java. They used to make knives out of meteorite and iron. They're kind of supernatural and super fascinating. A kris blade is something that every Indonesian man possesses. It was the same thing with the Balinese doing granulation work. I had it loosely mapped out in my head. I had written my letters. I'd gotten some letters back saying, “You're welcome to come here,” or “You're welcome to come use the bench for the week.” It was really cool that I found this global family, not just the American craftsman family, but this global family. They're still there. They're out there for all of us.    Sharon: When you came back, did you find the travels influenced what you made or how you made it?   Wayne: Yeah, it really did. First of all, I realized there was some kind of metallic cultural heritage in different regions around the world. We talk about how in Toledo, Spain, they do inlaid work. I already mentioned the kris blades, Balinese granulation. That influenced me, knowing that being a metalsmith was being part of a cultural heritage. Being from Baltimore, the American Craft Council show was so important at the time. I realized I was a hammer person. I ended up using a hammer and forging when I did sculpting, and that led to Douglas Legenhausen, who I worked for. He worked for Ron Hayes Pearson. So, I found myself in that little tribe of makers.    The other thing I was developing at the time was not just making craft, but I was trying to bring in ancient techniques or ancient religious ideas. A lot of the travels I did revolved around going to temples like the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Turkey and the Temple of Isis in south Egypt. Those were fertility temples, and a lot of my work was a quest to document how amazing it was to be alive and how mother nature and all these things were such a force. That was the story I was telling. It got influenced by these ancient temples and religious things. The facts that mattered to ancient culture were written in metal or stone. It all started churning up, fermenting, but it all started with my fascination with psychedelic art and the art of Rick Griffin. He was a poster artist, and he did a lot of work that revolved around these fertility cults and temples. So, did it influence my work? How couldn't it influence my work?    You also have to accept the fact that there are some things that are much larger than any one maker. I realized I was in this mosaic of creative people; they just happened to be metalsmiths. They could have been musicians or poets or whatever, but they were metalsmiths. It was a crazy, life-changing adventure. It was survival. There were a lot of things that went wrong. There were a lot of things that happened that I never would have guessed. I didn't think I would have ended up in a workshop in Cairo, Egypt, looking over the shoulder of someone who was doing filigree work the way their father and father and father probably five or six generations before him had done.    It was amazing to me to realize that if the workshop had a dirt floor, the people in that workshop were very in tune with their creative process and the material. When you got into a room with a concrete floor and all these fancy machines, I think it really separated them from the earth and the earth, air, fire and water scenario. I found that the primitive metalsmiths were more tuned into their material. It's when I started to really pay attention to the material and what it could do, what it would do, and especially what I could and couldn't do with the material. Did that answer your question?   Sharon: Yeah, you did. I'm wondering if what you're saying is what resonated with the rock musicians you also talk to. Maybe you're making a different ring, but it's a different story or a different piece of jewelry, I guess.   Wayne: We'll back up to Psychedelic Solution. I was in New York. Jacaeber Kastor was his name, and he had a gallery where you could buy rock-and-roll collectable things, not only collectable posters, but original artwork from different artists like Rick Griffin and H. R. Giger. I guess they're psychedelic artists, outsider artists, pop or visionary artists, whatever you want to call them. I also sold to the Psychedelic Solution in San Francisco. That was more of a head shop, but they had some collectable posters. Through both of them, I met a lot of interesting people. I was just a lucky kid who had a relationship with his creativity, which happened to be metal, and things would happen.    Bill Graham and some of the Grateful Dead would have me do pieces. I met Jerry Garcia's guitar maker, and then Jerry Garcia said, “I'd like to have some little pins with my logo on them. I'm going to give these away.” It was interesting to be near those people. Blues Traveler, I made some platinum rings from them. Prior to that, they were silver rings. I found myself growing comfortable around certain bands. I remember riding on the road with one of these musicians and I said, “Man, you've got the coolest job ever,” and he said, “No, you've got the coolest job ever. You're playing with fire. You're sitting at home. You're listening to records, staying in your studio. You don't have to deal with what I have to deal with.” It's kind of cool to have a rock musician say, “No, you have the coolest job, not me.”    They were into the same stuff. When I told somebody where I traveled, I said, “Yeah, I saw the pyramids a couple of times and I went to see my cousin, King Tut.” He said, “Wow, man, that's great. Make me something. Bring these designs forward. Reinterpret them.” Again, I'm just a regular guy who got fascinated with metalsmithing and history and world religions and things like that. Whenever I sat down to write a story, it was in metal. It was all part of the fascination. I was a guy on the hustle, Sharon, like you wouldn't believe. I was not, in any uncertain terms, going to get a regular job and have a regular life. I thought there was a way to have a surreal job and a surreal life as long as you were willing to work at it. To me, the artists, whether they were musicians or whatever, they were professionally themselves. They were outsiders. They may have been socially inept, but they figured out a way to be professionally themselves. That was the goal. “The harder you work, the more luck you will have,” as someone said to me. I said, “All right. I'm going to go work hard at this surreal thing I have going on.”   Sharon: Is that when you decided to go into jewelry making, because he said it was a neat job? Did you realize, “This my thing. This is the way I am creative the way I work hard and grow”?   Wayne: I think any creative person has a time in their life when they have to make a decision. Do you bet it all on your creativity, and then you have the business aspect of this creativity? Because business, no matter what you do as an artist, is super important. They call it the music business; they call it the art business, because of half of it is art and half of it is business. For me, I got to a point where I realized I was getting some chops. Honestly, I was told by JoAnne Brown, who ran the American Craft Council's shows, “Wayne, you're one of the youngest goldsmiths to do these shows as a goldsmith. Not as a silversmith, as a goldsmith. You're really betting it all here.” I just had to laugh. I said, “I'm totally unemployable. I've tried it and I can't work for people. I have to figure this out.” All I wanted to do was find my niches and find other facets of a creative career to go into.   It's funny; I don't know if I made the decision or the decision made me. I swear to God, if this didn't find me, I would have had a very different path in life. Probably it wouldn't have worked out so good, but I love it. I love the craft. I love the makers I work with. I love everything about it. Alan Revere said something I thought was asinine at the time. He said, “Wayne, you're becoming a metalsmith. You could become a lawyer and people would come see you when they're in trouble. You could be a doctor and people would come see you when they're sick, but you know what? You're going to be a metalsmith and a jeweler. People are going to come see you when they're in love. Whether it's a wedding band or a gift or whatever, they're going to come see you when they're in love. You're going to be part of their love, their relationship.” I looked at him like he had two heads, of all the things to say.   After years of doing this, every time I make a wedding band, I thank the customer. I say, “You know what? Thank you.” The ultimate compliment I can get is for someone to say, “Make my wedding ring.” This week I'm restoring a wedding band that's close to a hundred years old. It was someone's grandma's, and that's pretty cool. I have to admit I'm so lucky to have that energy be part of me profiting from a passion I have.   Sharon: We will have photos posted on the website. Please had to the JewelryJourney.com to check them out.

This year, flameworking pioneer Paul Stankard will celebrate his 80th birthday. To commemorate more than six decades at the torch, the artist joined Talking Out Your Glass podcast for a return visit featuring a discussion about his contributions to glass and art, including his new book, Inspiration from the Art of Paul J. Stankard: A Window into My Studio and Soul. Jack Wax, artist and head of the glass department at The Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, wrote the following about Stankard's latest and fourth book: “Paul Joseph Stankard is the living master of the art of the botanical paperweight. There ought not to be any argument as to where he stands in the history of this endeavor, an undertaking that dates back to the mid-19th century and the famed Venetian glassmaker Pietro Bigaglia. He has, as a noted autodidact, aimed at elevating the production of these objects to stratospheric heights. His patient and long-term focus on capturing the subtle beauty of blossoms before they fade, and of bouquets that never wilt, has brought to the world marvels of observation, obsession, fixation, and, importantly, of invention. There is a tendency for people to gaze in wonder and become infatuated when encountering “impossible objects” for the first time. This has been his purview.  That said, becoming a master in the world of 21st-century decorative art production might not ensure that your corollary endeavors—writing poetry and laying out the inexorably tied-up nature of beauty's role in the success of an artwork—needs to be shared with posterity. Stankard's voice is sincere and heartfelt. His choice of words is deeply weighed, his phrasing and pacing seriously considered. He is, after all, attempting to distill, out of the quickly dispersing mists of creativity, an essence, a tincture that will contain some drops of truth. That can, at times, become a dangerous area to interpret and translate for a broad swath of the population. Being great at one thing in no way guarantees that one is good at another…  If you pick this book up, you will assuredly spend time considering the beauty of Paul Stankard's botanical images in glass. He is a genuinely passionate, sincerely earnest maker who cares deeply for the natural world and has devoted a lifetime to the true intricacies of what is visible—and what is not—for those who persevere and cultivate what may be revealed in the application of an extraordinarily sustained and amplified focus.” Considered a living master in the art of the paperweight, Stankard's work is represented in more than 75 museums around the world. Over his 40-year artistic journey, he has received two honorary doctorate degrees, an honorary associate's degree, and many awards within the glass community, most recently the Masters of the Medium Award from Smithsonian's The James Renwick Alliance and the Glass Art Society's Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a Fellow of the American Craft Council and a recipient of the UrbanGlass Award—Innovation in a Glassworking Technique. In 1961, Stankard enrolled in Salem County Vocational Technical Institute's Scientific Glassblowing program (now Salem Community College). During his subsequent 10-year scientific glassblowing career, fabricating complex instruments was his focus. As head of the glass department at Rohn & Haas in Philadelphia, the artist began experimenting with floral paperweights as a hobby. The work was eventually noticed by art dealer Reese Palley at a craft expo in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and in 1972, Stankard abandoned industry for art. Stankard's role as educator includes establishing the flameworking studio at Penland School of Craft, Spruce Pine, North Carolina, and serving as a founding board member and President of The Creative Glass Center of America, Millville, New Jersey. The artist taught students in the US at Penland; the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington; and abroad at Kanaz Forest of Creation Japan with Hiroshi Yamano as well as at North Lands Creative, in the Scottish Highlands. He remains an Artist-in-Residence and Honorary Professor at Salem Community College, where he founded the International Flameworking Conference. Now dividing his time between flameworking and writing, Stankard is the author of Inspiration from the Art of Paul J. Stankard: A Window into My Studio and Soul; an autobiography No Green Berries or Leaves: The Creative Journey of an Artist in Glass; an educational resource Spark the Creative Flame: Making the Journey from Craft to Art; and Studio Craft as Career: A Guide to Achieving Excellence in Art-making.  In March 2023, Stankard will once again attend the International Flameworking Conference (IFC). He will also be instructing a workshop with Lucio Bubacco in May. IFC details are at www.salemcc.edu/ifc and workshop info is at https://salemcc.edu/glass/intensive-glass-workshop In celebration of his 80th birthday, WheatonArts will host a Celebration of the Life & Work of Paul J. Stankard, Saturday, May 20, 2023. Click link below for the latest information. Campus-wide activities will be highlighted by collaborative Glass Studio demonstrations with Stankard and friends, curator tours of the Museum of American Glass featuring Amber Cowan's solo exhibit Alchemy of Adornment, and special fare catered by Feast Your Eyes Catering. Proceeds benefit the WheatonArts Glass Studio programs. Dan Collins – documentary filmmaker with strong roots in the glass art community, producing work that focuses on both the American Studio Glass Movement and the often-misunderstood borosilicate pipe movement – filmed Stankard for a documentary that will be shown in May at the WheatonArts event. The film includes the artist creating a piece from his Celestial Bouquet series. Stankard's work will be exhibited at the Morris Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate, in Morristown, New Jersey, in early 2023.

This is a rebroadcast of a podcast from June 10th, 2022 presented as an encore for anyone who missed it.  During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the in-between spaces of immigrant life were made more acute for Bukola Koiki than ever. Searching for the feeling of home during the seemingly endless isolation of that time, she found herself comforted in abstracted forms and shapes of houses. The Pull was made in response to her yearning for Nigeria and beloved family members. American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, Bukola Koiki, See more of her work at bukolakoiki.com and follow @bukolakoiki. See this Object at craftcouncil.org. American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated. Subscribe, rate, and review the American Craft Podcast wherever you listen.

Sebastian Martorana is an artist living and working in Baltimore, Maryland. For over fifteen years, Sebastian has focused on the art of carving. Much of the material used for his sculptures was salvaged from Baltimore's historic, though often discarded, architecture. He received his BFA in illustration from Syracuse University, after which he became a full-time apprentice in a stone shop outside Washington, DC. He earned his MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art's Rinehart School of Sculpture.Sebastian works on private commissions and commercial projects from his studio in the Hilgartner Natural Stone Company. His body work includes projects for the United States Senate, St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, the National Basilica in Baltimore, the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC and the United States Federal Reserve. He is an adjunct faculty member at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a repeat presenter for the American Craft Council. Sebastian's work is included in the permanent collections of museums including the Smithsonian American Art museum's Renwick Gallery, which acquired his sculpture featured in their 40 under 40: Craft Futures exhibition.The Truth In This ArtThe Truth In This Art is a podcast interview series supporting vibrancy and development of Baltimore & beyond's arts and culture.Mentioned in this episode:Sebastian MartoranaTo find more amazing stories from the artist and entrepreneurial scenes in & around Baltimore, check out my episode directory.Stay in TouchNewsletter sign-upSupport my podcastShareable link to episode ★ Support this podcast ★

Rita Walaszek Arndt, White Earth Nation, recommends “Kindred Spirits: Three Indigenous Artists Who Speak Through Beads” at the Gordon Parks Gallery on the Metro State University campus in St. Paul. Curated by professor and gallery director Erica Rasmussen, the exhibit features three artists, from Minnesota and Wisconsin; Walter Super LaBatte, member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, Sarah McRae, member of the Red Lake Nation, and Douglas Limón, member of the Oneida Nation. The art displayed includes traditional clothing, paintings, wall art and wearables. The exhibition runs through Oct. 20. Painter and scientist Suhaila Ihsanullah attended the opening night of the two exhibits currently running at Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis, and suggests others check it out. “[The opening] was very impressive, and I think that's why I wanted other people to go and see it,” Ihsanullah said. The two exhibits are “Night Shadows” and “Thinking Outside,” featuring the works of Michael Kareken and Jean Gumpper, respectively. Kareken's medium is drawings and paintings. Gumpper works in woodcut prints. Both exhibits close Oct.15. Former owner of the Grand Hand gallery Ann Ruhr Pifer is excited for the upcoming American Craft Made market in St. Paul. The event, formerly known as the American Craft Council show, was last held in 2019. Sponsored by the Minnesota-based nonprofit American Craft Council, the event brings artisans from across the country to showcase and sell their work. Ruhr Pifer also says this year will feature more emerging artists and Minnesota artists than in past years. “It's like a new version of an old favorite.” The American Craft Made show is Friday through Sunday at RiverCentre.

This is a rebroadcast of a podcast from May 25th, 2022 presented as an encore for anyone who missed it.   “I wonder where is all my relation. Friendship to all and every nation.”  —David Drake   Ancestry and family are profound values in Baralaye's life, but the terms also have a degree of opacity. An understanding of “one's people” touches on broad ideas of community, history, place, and value that shape a sense of belonging and being. We ultimately belong less to those broad entities than to the specific people and the distinct faces, voices, and bodies, known and unknown, chosen and unchosen, that compose what the 19th-century potter David Drake, enslaved in South Carolina, calls our “relation.”   As a part of a diaspora removed since birth from Nigeria and its culture, Baralaye sees “my relation” in the faces of the family members he knows but also in the imagined faces of those on his family tree whom he has yet to meet or never will. All My Relation: I gives distinct features to this unknown segment of Baralaye's relation while acknowledging that they are both unclear and persistent in his mind.   American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, Ebitenyefa Baralaye. See more of his work at baralaye.com and follow @baralaye. To view the Object visit the American Craft Council here. American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated. Subscribe, rate, and review the American Craft Podcast wherever you listen.

In the 62nd episode of Perceived Value host Sarah Rachel Brown sits down with American Craft Council board trustee Tom Loeser. Sarah and Tom's paths crossed at an event and their conversation quickly turned to discussing Tom's experience serving on a nonprofit board. Having recently took interest in working on a board, Sarah did not hesitate to ask for an interview. A few months later the two artists connected to discuss what a nonprofit board is and how it is structured, what does serving on a board means monetarily-wise, why one would want to serve, what the board can do for you, and ways in which nonprofit boards such as the ACC can work towards creating a more diverse group of trustees.Become a Perceived Value Patron on Patreon. Help Sarah reach her goal of 100 patrons by subscribing with a $1 monthly donation. CLICK HERE to become a Patron. Don't forget to Rate AND Review us on iTunes!Instagram + Facebook: @perceivedvalueFind your Host:sarahrachelbrown.comInstagram: @sarahrachelbrownThe music you hear on Perceived Value is by the Seattle group Song Sparrow Research.All You Need to Know off of their album Sympathetic Buzz.Find them on Spotify!

Originally published in late April we want to make James' work and interview available to new listeners as well. Enjoy this encore presentation.   In fashioning the object, Morel Doucet pays homage to the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, who came from humble beginnings. Morel's piece commemorates Mr. Moïse's legacy and the fragments of his vision for the Haitian people. The butterflies that grace the face of the object are symbols of transformation and hope. The stark white porcelain head pays homage to Morel's grandfather's cup of coffee he would casually drink after his evening work on the farm.  To view the object visit the American Craft Council by clicking here. American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, Morel Doucet. See more of his work at www.moreldoucet.com and follow @moreldoucet. American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated.  Subscribe, rate and review the American Craft Podcast.  

Originally released in April we think it's worth inviting our new listeners to our conversation with Morel Doucet. In fashioning the object, Morel Doucet pays homage to the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, who came from humble beginnings. Morel's piece commemorates Mr. Moïse's legacy and the fragments of his vision for the Haitian people. The butterflies that grace the face of the object are symbols of transformation and hope. The stark white porcelain head pays homage to Morel's grandfather's cup of coffee he would casually drink after his evening work on the farm.  American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, Morel Doucet. See his object at www.craftcouncil.org and follow @moreldoucet. American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated.  Subscribe, rate and review the American Craft Podcast.  

What you'll learn in this episode: Why the best modernist pieces are fetching record prices at auction today How “Messengers of Modernism” helped legitimize modernist jewelry as an art form The difference between modern jewelry and modernist jewelry Who the most influential modernist jewelers were and where they drew their inspiration from Why modernist jewelry was a source of empowerment for women About Toni Greenbaum Toni Greenbaum is a New York-based art historian specializing in twentieth and twenty-first century jewelry and metalwork. She wrote Messengers of Modernism: American Studio Jewelry 1940-1960 (Montréal: Musée des Arts Décoratifs and Flammarion, 1996), Sam Kramer: Jeweler on the Edge (Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2019) and “Jewelers in Wonderland,” an essay on Sam Kramer and Karl Fritsch for Jewelry Stories: Highlights from the Collection 1947-2019 (New York: Museum of Arts and Design and Arnoldsche, 2021), along with numerous book chapters, exhibition catalogues, and essays for arts publications. Greenbaum has lectured internationally at institutions such as the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art, Savannah. She has worked on exhibitions for several museums, including the Victoria and Albert in London, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, and Bard Graduate Center Gallery, New York. Additional Resources: Link to Purchase Books Toni's Instagram The Jewelry Library  Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com Transcript: Once misunderstood as an illegitimate art form, modernist jewelry has come into its own, now fetching five and six-figure prices at auction. Modernist jewelry likely wouldn't have come this far without the work of Toni Greenbaum, an art historian, professor and author of “Messengers of Modernism: American Studio Jewelry, 1940 to 1960.” She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the history of modernist jewelry; why it sets the women who wear it apart; and where collectors should start if they want to add modernist pieces to their collections. Read the episode transcript here.   Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.    Today my guest is art historian, professor and author Toni Greenbaum. She is the author of the iconic tome, “Messengers of Modernism: American Studio Jewelry, 1940 to 1960,” which analyzes the output of America's modernist jewelers. Most recently, she authored “Sam Kramer: Jeweler on the Edge,” a biography of the jeweler Sam Kramer. Every time I say jeweler I think I'm using the world a little loosely, but we're so glad to have you here today. Thank you so much.   Toni: I am so glad to be here, Sharon. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's been many years coming.   Sharon: I'm glad we connected. Tell me about your jewelry journey. It sounds very interesting.   Toni: Well, there's a lot you don't know about my jewelry journey. My jewelry journey began when I was a preteen. I just became fascinated with Native American, particularly Navajo, jewelry that I would see in museum gift shops. I started to buy it when I was a teenager, what I could afford. In those days, I have to say museum gift shops were fabulous, particularly the Museum of Natural History gift shop, the Brooklyn Museum gift shop. They had a lot of ethnographic material of very high quality. So, I continued to buy Native American jewelry. My mother used to love handcrafted jewelry, and she would buy it in whatever craft shops or galleries she could find.    Then eventually in my 20s and 30s, I got outpriced. Native American jewelry was becoming very, very fashionable, particularly in the late 60s, 1970s. I started to see something that looked, to me, very much like Native American jewelry, but it was signed. It had names on it, and some of them sounded kind of Mexican—in fact, they were Mexican. So, I started to buy Mexican jewelry because I could afford it. Then that became very popular when names like William Spratling and Los Castillo and Hector Aguilar became known. I saw something that looked like Mexican jewelry and Navajo jewelry, but it wasn't; it was made by Americans. In fact, it would come to be known as modernist jewelry. Then I got outpriced with that, but that's the start of my jewelry journey.   Sharon: So, you liked jewelry from when you were a youth.    Toni: Oh, from when I was a child. I was one of these little three, four-year-olds that was all decked out. My mother loved jewelry. I was an only child, and I was, at that time, the only grandchild. My grandparents spoiled me, and my parents spoiled me, and I loved jewelry, so I got a lot of jewelry. That and Frankie Avalon records.   Sharon: Do you still collect modernist? You said you were getting outpriced. You write about it. Do you still collect it?   Toni: Not really. The best of the modernist jewelry is extraordinarily expensive, and unfortunately, I want the best. If I see something when my husband and I are antiquing or at a flea market or at a show that has style and that's affordable, occasionally I'll buy it, but I would not say that I can buy the kind of jewelry I want in the modernist category any longer. I did buy several pieces in the early 1980s from Fifty/50 Gallery, when they were first putting modernist jewelry on the map in the commercial aspect. I was writing about it; they were selling it. They were always and still are. Mark McDonald still is so generous with me as far as getting images and aiding my research immeasurably. Back then, the modernist jewelry was affordable, and luckily I did buy some major pieces for a tenth of what they would get today.   Sharon: Wow! When you say the best of modernist jewelry today, Calder was just astronomical. We'll put that aside.   Toni: Even more astronomical: there's a Harry Bertoia necklace that somebody called my attention to that is coming up at an auction at Christie's. If they don't put that in their jewelry auctions, they'll put it in their design auctions. I think it's coming up at the end of June; I forget the exact day. The estimate on the Harry Bertoia necklace is $200,000 to $300,000—and this is a Harry Bertoia necklace. I'm just chomping at the bit to find out what it, in fact, is going to bring, but that's the estimate they put, at $200,000 to $300,000.   Sharon: That's a lot of money. What holds your interest in modernist jewelry?   Toni: The incredible but very subtle design aspect of it. Actually, tomorrow I'm going to be giving a talk on Art Smith for GemEx. Because my background is art history, one of the things I always do when I talk about these objects is to show how they were inspired by the modern art movements. This is, I think, what sets modernist jewelry apart from other categories of modern and contemporary jewelry. There are many inspirations, but it is that they are very much inspired by Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Biomorphism, etc., depending on the artist. Some are influenced by all of the above, and I think I saw that. I saw it implicitly before I began to analyze it in the jewelry.    This jewelry is extraordinarily well-conceived. A lot of the craftsmanship is not pristine, but I have never been one for pristine craftsmanship. I love rough surfaces, and I love the process to show in the jewelry. Much of the modernist jewelry is irreverent—I use the word irreverent instead of sloppy—as far as the process is concerned. It was that hands-on, very direct approach, in addition to this wonderful design sense, which, again, came from the modern art movements. Most of the jewelers—not all of them, but most of them—lived either in New York or in Northern or Southern California and had access to museums, and these people were aesthetes. They would go to museums. They would see Miro's work; they would see Picasso's work, and they would definitely infuse their designs with that sensibility.   Sharon: Do you think that jumped out at you, the fact that they were inspired by different art movements, because you studied art history? You teach it, or you did teach it at one time?    Toni: No, just history of jewelry. I majored in art history, but I've never taught art history. I've taught history of jewelry. We can argue about whether jewelry is art or not, but history of jewelry is what I've taught.   Sharon: I've taken basic art history, but I couldn't tell you some of the movements you're talking about. I can't identify the different movements. Do you think it jumped out at you because you're knowledgeable?   Toni: Yes, definitely, because I would look at Art Smith and I would say, “That's Biomorphism.” I would see it. It was obvious. I would look at Sam Kramer and I would say, “This is Surrealism.” He was called a surrealist jeweler back in his day, when he was practicing and when he had his shop on 8th Street. I would look at Rebajes and I would see Cubism. Of course, it was because I was well-versed in those movements, because what I was always most interested in when I was studying art history were the more modern movements.   Sharon: Did you think you would segue to jewelry in general? Was that something on your radar?   Toni: That's a very interesting question because when I was in college, I had a nucleus of professors who happened to have come from Cranbrook.   Sharon: I'm sorry, from where?   Toni: Cranbrook School of Art.   Sharon: O.K., Cranbrook.   Toni: I actually took a metalsmithing class as an elective, just to see what it was because I was so interested in jewelry, although I was studying what I call legitimate art history. I was so interested in jewelry that I wanted to see what the process was. I probably was the worst jeweler that ever tried to make jewelry, but I learned what it is to make. I will tell you something else, Sharon, it is what has given me such respect for the jewelers, because when you try to do it yourself and you see how challenging it is, you really respect the people who do it miraculously even more.    So, I took this class just to see what it was, and the teacher—I still remember his name. His name was Cunningham; I don't remember his first name. He was from Cranbrook, and he sent the class to a retail store in New York on 53rd Street, right opposite MOMA, called America House.   Sharon: Called American House?   Toni: America House. America House was the retail enterprise of the American Craft Council. They had the museum, which was then called the Museum of Contemporary Crafts; now it's called MAD, Museum of Arts and Design. They had the museum, and they had a magazine, Craft Horizons, which then became American Craft, and then they had this retail store. I went into America House—and this was the late 1960s—and I knew I had found my calling. I looked at this jewelry, which was really fine studio jewelry. It was done by Ronald Pearson; it was done by Jack Kripp. These were the people that America House carried. I couldn't afford to buy it. I did buy some of the jewelry when they went out of business and had a big sale in the early 1970s. At that time I couldn't, but I looked at the jewelry and the holloware, and I had never seen anything like it. Yes, I had seen Native American that I loved, and I had seen Mexican that I loved. I hadn't yet seen modernist; that wasn't going to come until the early 1980s. But here I saw this second generation of studio jewelers, and I said, “I don't know what I'm going to do with this professionally, but I know I've got to do something with it because this is who I am. This is what I love.”    Back in the late 1960s, it was called applied arts. Anything that was not painting and sculpture was applied art. Ceramics was applied art; furniture was applied art; textiles, jewelry, any kind of metalwork was applied art. Nobody took it seriously as an academic discipline in America, here in this country. Then I went on to graduate school, still in art history. I was specializing in what was then contemporary art, particularly color field painting, but I just loved what was called the crafts, particularly the metalwork. I started to go to the library and research books on jewelry. I found books on jewelry, but they were all published in Europe, mostly England. There were things in other languages other than French, which I could read with a dictionary. There were books on jewelry history, but they were not written in America; everything was in Europe. So, I started to read voraciously about the history of jewelry, mostly the books that came out of the Victoria & Albert Museum. I read all about ancient jewelry and medieval jewelry and Renaissance jewelry. Graham Hughes, who was then the director of the V&A, had written a book, “Modern Jewelry,” and it had jewelry by artists, designed by Picasso and Max Ernst and Brach, including things that were handmade in England and all over Europe. I think even some of the early jewelers in our discipline were in that book. If I remember correctly, I think Friedrich Becker, for example, might have been in Graham Hughes' “Modern Jewelry,” because that was published, I believe, in the late 1960s.    So, I saw there was a literature in studio jewelry; it just wasn't in America. Then I found a book on William Spratling, this Mexican jeweler whose work I had collected. It was not a book about his jewelry; it was an autobiography about himself that obviously he had written, but it was so rich in talking about the metalsmithing community in Taxco, Mexico, which is where he, as an American, went to study the colonial architecture. He wound up staying and renovating the silver mines that had been dormant since the 18th century. It was such a great story, and I said, “There's something here,” but no graduate advisor at that time, in the early 70s, was going to support you in wanting to do a thesis on applied art, no matter what the medium. But in the back of my mind, I always said, “I'm going to do something with this at some point.”    Honestly, Sharon, I never thought I would live to see the day that this discipline is as rich as it is, with so much literature, with our publishers publishing all of these fantastic jewelry books, and other publishers, like Flammarion in Paris, which published “Messengers of Modernism.” Then there's the interest in Montreal at the Museum of Fine Arts, which is the museum that has the “Messengers of Modernism” collection. It has filtered into the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, obviously MAD. So many museums are welcoming. I never thought I would live to see the day. It really is so heartening. I don't have words to express how important this is, but I just started to do it. In the early 1970s or mid-1970s—I don't think my daughter was born yet. My son was a toddler. I would sit in my free moments and write an article about William Spratling, because he was American. He went to Mexico, but he was American. He was the only American I knew of that I could write about. Not that that article was published at that time, but I was doing the research and I was writing it.   Sharon: That's interesting. If there had been a discipline of jewelry history or something in the applied arts, if an advisor had said, “Yes, I'll support you,” or “Why don't you go ahead and get your doctorate or your master's,” that's something you would have done?   Toni: Totally, without even a thought, yes. Because when I was studying art history, I would look at Hans Holbein's paintings of Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More, and all I would do was look at the jewelry they were wearing, the chains and the badges on their berets. I said, “Oh my god, that is so spectacular.” Then I learned that Holbein actually designed the jewelry, which a lot of people don't know. I said, “There is something to this.” I would look at 18th century paintings with women, with their pearls and rings and bracelets, and all I would do was look at the jewelry. I would have in a heartbeat. If I could have had a graduate advisor, I would have definitely pursued that.   Sharon: When you say you never thought you'd live to see the day when modernist jewelry is so popular—not that it's so surprising, but you are one of the leaders of the movement. When I mentioned to somebody, “Oh, I like modernist jewelry,” the first thing they said was, “Well, have you read ‘Messengers of Modernism?'” As soon as I came home—I was on a trip—I got it. So, you are one of the leaders.   Toni: Well, it is interesting. It is sort of the standard text, but people will say, “Well, why isn't Claire Falkenstein in the book? She's so important,” and I say, “It's looked upon as a standard text, but the fact is it's a catalogue to an exhibition. That was the collection.” Fifty/50 Gallery had a private collection. As I said before, they were at the forefront of promoting and selling modernist jewelry, but they did have a private collection. That collection went to Montreal in the 1990s because at that time, there wasn't an American museum that was interested in taking that collection. That book is the catalogue of that finite collection. So, there are people who are major modernist jewelers—Claire Falkenstein is one that comes to mind—that are not in that collection, so they're not in the book. There's a lot more to be said and written about that movement.   Sharon: I'm sure you've been asked this a million times: What's the difference between modern and modernist jewelry?   Toni: Modern is something that's up to date at a point in time, but modernist jewelry is—this is a word we adopted. The word existed, but we adopted it to define the mid-20th century studio jewelry, the post-war jewelry. It really goes from 1940 to the 1960s. That's it; that's the time limit of modernist jewelry. Again, it's a word we appropriated. We took that word and said, “We're going to call this category modernist jewelry because we have to call it something, so that's the term.” Modern means up to date. That's just a general word.   Sharon: When you go to a show and see things that are in the modernist style, it's not truly modernist if it was done today, it wasn't done before 1960.   Toni: Right, no. Modernist jewelry is work that's done in that particular timeframe and that also subscribes to what I was saying, this appropriation of motifs from the modern art movement. There was plenty of costume jewelry and fine jewelry being done post-war, and that is jewelry that is mid-20th century. You can call it mid-20th century modern, which confuses the issue even more, but it's not modernist jewelry. Modernist jewelry is jewelry that was done in the studio by a silversmith and was inspired by the great movements in modern art and some other inspirations. Art Smith was extremely motivated by African motifs, but also by Calder and by Biomorphism. It's not religious. There are certainly gray areas, but in general, that's modernist jewelry.    Sharon: I feel envious when you talk about everything that was going in on New York. I have a passion, but there's no place on the West Coast that I would go to look at some of this stuff.   Toni: I'll tell you one of the ironies, Sharon. Post-war, definitely through the 1950s and early 1960s, there must have been 13 to 15 studio shops by modernist jewelers. You had Sam Kramer on 8th Street and Art Smith on 4th Street and Polo Bell, who was on 4th Street and then he was on 8th Street, and Bill Tendler, and you had Jules Brenner, and Henry Steig was Uptown. Ed Wiener was all over the place. There were so many jewelers in New York, and I never knew about them. I never went to any of their shops. I used to hang out in the Village when I was a young teenager, walked on 4th Street; never saw Art Smith's shop. He was there from 1949 until 1977. I used to walk on 8th Street, and Sam Kramer was on the second floor. I never looked up, and I didn't know this kind of jewelry existed. In those days, like I said, I was still collecting Navajo.

The Willys Jeep, very common in Baracoa, Cuba, is something Quintero has represented many times in his work through his sociocultural project titled Transportarte a Baracoa (transport yourself to Baracoa). When Quintero started this project, he wanted to reflect the reality that surrounds those in Cuba. The Willys has been used to carry packages and help with moves. During World War II, it was employed by the military on the Guantánamo naval base, where the strong and brave vehicle proved its value more than once. American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, Leandro Gómez Quintero. View Quintero's object here. See more of his work here. Read about Leandro in the New York Times.    American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated. Subscribe, rate, and review the American Craft Podcast wherever you listen.

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the in-between spaces of immigrant life were made more acute for Bukola Koiki than ever. Searching for the feeling of home during the seemingly endless isolation of that time, she found herself comforted in abstracted forms and shapes of houses. The Pull was made in response to her yearning for Nigeria and beloved family members. American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, Bukola Koiki, See more of her work at bukolakoiki.com and follow @bukolakoiki. See this Object at craftcouncil.org. American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated. Subscribe, rate, and review the American Craft Podcast wherever you listen.

“I wonder where is all my relation. Friendship to all and every nation.”  —David Drake   Ancestry and family are profound values in Baralaye's life, but the terms also have a degree of opacity. An understanding of “one's people” touches on broad ideas of community, history, place, and value that shape a sense of belonging and being. We ultimately belong less to those broad entities than to the specific people and the distinct faces, voices, and bodies, known and unknown, chosen and unchosen, that compose what the 19th-century potter David Drake, enslaved in South Carolina, calls our “relation.”   As a part of a diaspora removed since birth from Nigeria and its culture, Baralaye sees “my relation” in the faces of the family members he knows but also in the imagined faces of those on his family tree whom he has yet to meet or never will. All My Relation: I gives distinct features to this unknown segment of Baralaye's relation while acknowledging that they are both unclear and persistent in his mind.   American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, Ebitenyefa Baralaye. See more of his work at baralaye.com and follow @baralaye. American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated. Subscribe, rate, and review the American Craft Podcast wherever you listen.

About the guestKeona Tranby is the director of marketing and communications for the American Craft Council. She graduated from the University of St. Thomas with her degree in business administration and entrepreneurship. She started a print magazine in college that led to an opportunity to work for a startup in San Francisco and brought her out to Venice, California, where she worked with fashion designers, photographers, and models. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her dogs, interior decorating, hosting events, gardening, and finding pieces to fix up at thrift stores. About the American Craft CouncilThe American Craft Council is a national nonprofit organization that connects and galvanizes diverse craft communities and traditions to advance craft's impact in contemporary American life and to keep craft artists and the community connected, inspired, and thriving.Mentioned in this episodeAmerican Craft Made May 2022The Truth In This ArtThe Truth In This Art is a podcast interview series supporting vibrancy and development of Baltimore & beyond's arts and culture.Mentioned in this episodeBaltimore MagazineTo find more amazing stories from the artist and entrepreneurial scenes in & around Baltimore, check out my episode directory.Stay in TouchNewsletter sign-upSupport my podcastShareable link to episode★ Support this podcast ★

Burn It All Away depicts an idyllic nature scene catching fire under the rays of a burning sun while an anthropomorphized gazing pool smiles in witness to this circumstance. Wet footprints step away from the pool, suggesting the departure of the reflected subject, or perhaps of the reflection itself.... ....The pool smiles because the physical body it was reflecting is free of the pain and confines of a disorder people often think of as an unabated self-love at the expense of those who interact with the narcissist, when in fact the narcissist lives in a state of unseen suffering. See Alex's object and read his full statement and the curator's statement here.  Recommended reading by the artist:  Narcissism: Denial of the True Self by Alexander Lowen Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, Alex Anderson. See more of his work at www.alexalexalexalex.com and follow @100alexanderson. American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated. Subscribe, rate, and review the American Craft Podcast wherever you listen.

With his object, James toiled with the notion of creating a tool that embodies sport, escapism, and self-defense; that expresses movement and stillness, a call and response between sporting leisure and creative labor. He attempts to fashion a tool that is multifunctional and dysfunctional at the same time. See James' object and read both his and the curator's statement here.  American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, James Maurelle. See more of his work at www.jamesmaurelle.com and follow @jmaurelle. American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated. Subscribe, rate, and review the American Craft Podcast wherever you listen.

In fashioning the object, Morel Doucet pays homage to the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, who came from humble beginnings. Morel's piece commemorates Mr. Moïse's legacy and the fragments of his vision for the Haitian people. The butterflies that grace the face of the object are symbols of transformation and hope. The stark white porcelain head pays homage to Morel's grandfather's cup of coffee he would casually drink after his evening work on the farm.  American Craft Podcast thanks our guest, Morel Doucet. See more of his work at www.moreldoucet.com and follow @moreldoucet. American Craft Podcast also thanks our host and producer Sarah Rachel Brown from perceivedvaluepodcast.com. Follow @sarahrachelbrown. Music is produced by Hamilton Boyce. Find him at hamiltonboyce.com and follow @hamiltonboyce. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov. American Craft Podcast is property of the American Craft Council at craftcouncil.org. Your support through membership and contributions is appreciated.  Subscribe, rate and review the American Craft Podcast.  

One would be hard-pressed to think of any other artist working with glass whose work reflects as many varied and compelling styles as Dan Dailey's. From vessel forms to his Individuals to lamps, sconces and chandeliers, these beautiful, sometimes humorous pieces dazzle through a combination of colored glass and intricate metal work. No matter the format, Dailey's work expresses humanity, historical reference, and reverence for the natural world.  Dailey credits his successful career to his education in the arts. Born in Philadelphia in 1947, he attended Philadelphia College of Art, where he encountered glass through ceramic teacher, Roland Jahn, and discovered a mentor in William P. Daley, who taught basic design and color to his freshman class. Dailey, who completed graduate studies at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) as Dale Chihuly's first graduate student, says: “Under Chihuly's influence, I focused totally on glass. That was a breakthrough for me. It was a lucky time for me to be there.'' Following graduate school, with the support of a Fulbright fellowship, Dailey moved to Italy and worked in Murano's famed Venini Factory during 1972 and 1973 as an independent artist/designer. He later worked with other established glass companies such as Critsallerie Daum in Nancy, France, and Steuben Glass Works, in Corning, New York. In 1973, Dailey returned to the US and established the glass program at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, which he headed until 1985. Now Professor Emeritus, he transitioned into a new relationship with MassArt, creating a lecture series titled Materialism, in collaboration with Joe Rapone, a professor of design at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Dailey continues his role as independent designer at both Venini and Daum, and serves on the National Advisory Board for The University of the Arts.  Among his many awards, Dailey received a Fulbright Hayes Fellowship, Venice, Italy, 1972-1973 and a Fellowship at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975-1983. He was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council in 1998, honored in 2000 with the Libensky Award, and in 2001 with the Masters of the Medium Award by the James Renwick Alliance. Shown in over 300 exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Renwick Gallery, his work is included in more than 50 museum and public collections internationally, and currently represented by Schantz Galleries, Stockbridge, Massachusetts; Hawk Galleries, Columbus, Ohio; Habatat Galleries, Royal Oak, Michigan; and Sandra Ainsley Gallery, Toronto, Canada.  Dailey's process for transforming glass into compelling and unexpected forms is almost as interesting on paper as it is in three dimensions. Drawings and watercolors are used to refine ideas, but also to direct his team, which can include glassblowers in Seattle; acid polishing in West Virginia; waterjet cutters in local machine shops; and cutting, grinding, metal working, and assembling assistants at his New Hampshire studio. Working from his titles forward, the artist keeps a list of thoughts and key phrases, illustrating words with the objects he makes.  He states: “I emphasized drawing as a teacher for many years, because it would help me to help somebody realize their own ideas. It doesn't have to be a beautiful drawing. It just needs to include information. However, in my own work, I make accurate drawings that really represent the piece.” Focusing part of his time on producing sculptural lighting and large installations for residences and public buildings, Dailey says being diversified has kept him continuously busy, though he notes, not everyone makes a connection between all of his work. “Someone interviewed me at an exhibition in Chicago and did not realize that I made all of the work on exhibit. She thought it was three different artists. It was the first time I considered that perhaps my work wasn't clearly all mine, even though to me it all looked like it belonged. If you look through my sketchbooks and see the black-and-white ink on paper drawings, you can see that as different as the finished work can be, it is all connected by my stylistic approach.” Emerging from the Studio Glass movement initiated by Harvey Littleton, Dailey's work goes beyond its historical glass roots to combine with metal in a variety of formats, all of which communicate a subjective, narrative message. A vast array of forms has always been required to express the multitudes of ideas generated by Dailey's mind, and style is the common thread that binds them.  

What you'll learn in this episode:   Why jewelers from the Pacific Northwest have a singular style, and how Laurie draws inspiration from her environment How Laurie and other artists in the Northwest School of Jewelers incorporate found objects, humor and wordplay into their work What inspired Susan to focus on American jewelry How Susan sorted through Laurie's 30-year archive, and what it was like to write “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall”   About Susan Cummins   Born in 1946 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but raised primarily in Atherton, California, Susan Cummins specializes in contemporary art jewelry and spent many years as a gallerist in Mill Valley, California. In 1983, Cummins took over Horizon Gallery in Mill Valley, re-naming it the Susan Cummins Gallery. Noting a lack of representation, Cummins settled on American jewelry as a primary focus for her gallery. Eventually, Cummins relocated to a larger space in Mill Valley and became known for representing painters and jewelers in the same gallery space, blurring the rigid distinction between fine art and craft. Cummins maintained the gallery until 2002. In 1997, Cummins helped found Art Jewelry Forum, a nonprofit tasked with connecting people working across the field of contemporary jewelry and educating new audiences. She continues to be a frequent contributor and is currently serving as the board chair. Cummins has also served on boards for arts organizations such as the American Craft Council and the Headlands Center for the Arts. Her primary focus in recent years has been her work as director of the Rotasa Foundation, a family foundation that supports exhibitions and publications featuring contemporary art jewelers. Susan Cummins was elected a 2018 Honorary Fellow of the American Craft Council.         About Laurie Hall   Laurie Hall, along with Ron Ho, Kiff Slemmons, Ramona Solberg, and Nancy Worden, is part of what has been called the Northwest School of Jewelers, an influential jewelry art movement centered around an eclectic style of narrative and composition. Laurie Hall is a long-time artist and educator from the Pacific Northwest, whose work has exhibited internationally. In 2016, her work was featured in Craft in America's exhibition Politically Speaking: New American Ideals in Contemporary Jewelry. Laurie's work is part of numerous private and public collections including The Museum of Art and Design in NYC, The Tacoma Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Additional Resources: Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com: Coney Island Express 1983 Carved polychromed wood, bronze, sterling silver, string, and found cocktail umbrella  1 1/2 x 1 1/4 x 16 inches Private collection  Photo: Roger Schreiber   Stumped 1988 Yew wood, sterling silver (oxidized), and antique compass 13 x 1/4 x 3/8 inches The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase funded by the Morgan Foundation in honor of Catherine Asher Morgan, 2002.3793   Cubist Café 1987 Sterling silver (oxidized) 6 1/2 x 12 3/4 x 1/2 inches Tacoma Art Museum, gift of Mia McEldowney Photo: Doug Yaple   Wrapped Up in the Times 1987 Sterling silver (oxidized), aluminum sheet, and decoy fish eye 6 x 4 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches Sandy and Lou Grotta collection Photo: Richard Nichol     The Royal Brou Ha Ha 1996 Sterling silver (stamped), stainless-steel fine mesh, hematite beads, and sterling silver foxtail chain 10 x 10 x 1 1/2 inches Tacoma Art Museum, gift of Sharon Campbell Photo: Richard Nichol   One Screw 2009 Bronze screw and sterling silver 1 x 1 x 1/4 inches Curtis Steiner collection Photo: Curtis Steiner   No. 2, Please! 1988 Bronze, found No.2 pencils, basswood, and color core 16 x 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase funded by the Morgan Foundation in honor of Catherine Asher Morgan, 2002.3791   Behind the Eight-Ball 2008 Fabricated marriage of metal ball (copper, sterling silver, nickel silver, bronze), copper frame, found printing plate and stencil, and sterling silver 2 3/4 x 3 x 1/2 inches Marcia Doctor collection Photo: Roger Schreiber   Transcript:   Although her work has been shown internationally, Laurie Hall's jewelry is undoubtedly rooted in the Pacific Northwest. As a member of the influential Northwest School of Jewelers, Laurie's eclectic, often humorous work has drawn the attention of numerous gallerists and collectors, including Art Jewelry Forum co-founder Susan Cummins. Susan recently captured Laurie's career in the new book, “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall.” Laurie and Susan joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the influences behind the Northwest School; where Laurie draws her inspiration from; and what they learned from each other while writing the book. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode.    Today, my guests are Susan Cummins and Laurie Hall. Susan has co-authored with Damian Skinner a new book, “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall.” For 20+ years, she was the driving force behind Art Jewelry Forum, which advocates for contemporary art jewelry. Laurie is an arts educator and jeweler from the Pacific Northwest whose jewelry has been exhibited internationally. She's a key figure in the Northwest School of Jewelry, an influential jewelry art movement centered around an eclectic style of narrative and composition. If you haven't heard Part 1, please go TheJewelryJourney.com.    Welcome back. Susan, did you see Laurie's work somewhere and said, “I want to show that,” or did Laurie send you a photo and say, “Do you want to carry my stuff?” How did that work?   Susan: I don't think Laurie sent me anything. I think I saw her work in a gallery in San Francisco that had it before I did, the Lane Potter Gallery.   Laurie: Right.   Susan: It could have been that I saw it in the catalogue for Jewelry U.S.A. or another invitational of some sort, or I could have seen it through Kiff Slemmons, who I was also showing at the time. Somehow or another, I saw images of it. I had a show—I can't remember if it was a group show. Maybe it was Northwest jewelers; I don't remember the reason for the group show, but it seemed to me that Laurie's work would fit into that. That's when she did the café piece, because Laurie always was very conscious of where her pieces were going.    If she was doing a show that was going to be in the San Francisco Bay Area, she wanted to do something that reminded her of that area that she thought people there would relate to. She thought San Francisco was kind of like Paris, in that there are cafés and Bohemians, life and art and all that. So, she made this café piece that looks like it could have been something that Brock or Picasso did early in their careers. There's a guitar in there. There are tables with plates and chairs and things askew, as if in a cubist painting, and the word “café” in big letters across the top. It was something she thought the San Francisco community would like.    When she did something for the East Coast, she often thought about folk art and Americana, so she used whirligig figures, literally off of whirligigs, or folk art-influenced imagery, like people riding a bicycle, or a tall bicycle with a top hat on and a little message, or the words “Coney Island” on it so they would be thinking of Coney Island. It was very folk art, Americana-like, which she thought the East Coast would be more interested in. Laurie was definitely making work for these markets she showed in, very conscious of that and very accommodating to it. Anyway, did I answer your question? I think I got carried away there.   Sharon: Yes. Laurie, how did the fact that you were a teacher influence the work you did? I don't know if you're still teaching.   Laurie: I taught for over 38 years. The cubist café was because we were studying cubism. I taught calligraphy, lettering and graphics. I love lettering and graphics, and the kids influenced me a lot because they would comment on what I was making or doing. I didn't work at school, but I'd sometimes bring a piece in and show it to them. Did I answer it?   Sharon: Yes.   Susan: Why don't you talk about that piece you did that was a challenge for the students in your class to make something like it?   Laurie: Yeah, you mean the football thing. At Mercer Island High School, they always win all the sport competitions, football, basketball, baseball, soccer, everything. Sometimes they'd shut school down when they were in the finals. I had a whole bunch of football players in my class, and they all called me Hall. They all thought I was cool.    Sharon: I'm sorry. You were cool? Is that what you said?   Laurie: They thought I was cool.   Sharon: For a minute I thought you said cruel, and I was going, “O.K.”    Laurie: No, they called me Agent Orange and Galleon. It was quite funny. They all wanted an A, and they kept coming up and saying, “What does it take to get an A? This is an art class. It must be easy to get an A.” I said, “All right. We're making jewelry. You guys have to make a necklace and wear it into the lunchroom if you expect to get an A. You have to wear it. I really want you to wear it all day, but I won't be able to see you all day.” Anyhow, they did it, and everybody enjoyed it.   Sharon: And did they get A's?   Laurie: If they deserved one. Just by them doing it, I thought they deserved an A because of that, yeah.   Sharon: It's a high hurdle, walking to the lunchroom with something like that.   Laurie: Yes, guys with big necks and everything. It was humorous.   Susan: You also did a piece yourself that had to do with the idea of football, which was a sandwich board piece you wear over your shoulders, front and back. It was called “Rah, Rah, Sis, Boom, Bah.” There were footballs flying over the goalposts and flags and people waving and numbers and all kinds of things.   Laurie: I had a little candy. They used to give candy out. If you had a date to the football game, they'd give you a favor, a little tin football with some candy in it. So, I used that football on the necklace. That was my found object that I had, but how did I come about having that? I think it was in my brother's drawer upstairs in my parents' house.   Susan: No, somebody invited you to a football game and gave you a piece of candy.    Laurie: I doubt it. I probably stole the candy in it.    Sharon: Laurie, was there a point in your jewelry making that you were selling but making so much that you said, “I can't teach right now”? Was there so much demand, or no?   Laurie: No, I had a really good job. I needed the money. I had no other means of support because I'm a single lady, and I loved it. It was consistent. It was reliable. I had no desire to make production jewelry. I worked for Robert Lee Morris one summer for six weeks. It was interesting, and I really liked Robert. I went to his workshop up in Lake Placid, New York. He made that Coty collection of bracelets that are all aerodynamic, and he was talking about that. I used hollow construction a lot because I'm not a flat jeweler. I really make dimensional things.   Sharon: Yes, you can see that now.   Laurie: To me they're sculpture; they really are. They're sculptural, and I like the way they interact with the body. It's a sculpture on the body, as I said, but I'm not really intellectual about what I'm doing. I'm just recording things that I think other people could find interest in and making them. Do I know they're going to find interest in them? I've always been lucky my work has gone out. Am I big seller? I usually sell what I make, but I can't make that much. I've always been interrupted by school. I had a lot of kids every day. I was in a public school, and then I had to clean the room and get the supplies. I had a whole lot of energy. I'm kind of amazed at what I did at this point.    Sharon: Have you ever put on a piece that you had been playing with and said, “This is too flat,” or “It's not talking,” or “This isn't what I had in mind”?   Laurie: You mean do I mess up and trash something? Yeah, of course. There's one piece in the book that's made out of an aluminum ruler. I made that piece three times and even had it photographed. I don't have a lot of money, but I don't think about that. I just go and do something because I know I'll have to figure it out later. When I finally got that piece done, it went to a gallery and it sold immediately, but I made it three times. I have evidence of the way it looked along the way.   Sharon: What was it the other times? You didn't think it was dimensional enough?   Laurie: It just didn't do it. That's all I can say. To be honest about it, it wasn't compelling. There are compelling ideas. Some people can sit down and design something and make it—I'd say there's the ordinary way things look where they're acceptable, like a lady the other day showed me a picture of something on a TV set and said, “Is this your piece?” I looked at it and said, “No. It's nice, but I don't make that kind of thing.” I don't try to make nice. I don't try to make acceptable. I just try to make something that's got a little bit of magic to the message. You don't get it right away maybe, but you keep wanting to go back and look at it. That's what I hope for, and that's what it does to me when I make it. I either know it works or I know it doesn't work.   Sharon: Do you have a story in mind that you want to say, or message in mind that you want to get across in a piece before you start it?   Laurie: Sometimes, like when I found the screw, I knew what I was going to do with it. I saw what was behind the Eight Ball. I saw that ball thing, and I had some Corbusier letters. They were stencils, and I had the monkey. I knew I wanted to make a marriage of a metal ball, and I wanted to see how round I could get it. That was the high bar, so it was technical in one aspect. I try to go over the high bar sometimes.    What other piece can I talk about? The “Wrapped Up in the Times” piece doesn't have any found objects in it other than a glass eye, but I had aluminum, and I made the newspaper out of aluminum because I could cut letters. If you know how you can do it with the materials you have available—and I work with anything. If I think it will work in the piece, I work with it.   Susan: We should say that “Wrapped Up in the Times” is a fish wrapped up in The New York Times. It's a pun. I was going to say a couple of things about Laurie's work. One is that she really does describe the Northwest. If you've ever lived in the Northwest, which I have, either in Portland or Seattle, there are so many references to her place of origin that you just can't miss them. For example, there are a lot of boats in her work. There's water or fishing references. There's a bridge. One necklace is of the bridge. Portland, if you've ever been there, there's a river that goes through the city, and over the river are many, many bridges. There's also a lot of wood and log sections, like rounds of cut wood which came from some branches of a hawthorn tree—I forget what it was.   Laurie: Yew wood.   Susan: Yew wood, yeah. Those sections were all arranged around a necklace with a little compass down in the bottom, which refers to a story about Laurie getting lost in the woods. She called it “Stumped,” again referring to getting lost in the woods, but also referring to the fact that Portland was a big source for lumber companies back in the 19th century for wood. For a long time, they cut the trees and left them stumps, so there are vast areas where there were stumps. Even today, Portland is known by the nickname of Stumptown, and you can find Stumptown coffee around town. It's a brand of coffee. There are parts of the city that are called Stumptown. So, it's a joke, and yet she made this necklace that has this title.    A lot of Laurie's pieces are like that. They are puns or plays on words, or just something funny. There's another piece called “The Royal Brewhaha,” which is about brewing tea. It's got tea bags all around it, all of which Laurie made, but it's about the English, so the royal part comes in making a deal about something. It's just funny and fun. She's often very clever about how she names them. It's also things that are coming from this area, except maybe “The Royal Brewhaha,” but many things—   Laurie: Except it was Princess Di and the royal family. I am Scottish, English, Irish, all the British Isles, so I couldn't help but identify with her because she was so tortured by the royal family. I hated that, so I had to make a piece about it.   Susan: Everything that she's doing is coming from her place, her environment. Everything around her and in her life is incorporated one way or another into the pieces.   Sharon: Susan, in writing the book and interviewing Laurie and going through the archives, what surprised you most about Laurie's work?   Susan: I knew Laurie to some degree before, but not all that well. It is fantastic when you write a book about somebody and you get to ask them every single question you can think of about themselves, about their lives, about their backgrounds, about the piece they made. We literally went through all the work Laurie had ever done that we had pictures of, and I said, “O.K., Laurie, what's this piece about? What's it made of? When did you make it? What were you referring to?” So, we have something written up in our archive about every single piece.   I don't know if there's any one thing that surprised me about Laurie, but everything about Laurie was interesting and funny and fun and amazing in how original her work is, and how she embodies a certain area of this country, and how she was a very American jeweler who was interested in stories and her place of origin. I think none of that was a big surprise, but it all was really interesting to me.   Laurie: Ramona had used things from other places in the world, and I could relate to what she had done, but I didn't want to do it again. I knew I wanted to celebrate American things, and that was it. Then I went about trying to describe it, not thinking it out until I had to make things. I'm very driven by a deadline and a vacation and having time to work, because I worked all the time.    Sharon: Were you picking things not just from America, but from the Pacific Northwest?   Laurie: I was living there and I loved where I was from, so I couldn't help but record what was going on in my life.   Sharon: I'm curious, because in the past 30 years, let's say, everyone has even less of an understanding of your work. I could see how it would be like, “Oh look, you have this ethnic jewelry over here, and you have your cool jewelry over here,” which is really unusual. Have you seen more “I don't get it” in the past 30 years?   Laurie: If someone saw the café necklace on, they'd want it, or they'd say, “Well, maybe I can't wear that, but I really like that.” I don't want to worry about that. I didn't worry about it, and I'm still not worried about it. That's what's wrong. I think Dorothea Prühl was not thinking too much about acceptability. I love her pieces. Being free and expressing your own self or your original thoughts is better than anything else. It really is.    Susan: I think Laurie's work speaks to American interests. I don't think those interests have changed a huge amount from when she made these pieces, but she's been making pieces all along. She's still making pieces. She's still reflecting her times and her place. I think we're talking more about the beginnings of her career or some of the earlier pieces, but the later pieces are also very similar in their humor and their personal reflections of where she is. That doesn't change much over time. Your environment is your environment. The Northwest is the Northwest. There still are influences from nature, from First Nations people. There's a lot of imagery you can see all around Portland and Seattle from the Native Americans who were there originally, which influenced Laurie's work as well.    Laurie: I love that stuff. It's the same feeling. It was looking at the materials. Making with materials is so exciting with the colors, the textures, all of those things. It's just so exciting putting them together.   Susan: And that's pretty much constant with what Laurie's made all along.   Sharon: Laurie, was there something surprising or interesting that was thought-provoking as Susan was interviewing you and you were thinking more about the work? Were there surprises or reflections you had that hadn't occurred to you?   Laurie: I think Susan explained how I think. That was a surprise to me, because I didn't think anybody could figure out how I think. That was the biggest gift she gave me. I was so pleased with the writing and also with Damian, with some of the things he'd say to me. It was fun. We interviewed a lot, and it was always exhilarating.    I never did this because I was trying to make a living or be famous or anything, but I did it because I liked expression. Even from when I was a kid, I won a poster contest. I was in the fifth grade. Everybody at the school entered and I won; the fifth grader got first prize. I never felt that my primitive style would be rejected. I also felt that I could go ahead and be the way I am inside, put it down in paint, put in down in printmaking, put it down however—not that I didn't have to work hard to get one composition to work, but another one would fall into place. There are quick pieces. Then there are long, hard pieces that you work on. They're all different.   Susan: We should also say, Laurie, you were teaching art in general in your high school classes.   Laurie: I wasn't just a jewelry teacher. I was teaching painting, printmaking, graphics, textiles, everything. I had to go out at the end of the day and go from one end of Seattle to the other getting supplies. Then I'd go down to Pacific Island Metal where they have all this junk, and I'd think, “Oh, look at that! Look at that, this metal!” I love metal, I really do. I can make sculpture for the body, but when you think about making your sculpture that is freestanding, I haven't done much with that yet. I still want to make some tabletop ones, little ones, but it's putting things together that's so exciting.    Sharon: So, there's more to be explored. I have to say the book is very clear in terms of explaining your thought process behind each of the photos, which are beautiful, as well as your thought process in general. It's published by Arnoldsche. How do you say that?   Susan: Arnoldsche. They've published a lot of books on contemporary jewelry, especially European ones, but they've also published more American writers about American jewelers now. Toni Greenbaum just published one on Sam Kramer. The influx book that Damian and Cindi Strauss and I worked on was also published by Arnoldsche. They are really the best distributors of contemporary jewelry publications.   Susan: Yes, and I was excited they were going to publish my book.   Sharon: It sounds like such an honor. It's a beautiful book. It's available on the Art Jewelry Forum site, ArtJewelryForum.org, if you want to see a beautiful book. It's also a very readable book with the pictures. Thank you both very, very much. It's greatly appreciated. I hope to talk to you about the next book.   Susan: Thank you, Sharon. Thanks so much for having us.   Laurie: Thanks, Sharon.   Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.      

What you'll learn in this episode:   Why jewelers from the Pacific Northwest have a singular style, and how Laurie draws inspiration from her environment How Laurie and other artists in the Northwest School of Jewelers incorporate found objects, humor and wordplay into their work What inspired Susan to focus on American jewelry How Susan sorted through Laurie's 30-year archive, and what it was like to write “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall”   About Susan Cummins   Born in 1946 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but raised primarily in Atherton, California, Susan Cummins specializes in contemporary art jewelry and spent many years as a gallerist in Mill Valley, California. In 1983, Cummins took over Horizon Gallery in Mill Valley, re-naming it the Susan Cummins Gallery. Noting a lack of representation, Cummins settled on American jewelry as a primary focus for her gallery. Eventually, Cummins relocated to a larger space in Mill Valley and became known for representing painters and jewelers in the same gallery space, blurring the rigid distinction between fine art and craft. Cummins maintained the gallery until 2002. In 1997, Cummins helped found Art Jewelry Forum, a nonprofit tasked with connecting people working across the field of contemporary jewelry and educating new audiences. She continues to be a frequent contributor and is currently serving as the board chair. Cummins has also served on boards for arts organizations such as the American Craft Council and the Headlands Center for the Arts. Her primary focus in recent years has been her work as director of the Rotasa Foundation, a family foundation that supports exhibitions and publications featuring contemporary art jewelers. Susan Cummins was elected a 2018 Honorary Fellow of the American Craft Council.         About Laurie Hall   Laurie Hall, along with Ron Ho, Kiff Slemmons, Ramona Solberg, and Nancy Worden, is part of what has been called the Northwest School of Jewelers, an influential jewelry art movement centered around an eclectic style of narrative and composition. Laurie Hall is a long-time artist and educator from the Pacific Northwest, whose work has exhibited internationally. In 2016, her work was featured in Craft in America's exhibition Politically Speaking: New American Ideals in Contemporary Jewelry. Laurie's work is part of numerous private and public collections including The Museum of Art and Design in NYC, The Tacoma Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Additional Resources: Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com: Coney Island Express 1983 Carved polychromed wood, bronze, sterling silver, string, and found cocktail umbrella  1 1/2 x 1 1/4 x 16 inches Private collection  Photo: Roger Schreiber   Stumped 1988 Yew wood, sterling silver (oxidized), and antique compass 13 x 1/4 x 3/8 inches The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase funded by the Morgan Foundation in honor of Catherine Asher Morgan, 2002.3793   Cubist Café 1987 Sterling silver (oxidized) 6 1/2 x 12 3/4 x 1/2 inches Tacoma Art Museum, gift of Mia McEldowney Photo: Doug Yaple   Wrapped Up in the Times 1987 Sterling silver (oxidized), aluminum sheet, and decoy fish eye 6 x 4 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches Sandy and Lou Grotta collection Photo: Richard Nichol     The Royal Brou Ha Ha 1996 Sterling silver (stamped), stainless-steel fine mesh, hematite beads, and sterling silver foxtail chain 10 x 10 x 1 1/2 inches Tacoma Art Museum, gift of Sharon Campbell Photo: Richard Nichol   One Screw 2009 Bronze screw and sterling silver 1 x 1 x 1/4 inches Curtis Steiner collection Photo: Curtis Steiner   No. 2, Please! 1988 Bronze, found No.2 pencils, basswood, and color core 16 x 3/4 x 4 3/4 inches The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Helen Williams Drutt Collection, museum purchase funded by the Morgan Foundation in honor of Catherine Asher Morgan, 2002.3791   Behind the Eight-Ball 2008 Fabricated marriage of metal ball (copper, sterling silver, nickel silver, bronze), copper frame, found printing plate and stencil, and sterling silver 2 3/4 x 3 x 1/2 inches Marcia Doctor collection Photo: Roger Schreiber   Transcript:   Although her work has been shown internationally, Laurie Hall's jewelry is undoubtedly rooted in the Pacific Northwest. As a member of the influential Northwest School of Jewelers, Laurie's eclectic, often humorous work has drawn the attention of numerous gallerists and collectors, including Art Jewelry Forum co-founder Susan Cummins. Susan recently captured Laurie's career in the new book, “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall.” Laurie and Susan joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the influences behind the Northwest School; where Laurie draws her inspiration from; and what they learned from each other while writing the book. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.     Today my guests are Susan Cummins and Laurie Hall. Susan has co-authored with Damian Skinner a new book, “North by Northwest: The Jewelry of Laurie Hall” For 20+ years, she was the driving force behind Art Jewelry Forum, which advocates for contemporary art jewelry. Laurie is an arts educator and jeweler from the Pacific Northwest whose jewelry has been exhibited internationally. She's a key figure in the Northwest School of Jewelry, an influential jewelry art movement centered around an eclectic style of narrative and composition. We'll hear more about Susan's and Laurie's jewelry journey today. Susan and Laurie, welcome to the program.   Susan: Thank you, wonderful to be here.   Sharon: So glad to have each of you. Susan we'll start with you. Can you tell us about your jewelry journey?   Susan: My jewelry journey did not start until I was running a gallery in Mill Valley. I showed a lot of crafts in the gallery, and that introduced me to some American jewelers who were part of that craft movement in the 80s and 90s. I started to show those American jewelers in the gallery and after a while, I began to realize how smart and how very skilled they were, and how wonderful it was to work with them. There were no other galleries that just showed American jewelers in the United States at that time. All the other galleries that existed showed a lot of European work. So, I thought, “O.K., this is going to be my specialty.” That's mainly what I did and what I showed, and I became very infatuated with jewelry at that moment in time.   Sharon: Is that when you started Art Jewelry Forum?   Susan: I started Art Jewelry Forum in 1997, and the gallery I had in the 80s and 90s. So, it was a while before that came to be, but yes, within that period of time.   Sharon: Laurie, what's your jewelry journey?   Laurie: As a kid, I started doing art right away. My parents observed me drawing horses on the wall and my mother said, “Bill, I think we have an artist here.” I was given their stamp of approval from the very beginning. Did I think about being a jeweler? No, it's always been about art and making things like accessories, costumes, that kind of thing. I just wanted to be an artist, whether it was a visual artist or making things. I liked making compositions that were about something.   Sharon: Did you first meet Susan when she had the gallery? How did you two first meet?   Laurie: I met Susan at the gallery in Mill Valley. She requested to show my work, so of course you respond; you don't hesitate on that. I knew Susan's reputation already and I was thrilled. As usual, it was a bit of a hot potato because I taught full time and it was hard to get the pieces done. I think I squeaked in at the last minute, but I did get there.   Susan: Laurie is famous for being late, especially delivering work to every show she was ever in, but I have to say doing this book, she was right on time with everything. It was a miracle. She really, really performed in this case.   Sharon: There are some beautiful photos, so I can imagine pulling them all together must have been such a task.    Laurie: It was, but it was fun.   Susan: She kept very good records and we had access to all of those. For years she'd been taking photographs. Unless an artist does that throughout their career, it going to be hard to even put together a monograph of their work.   Sharon: I bet it would be, if you had to go back and start pulling things from 30 years ago. Laurie, in the book, “North by Northwest,” it talks about the influence that Ramona Solberg had on you. Can you tell us who she was, what happened and how she influenced you?   Laurie: I came to Seattle to teach. I taught a couple of years on Vashon, and then I was recruited to go to Mercer Island, which was—I didn't know at the time—the best school district in Seattle in terms of kids and the economics of it and everything. It was a public high school. I went to a conference down in Tacoma, and Ramona was there. It was an art education conference. I walked in, and she had this whole table of ethnic jewelry, which was the rage, and I liked it. Everybody liked it. It really put things on display, and she had her own work right next to it.    I think her aesthetic was something I always had to begin with, in some ways. I like making compositions; I like collage and printmaking; I like painting; I like sculpture; I liked all of that, and there it was in some ways. All of her pieces were made with found objects. A lot of people do found objects, but they don't remove them from looking found. Hers were integrated into the composition, somewhat of a cubistic-looking composition.    Her persona, she was a big gal, but she always wore polka dots and stripes and bright colors. She was cheerful looking, and she would wear a bandana around her neck. Everybody loved her and I could see why. She reminded me a little bit of my mom. My mom was a version of Ramona and her sense of humor. Ramona would call it like it is. She didn't ever try to make it up. She wasn't charming for the sake of being charming; she was matter of fact, right on. She called it, and you stood there at attention. I just liked her no-nonsense approach, and her jewelry to me was art. I was looking for something I could devote myself to. I had painted. I had done printmaking. I had done everything in college, and everybody was impressed with what I made. I sold everything, but I was looking for something I could wrap my mind around and my physical self around. It seemed like it was the thing, and it certainly was.   Sharon: What was it that moved you so much? Was it the fact that the found objects were integrated so they became part of a piece? What was it that opened your mind to that?   Laurie: Graphically her pieces were—you wanted to own them. You wanted to put them on. They were pendants and things like that, but they were very appealing to me. It harkens back to me going to a house dance down in Salem at Atlanta University, and there being this barn and this guy collaged all this barn stuff all over the wall. I thought it was beautiful. There was a collage like that that Ramona was making, but it wasn't just Ramona; it was the wholeness of Ramona. She not only had these collections, but she could talk about objects. She had traveled a lot. She had been in the Army, and she had been over in Europe. She had had adventures and was part of the world. She was really a beacon for me.   Sharon: Susan, you knew her too, because I think the first time I ever heard the name was from you.   Susan: I did know her. I think we should also bring in here that the point in time Laurie is talking was during the 60s and 70s, when there was a strong feeling of interest in objects and aesthetics from other cultures. People were wearing beads and bright-colored clothing, and all the things Laurie's talking about that were in Ramona's purview were part of what was happening then. Ramona just did it with a particularly great style and attitude. So, I think there was a proclivity at the time for somebody like Laurie, an impressionable young thing, to be intrigued by Ramona.   Laurie: And then the Pencil Brothers and all the things that were going on in Seattle. Seattle was ripe for craftspeople.   Sharon: The Pencil Brothers?   Laurie: The Pencil Brothers, yeah.   Sharon: Who were they?   Laurie: If you read Susan's book, “In Flux,” you will see—help me out here, Susan.   Susan: It was Ken Cory and Les LePere who were from eastern Washington. They used to show in a gallery called Margolis Gallery in Seattle. Other people from that eastern part did a lot of what Laurie's calling funk jewelry. We talked about of this in the book “In Flux: American Jewelry and the Counterculture.” Those kinds of things were circulating around at the time in the 60s and 70s in Seattle. The Northwest was very strong in that regard.   Sharon: Laurie, you're described as being part of the School of Northwest Jewelry. What is that?   Laurie: The Pencil Brothers are part of it, Ken Cory being one of them, and the other one is Les LePere. Ramona is part of that. Merrily Tompkins and Don Tompkins, who were—Merrily was one of Ken Cory's students. They were all over in Ellensberg. That scene was going on, and then in Seattle there was Ramona. It started with Ramona, but I was paying attention to what I saw.    Susan: Ron Ho.   Laurie: Yeah, Ron Ho.   Susan: Kiff Slemmons   Laurie: Kiff Slemmons, yes, absolutely.   Sharon: What was it, a belief? What made them a part of it?   Laurie: I think a lot of us liked the same kinds of images in terms of the found objects. They were using pencils. Number two pencils; Ramona used those. Ken Cory used them obviously, but I can't remember if he got the idea from Ramona or he got the idea himself. I saved pencils when I was in college. It was just something you did. I liked them. I like carpenter's pencils. I'm not explaining this too well, I don't think.   Susan: Let me give it a try. The Northwest Group, which is mainly Kiff Slemmons, Laurie, Ron Ho and Ramona—those are the major players—they were all doing work that had some familiarity with each other. They were using found objects as part of it, but they also often were making statements or telling funny stories or representing something more dynamic, like traveling the world and collecting bits and pieces from things. Ron Ho was a gay man who was Chinese. The other three were all students of Ramona, and they all did work that was similar to hers, but also very distinctively different. They all had something to say about different topics, and they all saw each other and saw each other's work. I think there was a strong difference between what they did and what everybody else was doing in the United States at the time. I was interested in showing it in the gallery because I thought it was particularly interesting in that it had something to say and was saying it with objects you could understand, like the pencils Laurie was describing.   Laurie: And the rulers and the compasses. Ramona used dominos. I remember going to New York for my show at the Elements, and I knew were really doing something different than the East Coast. They were into slick things and production jewelry and titanium and all that stuff. I'd seen that in London when I went there. Ramona did a study abroad program, and I went on it with Ron Ho. We saw Caroline Broadhead and Catherine Mannheim and Wendy Ramshaw and all those people. We went to see Wendy Ramshaw, and I realized we were doing something different. It's what I felt comfortable with: liking antiques, liking the Asian influence in the Northwest, liking the colors. To make things and put rivets in was very exciting. It was a formative way of making jewelry, put a rivet into something and rivet the whole thing together. How exciting.   Susan: And how simple and how direct.   Laurie: And how hard, oh my gosh! You can't believe once you start putting something together. You're not in charge; it's in charge. It's on the table. It's flat. You've got to make it so it can go onto somebody, and you don't know how it's going to get there. You tape it together; you string it together; you do anything you can to make it look like you could put it on. You put it on and say to somebody, “How do you think this is working?” “Well, I think it's good.”    I remember the café necklace, when I made that, I worked on it Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I have to say I skipped school, not Thursday, but Friday and then Monday I think I skipped school too. I never would skip school, but it was very important to me. It was going to Susan. Anyhow, did I know it was going to work? No, that's half the reason you do it. The way I work, that's why I do it. I have an idea or I have something I've seen, and suddenly you'll come down to your worktable and everything's been rearranged. You look down and see an idea right there on the table. It's very creative. It's about the piece dictating to you what to do next, and you just keep working.   Sharon: With found objects, do you have a box? Do you collect them on the beach and put them in a box, and you look at it one day and it says, “Make me into this”? How does that work?    Laurie: I don't always use found objects. Ramona thought it was funny; I said I make found objects, and that's the truth. I think so much of this jewelry that was made with found objects, people didn't really make it into a conversation. They just plunk them down. Do I go out to garage sales and all that kind of stuff? No, I've got too much stuff to begin with.    I find things incidentally. There's a ring in the book that's a one-screw ring. I found that screw on the floor in my school workshop. I asked the guy I worked with if he knew who it belonged to and he didn't know, so I thought, “O.K., it's mine.” The eight ball, I found that on the floor in Multnomah Arts Center where I was teaching here in Portland. You just see things. Sometimes it's a fragment that nobody could even identify, but it makes you have juices in your eyes. You're really excited. Do I know what I'm going to do with it? Not necessarily.   Sharon: How about when you saw the screw? Did the screw talk to you and say, “Make me into this”?   Laurie: Yeah, I thought that could be a ring because I'd already made a two-screw ring with the flange that I found in the same workshop. I thought it was kind of dirty and funny, which is the juvenile part of me, and that's why he bought it.    Sharon: How did you segue? You said in school you studied printmaking and all kinds of different arts, but how did you come to jewelry? Did you just keep doing more jewelry?   Laurie: I took a jewelry class from a visiting professor at my university. It wasn't Ramona, and the guy didn't know what he was doing, so I had to learn by myself. That didn't bother me. I'd seen Calder's work, so I wanted to make jewelry. My first work doesn't look like Calder exactly. It was of that time period, and Calder had a huge influence on all of us. It was that forging of metal and changing it from one thing to another. Susan, you have a picture of you wearing that wonderful piece—it might be Dorothea Prühl —that looks like great, big paperclips, the steel piece.   Susan: Probably Dorothea, yeah.    Laurie: Yeah, I love her work. There's this essence of originality that some pieces have, and if you can get in touch with that in your own soul, that's the best kind of art that can be made because it's original. I knew right away because I had a fantastic art history professor at Atlanta University. I knew what monumental was; I knew what original was; I knew you had to have a style. It wasn't that it scared me; it excited me that I could express myself and it could be mine, not anybody else's. It wouldn't look like everybody else's.   Sharon: So, that's what brought you to jewelry.   Laurie: Yes.    Sharon: How do you describe your jewelry to people when they say, “What do you do?” If you say you make jewelry, they think gems and gold.   Laurie: I always tell them I don't make jewelry. Sometimes it can be worn. It sometimes goes on the wall in a frame. It is wearable, but forget the word jewelry. It's a composition that I'm making with different materials.   Sharon: Do people usually get that? Do they understand what you're saying?   Laurie: Not necessarily. Most people think of jewelry as a category and they can't escape it. It's too bad, because more of the exciting pieces are being made with Legos and pieces of wood and recycled stuff. Maria Phillips is shredding a cup, and she'll put it together with popsicle sticks or whatever. Everything can become a beautiful or interesting piece to look at that ignites another thought. That's what you want to do. You want to put something out that ignites a thought.    When the piece is in charge, it says what it wants to say. I'm separate from it. It's like giving birth to child, I suppose. You've got to let it free, let it go out there and walk. You put it on somebody, and that's where the ethnic jewelry—it was on parade. People were wearing it and it was colorful. It had funny things in it that they had never seen before, but you adopted it and you liked wearing it. It fit your style and people were dressing in really fun ways.

What you'll learn in this episode: How Whitney has maintained relationships with clients since moving her studio from Chicago to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin Why the pandemic has changed the way we buy and sell jewelry for good Why Whitney sometimes turns down commissions and encourages clients to work with other jewelers How social media has changed the type of jewelry customers want How to find creative ways to give clients a luxury experience when you can't meet in person About Whitney Abrams Whitney Abrams' high-karat gold creations are a reflection of her love of the Renaissance aesthetic and her admiration for the technical abilities of the Ancients. Inspired by the rich tones of high-karat gold and intense hues of unique, precious stones, her hand-made pieces involve the wearer in an experience of regal beauty. Her interest in intaglios and cameos has led her to develop relationships with several German carvers who provide her clients with custom carvings that connect them with Abrams' creations on an unparalleled level. Whitney has studied goldsmithing and exhibited her jewelry throughout the United States and Europe. Her work is included in a number of publications on the subject of jewelry as an art form and jewelry making techniques. Whitney Abrams presents her collections privately to collectors throughout the country, as well as online. Additional Resources: Website Twitter Facebook Instagram Transcript: Since joining the Jewelry Journey Podcast as a guest in February 2020, maker and jewelry gallery owner Whitney Abrams' life and business have changed dramatically: she moved away from her busy Chicago studio to vacation hotspot Lake Geneva, WI, and has spent the last year finding the inspiration that comes with a more relaxed lifestyle. Although it's been challenging to provide customers with the luxury experience she's known for in a pandemic, Whitney has discovered that the relationships she fostered with her customers can withstand the distance. She joined another episode of the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about what life is like in Lake Geneva; how she keeps in touch with longstanding clients; and how social media has helped her business grow. Read the episode transcript here.    Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.    Today, my guest is Whitney Abrams, owner and founder of Whitney Abrams Jewelry, a private jewelry studio specializing in high-karat jewelry. Whitney was one of our pre-Covid guests in episode 62, which you can find in our podcast archives on the Jewelryjourney.com website. Today, we'll hear Whitney's jewelry journey and how she's handled the challenges of continuing her business in the time of Covid. Whitney, welcome to the program.   Whitney: Great to see you again, Sharon. Thank you.   Sharon: You're quite an accomplished high-karat goldsmith. For people who haven't heard your story, can you tell us about your jewelry journey?   Whitney: Sure. Thank you for that compliment. I grew up loving jewelry. I came from a family that loved jewelry.  My dad designed pieces over the years for my mom that he had other jewelers make, and my grandparents collected a lot of jewelry. Starting from when I was about seven, I was gifted with jewelry for every occasion. It was really part of the fabric of our family. I always had a penchant for stand-alone gems.   Although I went to school for communication studies at the University of Iowa, I found my way to a fine arts metals minor there. They had a nice jewelry department, so that fed into my interest in making. I learned how to fabricate. From there, I went into business—it was a national advertising sales position—for years, but I always did jewelry on the side. At my home I had, not a studio per se, but a maker's room, I called it, because I didn't have a torch. I continued taking studio time through the Lincoln Park Association in Chicago.    Subsequently, I found myself enjoying jewelry more than my full-time job. I ended up taking some classes overseas. I took a course in Ireland with a gentleman named Brian Clark—   Sharon: I'm sorry, in Ireland?   Whitney: In Ireland. It's a town about an hour south of Dublin. He has a silversmithing course he offers in the summer. It's an intensive program. I went for a month, and it was absolutely wonderful and immersive. You used the bellows to pump air into the flame with your foot while you're standing on one foot and trying to solder. You're learning things; you're doing things that are done in a very different way than I had been exposed to in the States. It was absolutely wonderful. I learned how to use chafing tools and different hammers, and I made some bowls and things I hadn't been exposed to before. That was really fabulous.    Then I ended up traveling a lot through Europe, and I came upon an exhibition in London. I stumbled upon the Ogden exhibition called “Greek Gold” at the British Museum. When I walked in there and saw all the Etruscan and the 22-karat, 24-karat granulated pieces, the handmade chains, I had an epiphany. I said, “This is it. This is what I'm going to do.”    When I got back home, I set my sights on finding places to learn how to do those techniques and work in high-karat jewelry. That took me to New York City. I ended up taking a couple of intensive courses in New York. At the time, there were about three Greek schools teaching those processes. I ended up being offered an apprenticeship because in five days, I had made seven significant pieces. They said, “This is your thing. You've got this.” So, I packed my bags, I moved to New York City, and that's where I landed for years. I continued on there at Seebauer Studio for about a year. I learned a lot by watching the teaching going on and watching other students making things, people that had a lot more experience than I did.   Then I got my own studio space with a longtime friend of mine from seventh grade. She happened to live in New York City and was also taking jewelry classes, so we could share a studio. That led me, a couple of years later, to open Metal Kitchen, which was a jewelry-making school in Soho. We taught everything from marketing—I had experts in all the different fields come in, whether you should buy a safe, whether you should get jewelry insurance—to all the different techniques. I had traveling instructors from Italy and all over the United States and Canada come in to teach courses, which was really wonderful.    At that time, I was doing a lot of commission work and a lot of shows for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Park Avenue Crafts and the American Craft Council, that show circuit for high-end crafts. That landed me at the dot com bust, where all the rents blew up in New York. So, I ended up having to close the school, which was very sad for me because I loved meeting all the different instructors and students, but our rent went astronomically high and it wasn't possible to continue there.    At that point, I moved back to Chicago a couple of years later and opened my gallery in the Gold Coast area in Chicago. It was about two blocks off Michigan Avenue. I had that for 10 years, and then I went to a private studio about a block away. I maintained a lot of my customer base; probably about 1,000 steady people and 300 real collectors. I carried a lot of other artists' work at the gallery, but I did a lot of commission work and a lot of my own pieces. I worked from my home studio.  During this time—I definitely spoke to you a couple of years before all this started—after living in my place for a year and not really being able to go out much between Covid and the atmosphere in Chicago in the last year and a half, I ended up moving up to Lake Geneva, which is a resort area in southern Wisconsin, about five miles over the border from Illinois. It's about an hour and a half from where I was living. I have family up here and I have my studio, so I'm continuing to work. I've even had several of my customers who have become friends come up for lunch this summer and sit outside. We continue to make connections with people. They ordered some commissions, so we're continuing on and it's been great.   Sharon: Would you still call what you have a private studio? I know you really focused on the luxury aspect.   Whitney: I don't have an open studio anymore as I did in Chicago, but I will come and meet people, and they are welcome to come to my studio by appointment. It is still, to some extent, more private than it was before, but it was more of a reaction to what was going on. I really did find that the stress I was under in Chicago over the last year and half sapped my energy and creativity. Being able to be outside and have my own space and not have to deal with—I was on a very busy corner that had a lot of police activity and things like that, so it wasn't conducive to walking around with gemstones and fine metals. Things have turned around in terms of being able to sleep all night and create and have energy. The thought process is back, and it's concentrating once again on the jewelry. So, that's great.   Sharon: It sounds like it was very stressful there.   Whitney: It was a little stressful. You keep going through it and going through it, and when it seemed like there was an end, then something else happened. I just thought, “You know what? I think I need a change for a while.” Whether that means I go back or I don't go back, I'm not sure yet, but things have certainly calmed down there, and I still have many friends that live there. I was there the other day, and things are getting a little more back to normal. We'll see what happens, but for the moment I'm happy having my own studio again and making.   Sharon: Lake Geneva, you said it's a vacation area. I'm not familiar with it.   Whitney: It's one of the largest fresh-water lakes in the country, and it's a big boating community. There are about 700 houses on the lake. A lot of families have had mansions here historically. It was a summer retreat for Chicago people going back many, many years, and there are a lot of old mansions here. It's kind of like the Hamptons of Chicago, in terms of people can drive there in less than an hour and a half or two hours, get to their house, be on the lake, have their boats and park at the piers and go into town and have lunch or shop. It's a whole lake life community up here. It's wonderful to get up at 4:00, get up from your bed, go down and float on your raft for an hour and jump in the lake. It's great.   Sharon: What do people do during the winter? Does it close down?   Whitney: There are a lot of things here in the winter. There are a lot of festivals, a lot of things that are based around cold weather and ice and ice sculpture. There's an international ice sculpture competition here starting next week, and that happens every year. There's skiing in the area. There's ice fishing and snowmobiling. There are a lot of outdoor things going on even though it's cold, which is probably foreign to you in the warmth of California, but it's really embraced here.    There are a lot of people that are here year-round, and the year-round population here during Covid has expanded greatly. There are a lot more people where I'm living who have only come up three or four weekends or 10 weekends in the summer, but they are now permanently living here with their kids and they're in school. It's a lot of people that have left not just Chicago, but Milwaukee and other larger cities that are near here. There's a whole system of lakes around here that have expanded the population during Covid. There's definitely a lot going on.   Sharon: Wow! You brought some of your existing clientele, but how has it been in terms of—is it rebuilding? It's such a change.   Whitney: It's kind of rebuilding, but it's kind of maintaining relationships that I've had. The one great thing about Zoom has been that you can show people gemstones; you can discuss pieces. One thing I have seen a shift in with my customers is, with the time we all spent at home organizing and cleaning things, they would say, “Oh my, I found a ring of my grandmother's I forgot I had,” or “This is broken. I have four diamonds from this and a couple of stones from that. Would you have some tourmaline that would go with it?” We use Zoom calls instead of traveling and seeing each other in person, and that's been really interesting. Then having Instagram, and being able to do trunk shows instead of being in-person at a jewelry show or having a trunk show at a jewelry store that happened to be closed down or didn't want 20 people at a time in their shop, now that things have relaxed a tiny bit. It's definitely been an adjustment.    Also, one of my opal dealers, who's been an opal dealer for many years, he has a store in Lake Geneva where he sells opal jewelry. He and I have done a couple things together. There are several other jewelry stores in the towns around the lake. It's a 26-mile lake, so there are several towns around the perimeter of the lake. It's been very nice to connect with people who have shown at Tucson, who have been in the industry since the 70s and have an inventory of stones and other things I've needed. I've gone over to this woman in Lake Geneva and said, “Hey, do you have this? Do you have that?” and looked through her stones. It's been very interesting. It's kind of a shift.    Sharon: It sounds like a shift. I give you credit because you have to be flexible to turn on a dime like that.   Whitney: I thought, “Well, am I going to sit here and feel like doing nothing, or am I going to do something?” I just have to get going and do something. Chicago was interesting because they shut all the outdoor spaces down. You couldn't walk along the lake. They closed everything and there were police blocking all the entrances. I think a lot of people that didn't live there don't realize that. Now, of course, all that has been taken away, but it was nine months of you're not allowed to go to a park; you're not allowed to go the lake, which was outside my door. It was a very different way of living, and this has really been great. It's been wonderful. I've got some friends that also came up from Chicago. It's moving to a small town, but thankfully I know some people. I've met a lot of very nice people. I've made some great connections. Between the internet and phone calls and Instagram, it's been easy to keep in touch with my other clients.   Sharon: I didn't realize you had a magazine background. I know in the past you had a done a lot with print.   Whitney: I did. When I was doing national ad sales, it was network television. That was not magazine-related; that was network television stations, but I did do a lot of advertising, as we discussed before, when I had my store. Print ads were wildly successful for me for the store. I think when you have a physical location people can come to, that makes a lot of sense. Up here, there are a lot of equestrian places and people that board their horses. I've been approached by a couple of magazines that cater to that because I have German carvers. I've had customers in Chicago who've given me pictures of their horses or their dogs, and the carvers put the animals on cameos. That's something I'm looking at dipping back into.   Sharon: You segued so quickly, very successfully, to Instagram. How has that been during Covid? Tell us more about that.    Whitney: It's been wonderful. I have enjoyed it. I have had nothing but positive experiences. I've connected to a lot of gem dealers. Everybody in the beginning was scrambling: “How is this going to work? The stores are closed. All the shows are canceled.” It was a collaborative opening for people to discuss, “How can we have a trunk show virtually? What software are you using? How are you doing this? What camera are you using?” People were open to sharing information and helping each other succeed and move through this time that no one had experienced before. So, that was really wonderful.   Then, because the gem shows were not happening—not that I need another gem, as I may have told you before. I had no business going to Tucson again, but it's always fun, especially at a time when you couldn't go out shopping or do anything. It was like, “Oh, look at those watermelon slices, O.K.” A lot of the gem dealers started posting, and I was starting to buy from people I hadn't bought from, or maybe they showed in Tucson at a show I hadn't been to. It was an introduction to a lot of people I hadn't interacted with personally before.   In terms of my jewelry, I had never experienced where I would post a finished piece, and someone would buy it immediately off Instagram. That was something new, and that was a real lift when people were saying, “O.K., this is cancelled, that's canceled, that's canceled.” I started posting a lot of finished work, and I got a lot of commissions or people purchasing things right off of Instagram.   Sharon: Do you think things will go back? What's the new normal with this?   Whitney: I don't know. I think people are now very comfortable using technology they didn't think they would be able to use. I'm not sure what the next thing is going to be because Instagram was so different. I was late to the game; I think I joined in 2016, but it keeps growing, and people are adapting along with it. There are a couple of artists who I think have done a neat job of doing release dates. They post in-process pieces, and there's a timer you can put on your Instagram with the release date, and then they sell everything at once. A fabulous idea. It's like having an instant trunk show, and people have the anticipation. I remember when retailers would release a new collection. It's very similar. That's really been interesting.    I'm hoping to go to the Tucson Gem Show at the end of this month. It seems like it's going to go on. I've had messages from some of my dealers saying they're not coming from Brazil or China, but most people seem like they're coming from Germany, so we'll see what's going to happen with that. I don't think those shows may ever be as large as they have been in the past.   Sharon: So, Tucson is still on. I know because I've had trips canceled that are in March or April already.   Whitney: I know. They're saying Tucson is still on. I'm supposed to go on the 28th of January. We shall see.   Sharon: Well, I hope so   Whitney: It's getting close. I don't know what the rules are. It's so up in the air, especially with the little peak of Covid we're having now, but fingers crossed. I have literally not been on an airplane since Tucson in 2020. That was my last trip. I hope it goes on, but if it doesn't—I've booked trips over the past two years that I've canceled, but I would like to go. If I can't go, I can't go.    Sharon: I hope you can go. I hope it's a go.   Whitney: I know. Everything's a little bit out of our control right now, so just roll with it and see what happens. I can cancel my hotel, so I'm not worried about it. They've already changed both of my flights to different flights entirely, and that was like six weeks ago, so who knows?   Sharon: I hope you do get to go. Maybe there will be some normalcy in the world. I do think once I get past the hunger for being able to go shows, it will be a new normal.   Whitney: It's the camaraderie of our group of friends that is so wonderful. The people in this industry are so delightful. WhatsApp has been another thing. I don't know if you use that. That has been a neat connection to a lot of my friends in Europe. We call each other. We travel. One of my friends who's a gem dealer from the East Coast, they spontaneously went to Italy. I couldn't believe they picked up and went before Christmas, but I told them all the jewelry-related places to go in Florence. I lived in Florence for a while. They had the best time. It was so fun, and I said, “I'm going to live vicariously through you.”   Sharon: That's great. Italy is on my list when the world opens up a little more. Maybe it's just America that is so closed. When it opens, you hear about everybody traveling. You have to share your vaccination card, but you know.   Whitney: Right, I know.

What you'll learn in this episode: How Cindi helped the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston secure one of the country's most important art jewelry collections  Why jewelry is a hybrid of craft and art that doesn't fit just in one category Why the art world began to question the value of craft in the 80s, and why that perspective is changing now Why museum and gallery visitors shouldn't ask themselves, “Would I wear this?” when looking at art jewelry About Cindi Strauss Cindi Strauss is the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design and Assistant Director, Programming at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). She received her BA with honors in art history from Hamilton College and her MA in the history of decorative arts from the Cooper-Hewitt/Parsons School of Design. At the MFAH, Cindi is responsible for the acquisition, research, publication, and exhibition of post-1900 decorative arts, design, and craft. Jewelry is a mainstay of Cindi's curatorial practice. In addition to regularly curating permanent collection installations that include contemporary jewelry from the museum's collection, she has organized several exhibitions that are either devoted solely to jewelry or include jewelry in them. These include: Beyond Ornament: Contemporary Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2003–2004); Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2007); Liquid Lines: Exploring the Language of Contemporary Metal (2011); and Beyond Craft: Decorative Arts from the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection (2014). Cindi has authored or contributed to catalogs and journals on jewelry, craft, and design topics, and has been a frequent lecturer at museums nationwide. She also serves on the editorial advisory committee for Metalsmith magazine. Additional Resources: Museum of Fine Arts Houston Transcript: For the uninitiated, jewelry, art and craft may seem like three distinct (and perhaps, unfortunately, hierarchical) entities. But Cindi Strauss, Curator of Decorative Arts, Crafts and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, wants us to break down these barriers and appreciate the value of jewelry as an art in its own right. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how she helped MFA Houston establish one of the largest art jewelry collections at an American museum; why jewelry artists should be proud of their studio craft roots; and why wearability shouldn't be the first consideration when looking at art jewelry. Read the episode transcript here.      Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.    Today, our guest is Cindi Strauss, the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Crafts and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, where she's been responsible for a number of exhibits and has written extensively. She coauthored the recent book “Influx: American Jewelry and the Counterculture.” In addition, she's on the Board of Directors of Art Jewelry Forum. We'll hear more about her jewelry journey today. Cindi, welcome to the program.   Cindi: Thank you, Sharon. I'm delighted to be here.   Sharon: So glad to have you. Tell us about your jewelry journey. Did you like jewelry, or did you come to it through decorative arts? How did that work?   Cindi: Well, the story has been heard. I have told it before, about how I was introduced to art jewelry through Helen Drutt through a serendipitous meeting with her. Prior to that, we only had one piece of art jewelry in the museum's collection, a terrific Art Smith necklace from 1948. Personally, I come from a family who loves jewelry, but I have not been as much of a lover of it. I have always worn very minimal jewelry myself, so it's sort of ironic that I am the curator of this phenomenal jewelry collection, the foundation of which is the acquisition in 2002 of Helen Drutt's private collection. At that time, we acquired a little over 800 pieces, including sketchbooks and some drawings of international art jewelry dating from about 1963 to, at that point, the early 2000s. Helen continued to add to that collection up through 2006, when we were in the final preparation for the Ornamentist art exhibition and catalogue. That opened in 2007 in Houston and traveled to Washington, D.C., to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then to Tacoma, Washington. That is, from a publications point, a great point of demarcation in terms of art jewelry collections. Since then, not only has Helen continued to add pieces to the museum, but we have worked with a lot of national and local collectors, and our jewelry collection continues to grow through acquisitions and gifts.    I would say that in graduate school, I had the barest introduction to jewelry, and it was really historical jewelry as part of a larger decorative arts education, in terms of looking at styles and how they reflected themselves in historical jewelry. At the time I was in graduate school at the Cooper Hewitt, there was not a seminar on contemporary art jewelry or art jewelry in general, so my knowledge of it has really been built and continues to be built based on our collection, our commitment to it going forward, and trying to keep up with the bare minimum of what's been happening in the field. I have to say Art Jewelry Forum is an amazing way for me to do that through their website, through the articles, through the artist awards, through the artist maker pages. It's a very easy snapshot of what's happening in the field, and then I can take that research and interest into other directions.   Sharon: I can't imagine being an aficionado, whether it's to study or just being a jewelry lover, and not being involved in Art Jewelry Forum. There's no other place like it.    Cindi: There isn't. Honestly, nine times out of 10, if I am interested in learning more about an artist and I plug in the artist's name in Google, the first search that comes up is always Art Jewelry Forum. It's either an interview or an article or something. For me, it has always been a one-stop initial research location.   Sharon: How did you come to study decorative arts? How did you become a professional in the area? Was that something you had always wanted to do? What was your training?   Cindi: It really happened, I would say, serendipitously. I grew up in a family where my father was in the design field, particularly in textiles. My parents' preferred style was that of Scandinavia and Italian modern. I grew up in a contemporary house, so there was a certain amount of osmosis with this field. I grew up in Connecticut, which is more oriented towards colonial architecture and traditional interiors, and I knew our house was different and it kind of stuck out. I remember asking my parents when I was young why our house didn't look like everybody else's, and their answer was very simple: because this is what we like, and this is why we like it.   I went off to college and thought I was going to be an English major. I took an intro to art history survey and found I loved it, but it wasn't until my senior year in college that a survey of the history of decorative arts was offered, and that completely ignited my fire. As much as I loved art history, I wanted to be able to touch paintings, which I can't do. I was interested in the tactile qualities of art and texture and being able to feel and understand value. This introduction to the history of decorative arts was my gateway. That ignited a passion not only for the decorative arts, but when I was going to the museums and such during that time, I started to pay attention to decorative arts galleries more than I had in my museum billing previously. I thought, “This is what I want to do; this is where I want to be. I want to be in a museum and I want to be doing decorative arts.”   My first year out of college, I had an academic year fellowship at the Met. It was in a subset of the registrar's office called the cataloguing department, and that gave me a bird's eye, in-depth view of what was happening at the Met. At that time, I knew I was going to have go to graduate school, and I learned about Cooper Hewitt's program in the history of decorative arts. At that point, I chose Cooper Hewitt. There was no graduate center yet, and I knew I didn't want to do early American decorative arts. I wanted to have a broader art education, so I went to Cooper Hewitt. Interestingly, my thesis and a large chunk of my classes were on 18th-century European art, particularly porcelain, and I thought I would spend my career there because that's where all the research was happening. With the exception of design museums or modern art museums like MOMA, a lot of the big, encyclopedic institutions were not really paying attention to decorative arts beyond the Arts and Crafts movement. But I took as many classes as I could in 20th-century design and took decorative arts because that was what my personal passion was.   I got lucky, because my first position after graduate school was curatorial assistant here in Houston. I was split between two departments, the decorative arts department and our not-yet-opened house museum, Rienzi. It was the perfect job for me because Rienzi was all about the 18th century, whereas the decorative arts department was just starting to move past the Arts and Crafts movement into modern and contemporary. Ultimately, I was able to determine the pathway for that and create a separate department, and I made my way out of the 18th century to focus completely on the 20th and 21st centuries. So, it was a pathway of following my heart and my curiosity within this larger field.   Sharon: What were your thoughts when you were presented with this 800+ piece collection by Helen Drutt and they said, “O.K., put this exhibit together”?   Cindi: First of all, it was completely daunting. Anyone who knows Helen knows her knowledge is so vast, and she is so generous with it, but at the beginning, it's all brand new. So, it's rather intimidating, and you're doing so much looking and listening. In my initial conversations with Helen about the possibility of this acquisition, it was focused on the “Jewelry of Our Time” catalogue that she had cowritten, which featured a lot of the collection. There was a lot of study of that, trying to get myself up to speed to even make the presentations for the acquisition to not only my director, but our trustees.    It's funny; I have my initial notebooks from my first visit to Philadelphia with Helen, where I spent a number of days just sitting next to her as she held up different pieces, talked about different people, gave insight. Because I didn't know anything about the field—all the artists' names are spelled phonetically—there are a lot of notes to myself saying, “What does this really mean?” or a question mark with “follow up” or something like that, and I was drawing. I think I had a cell phone, but there was no cell phone camera. I didn't have an iPhone or iPad. I don't even know if they existed in 2002, but I would draw little pictures next to something she was talking about. Anyone who knows me knows I am quite possibly the world's worst draftsperson, so the pictures are hilarious. But I go back to those notebooks periodically, and you can see how I am intent on wrapping my head around this and trying to understand which countries, who were the major players, where things had gone.   We built a library at the museum with Helen's help. She seeded our library intending to send books. We were ordering catalogues nonstop, and I spent the better part of four years immersing myself in art jewelry and talking to artists. At that point, it was all done through these forms we would mail to artists. I tried to meet artists, and Helen's archives with all the correspondence were an incredible resource. There were interviews with artists and things like that. I would travel to the American Craft Council to see their incredible library and artist archive. I would do all of this plus travel to meet artists. I did a number of trips to Europe and across the U.S., trying to get my head around this field as seen through Helen's collection. The collection represents not only her eye and experiences and viewpoint, but truly the birth and development of the field over decades, not just in America, but globally as well.   Sharon: What's her connection to Houston? How is it she came to your museum?   Cindi: She didn't have any real connection to Houston. At the time, her son, Matthew, was the Chief Curator of the Manil Collection, which is a terrific, incredible museum here in Houston. She also had a very close and longstanding friendship with our then-photography curator, Anne Tucker. They met in a cute way over a slide table at Moore College of Art in the 70s, when they were both teaching there.    We have a festival every other year in Houston called FotoFest. It's one of the U.S.'s largest photography festivals, and all the institutions do exhibitions for FotoFest and their popup shows and galleries. The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft was only a year old at that point, but through connections, they met Helen. She curated a small show of photo-based, image-based jewelry for FotoFest, so of course she came down, and that's where I met her.    I met her at the opening. We had coffee separately during her visit. I was really ramping up our craft collection in terms of acquisitions and representation. As I said, we only had this one piece of art jewelry. I knew enough about what I didn't know to say to Helen at the time, “This is a field I'm interested in starting to acquire works from. Would you guide me?” She pointed me towards the “Jewelry of Our Time” catalogue and said, “Well, you know I have a collection.” I, of course, said, “Well, yes, it's famous, and it's in Philadelphia. It's so lucky they're going to get it.” She said, “Not necessarily. Nothing's been done. There's nothing in writing.” I seized on that and said, “Well, will you provide me with more information, and may I speak to my director about this?” She said, “Sure.”    It was, at the time, sort of a lark. I thought, “I don't know whether this will happen,” because it was not a field we were familiar with and certainly my director, Peter Marzio, was not familiar with it. I showed him the book. I talked to him with my little knowledge. He was intrigued, because he saw in it what he referred to as a “visual index” of modern and contemporary art in small scale. He saw all the connections and the creativity, and he said, “I'd like to learn more.” I arranged for him to go to Philadelphia, where he spent half a day with Helen and they talked and looked at pieces. He came back and said to me, “I want to figure this out. I want to do this,” and the rest is history.   Sharon: Wow! It's funny; when you were saying you were spelling things phonetically, I thought of Gijs Bakker. That's the name that came to mind. For people listening, it's G-i-l-s-b—   Cindi: G-i-j-s B-a-k-k-er. Gijs is one of the most important Dutch jewelry artists. He, along with his late wife, Emmy van Leersum, completely turned the idea of art jewelry on its head in the 60s. He and a number of other Dutch artists in the 60s and 70s revolutionized the field. Helen was such a great supporter, and he's one of her dearest friends. We have something like 34 or 35 of his pieces in the collection, not just from Helen, but from a couple of others that we've added along the way. I think outside of the Netherlands, we have the largest collection of Gijs' work.   Sharon: Wow! My first Art Jewelry Forum trip was to Amsterdam. I had just come to art jewelry myself, and his studio and his house were the first stop. When I think about it now, I think, “Oh, my god!” I had no idea. At the time, I didn't know which way was up when it came to art jewelry.   Cindi: I think that is a lot of people's first experience. It's visually compelling, and then you start to learn more. Quite often, you realize after the fact you met one of these super-important people, or you were in their studio or what have you.    Sharon: Yeah, it really is. I'm backing up a little. When you were studying, were there museums studies? Did you expect to be working in a museum or to be a curator? Was that part of your career field?    Cindi: Yeah, I always wanted to work in a museum, and I wanted to work in a curatorial capacity. The Cooper Hewitt's program at that time was geared towards museum curatorial careers. Also, a lot of people went into education. It was not geared towards working in the commercial sector. There were a handful of people who might have gone to an auction house or to a gallery, but it was focused on developing museum curators. That was something I knew I wanted and was really important to me in terms of being at the Cooper Hewitt. The program is embedded in the museum physically and has a lot of faculty from the museum and also, during my time, a lot of faculty from the Met, from the Brooklyn Museum. We had people teaching from MFA Boston, from Winterthur.    It was very much a program equally based on not only research and history and study, but on connoisseurship. Connoisseurship is essential to being a museum curator. You need to be able to delineate and understand the differences between different objects made by the same designer as well as within any larger aspect of the field. Cooper Hewitt was very much geared towards that, which was perfect for me. Because we were in the museum and we had faculty from other New York area museums, it was also possible to have internships with prominent curators from the various museums, again, moving you through this curatorial path.    The trick is always getting a job, and for me that was a lot of luck, I think. When I was in my second year, my last year of graduate school, I was working as an intern for one of the premier curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, particularly in late 19th-century ceramics and glass but also furniture. Her co-curator on an upcoming exhibition was my future boss at Houston. There was a job opening. Katherine Howe sent a fax, at that time, of the job description, and she handed it to me and said, “I know you still have a semester to go, but here, take a look at it.” I thought, “Well, I need to get a résumé in order. I need to start thinking about this.” I applied not thinking anything other than this is good exercise, and it obviously worked out for me.    I think in my graduating class from Cooper Hewitt—I think there were about 15 of us—there were only three of us who actually got museum jobs. A lot of it is timing because positions come open so rarely. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one from my graduating class left in a museum. It's not for everybody, and there aren't always jobs, but it was all I ever wanted to do. I also only wanted to work in a big institution, so Houston fit the bill for me. I love doing what I do within an encyclopedic institution, being able to contextualize, in this case, art jewelry, whether it's historical works of art, the idea of adornment, showing it within a particular geographical context. We exhibit the jewelry not only on its own and with other contemporary craft and design, but we exhibit it next to painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper. We embed it, and that is something my colleagues are very much used to and see it as being a vital art form.   Sharon: This is a two-part Jewelry Journey podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.

On today's Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Podcast, I have a tribute for Bill Daley who recently passed. Throughout his seventy-year career he created large scale terra cotta works that expanded the boundaries of the contemporary vessel. A noted educator, Daley spent over forty years teaching in higher education and has received numerous awards of distinction from the College Art Association, American Craft Council, the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. In the interview we talk about his triumvirate of creativity, the true nature of intuition and looking forward at ninety. This interview was recorded in 2015 in Philadelphia, PA. For more information visit www.williamdaley.net.

“Extra-Human: The Art of Michael Ferris” features larger-than-life figurative sculptures that Ferris created by fusing reclaimed discarded wood and pigmented grout through environmentally-conscious methods. The exhibition embodies a rich diffusion of cultural and artistic traditions and celebrates people's heroism in our everyday lives. Originally trained as a painter, Ferris embraced sculpture 25 years ago and developed an inlay technique of his own making, inspired by intarsia woodworking familiar to his Middle-Eastern heritage. Ferris enlists his self-invented mosaic design to enliven finely carved portraits of family and friends, capturing the subject's inner life through subtly choreographed patterning. This merger of realism and decorative splendor fulfills the artist's aim to highlight both a person's psychological and spiritual complexities. Michael Ferris's work has been exhibited widely throughout the nation at notable institutions including the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois; The Bronx Museum in New York; The Queens Museum of Art in New York; ATM Gallery in New York; Katonah Art Museum in New York; de Young Museum in San Francisco, California; and The Illinois State Museums in Illinois. He has received awards from numerous organizations including the New York Foundation for the Arts (2009), The George Sugarman Foundation (2005), and the American Craft Council (2002). Ferris's work can be found in public collections at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, CA; Illinois State Museum in Springfield, IL; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR. His exhibitions have been featured in The New York Times, The New York Daily News, and The Chicago Tribune.Guest-curated by art historian Suzanne Ramljak, the collection will display a dozen of Ferris's distinctive wood sculptures, related drawings, and painted portraits set in intricately inlaid frames. The exhibition will be available to view from November 5, 2021, through April 24, 2022 at The Center for Art in Wood, 141 N 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106.FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://centerforartinwood.org/exhibition/extra-human-the-art-of-michael-ferris/

Mark Peiser: The Moving Target of Perfection Since 1967 when Mark Peiser became involved with the Studio Glass Movement, he has been recognized for his uniquely individualized approaches and accomplishments in glass. Continual investigation of the expressive implications of glass properties and processes has led to his distinctive bodies of work. Recently Peiser published the book, Thirty-Eight Pieces of Glass – with Related Thoughts, pairing his glass with brief writings of resonance.  To quote from the preface: “Since I began with glass 50 years ago, I've received countless questions asking, basically, what's it about? In that discussion I've tried to answer honestly and completely but I've always felt to have fallen short – short of the words and short of the voice that would say them. When I started to assemble this book, I began feeling much more truthful and satisfying answers to that question. I hope you will, too. That these selections sorted out into something of an abridged life story was a bit of a surprise to me. It shouldn't have been. All along I've said my work has been about my feelings and experiences and, over many years, what else is a life?”  Peiser, an internationally known glass artist, was born in Chicago in 1938. After studying electrical engineering at Purdue University (Lafayette, Indiana, 1955-1957), he received a Bachelor of Science in Design from Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago, Illinois, 1961). Peiser studied piano and composition at DePaul University School of Music (Chicago, Illinois, 1965-1967) before attending Penland School of Crafts (Penland, North Carolina) in 1967. After five weeks of glass classes, he became the first resident craftsman in glass at the school. Peiser is a founder of the Glass Art Society, of which he is now an honorary member, and a leading presence in the Studio Glass Movement. Inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Craft Council in 1988, Peiser received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass in 2004, the North Carolina Governor's Award in 2009, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Glass Art Society in 2010 and the North Carolina Living Treasure Award in 2011, among others. He has exhibited worldwide and is in many public and private collections including the Asheville Art Museum, the Chrysler Museum of Art, The Corning Museum of Glass, the Glassmuseum Ebeltoft, the Lucerne Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, The Museum of Art and Design, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art, among others. By challenging established formulas and techniques throughout his career, Peiser has created and combined new and unusual colors in his glass sculptures. This approach to glass is radical as he has literally invented new glasses in order to pursue an idea through to creation. In 2009, a special glass formulation was created by melting opal glasses for his Palomar series of sculptures that pay homage to Corning Glass Works' famous 200-inch Disk, the telescope mirror cast in 1934 for the Mt. Palomar Observatory in California. Currently, Peiser is working on the Marko Blanko Project to develop a specialty glass for filigrana. Peiser's work highlights include: EARLY WORKS  1967 – 1977 Develops blowing skills, designs and builds various furnaces and equipment, develops formulations for crystal, various opal and luster glasses. Produces iridescent miniatures, gather pots, flower forms, spaghetti bowls, copper core vessels, opaque geometric and image vessels. PAPERWEIGHT VASES (PWV) 1975 – 1981 Introduces and develops torch working techniques for furnace blown work allowing more detailed imagery and perspective. Produces Paperweight Vases portraying natural subjects and landscapes, urban views and abstract imagery related to the vessel form. INNERSPACE (IS) 1983 – 1994 Develops graphite molding process and casting glasses. Makes compound cast glass pieces that compose the internal volume of solid transparent forms. Produces Innerspace series including Ascensions, Hands, Light Beams, Moons, Mountain Skyscapes, Muses, Planets and Polychrome Progressions. FORMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS (FOC) 1994 – 2004 Develops bottom pour casting furnace, casting and mold techniques, and glass formulae allowing larger scale work representing psychological conditions. CONTRITION SECOND STUDY (CSS) 2000 – 2004 Produces a limited edition of 50 as a learning experience to formulate and develop casting process for controlled translucency in sculptural glass. COLDSTREAM CASTING (CSC) 2001 – 2007 A creative use of my bottom pour furnace. My most fun in a glass shop since 1969. View videos of the Coldstream Casting process on You Tube by searching Mark Peiser. PALOMAR  2008 – 2012 Develops vermiculite molding process. Produces Palomar series as a tribute to the accomplishment of the Palomar Mirror in 1934. For more about the Palomar series and the transition to the Passage and Etudes Tableau, search You Tube for Mark Peiser's Corning Museum of Glass talk.  PASSAGES AND ETUDES TABLEAU  2012 – PRESENT Refines formulation and heat treatment of light scattering glasses. Produces work whose subject is light. Now, more than a half century later, Peiser's name is synonymous with invention and precision. He conveyed to ToYG podcast: “Most of my earliest memories are of making things. I seem to have a knack for seeing how things work, how things go together, and how to make it. If I have a gift, that's it. “When I was in design school, I became concerned with the essence of quality. Read some books and papers, sat through some lectures, and developed a somewhat subconscious but deep commitment for my life's efforts. Later working in industry, design and advertising it was difficult to impossible to implement quality. At my level it was irrelevant and deeply unsatisfying. When I happened into Penland and the beginning of the Studio Glass Movement, the control offered by the notion of a one-man glass studio seemed an avenue that could lead to quality. I've done my best to hold to that path throughout my career. All in all, I've been successfully self- employed for 57 years. As we all hope, with the rest of life, I did the best I could at the time. But unlike the rest of life, I could disappear a bad piece like it never happened.  “Being an artist is not just another job. It's a commitment.”  

Alicia will bring us along her journey as a rug designer and artist, she will explain the process of designing a handmade-to-order carpets by closely observing her customer and how her designs are translated into beautiful natural rugs in Nepal. We will discuss the difficulties of keeping creative juices flow in current times and what her point of view on color trends are. Alicia is an award-winning designer with more than 40 years of professional experience as an art director, graphic designer, surface designer, illustrator, and color consultant. She holds a BFA in Design/Illustration from CCAC and was an artist-in-residence at The Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. She currently produces a line of custom, handmade-to-order carpets and is a popular speaker, presenter and teacher on design and color. Alicia has owned and operated her own textile business as well as designed for various industries and corporations such as Papyrus, Bloomingdale's, CBS Publications, New York Magazine, Parenting Magazine, Health/Hippocrates Magazine, Working Woman Magazine, Premiere Magazine, Image Magazine, RCA Records, American Craft Council. Her true loves have always been color and texture. Alicia comes from a long line of accomplished artists and her emergence as a rug maker is thanks to family: her Armenian-born grandfather, uncles and cousin are renowned Oriental rug authorities and collectors and that is why Carpets and color have been part of Alicia's life as long as she can remember: the smell of the wool, the touch of the fibers, the variety of patterns all are in her DNA.

Katherine Gray: Reconciling Polarities Drawing on the rich traditions of glass blowing, fearless experimentation, and a fascination with glass as both a visual and experiential encounter, Katherine Gray creates work that ranges from blown glass sculptures to assembled installations of found glass. A visitor favorite at The Corning Museum of Glass is her Forest Glass, a large-scale installation comprised of found glass arranged to create the illusion of trees. Whether celebrating a prosaic material through installations or her Iridescent Entities, stylized hearths and campfires, or clouds and orbs, Gray forces us to appreciate glass anew.  She says: “I use a material that we don’t generally see. It is often flawlessly clear and colorless, hence invisible in that regard, but it can also be so ubiquitous and banal that it does not register in our psyches either. It is a material that allows us unparalleled connectivity (via smart phones and fibre optics) yet also serves to separate us. To my mind, these two polarities are what set this material apart from so many others, and one of the reasons that I feel compelled to keep working with it as an artistic medium. It is both present and absent, known and unknown, and vacillating between a state of mundane familiarity and otherworldly perfection.” In Heller Gallery’s 2020 exhibition, Radiant Mirage, Gray turned her considerable glass-making skills to creating objects that served two purposes: to bring beauty into a dire moment in the world, and to express her frustration over the loss of our collective sense of security and well-being. The common thread was her use of iridescence, an optical phenomenon seen in nature and inspired by unearthed ancient glass. Like natural phenomena that are caused by the refraction of light, Gray’s Entities and Tubes emphasized the elusiveness and shiftiness of iridized objects and projected an ephemeral shape and play of color our eye does not fully grasp. Educated at the Ontario College of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design, Gray serves as the Resident Evaluator on Seasons 1 and 2 of Netflix’s reality TV show Blown Away.  Her works are held in the permanent collections of public institutions including the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH; Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY; Museum of American Glass, Wheaton, NJ; the Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM; and Toyama City Institute of Glass Art, Toyama, Japan. Reviewed in the New York Observer, Artforum, and the Los Angeles Times, Gray has been nominated for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, and has garnered many accolades including the Award of Merit from the Bellevue Art Museum in Washington.  In addition to making work, Gray has written about glass, curated and juried multiple exhibitions, and has taught workshops around the world. In 2017, she received the Libenský/Brychtová Award from the Pilchuck Glass School for her artistic and educational contributions to the field. She was also honored as a Fellow of the American Craft Council (ACC), a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing American craft. To be named a fellow, an artist must demonstrate leadership in the field, outstanding ability as an artist and/or teacher, and 25 years or more of professional achievement as an American craftsperson. Currently, Gray lives in Los Angeles where she is a professor of art at California State University, San Bernardino. To Gray, glass is a material of both otherworldly perfection and mundane familiarity. She says: “I’m trying to play off of polarities between usage of material and the sphere it exists in, who makes it, who uses it, who values it, and trying to point out some of the inequalities.”  

On episode 140 of The Quarantine Tapes, guest host Naomi Shihab Nye is joined by Helen Drutt English. Helen is a longtime champion of the contemporary craft movement. She and Naomi discuss her history with crafts and collecting, digging into the tension between mechanization and handmade objects in the twentieth century.Helen and Naomi lift up the value of rituals in these months of quarantine. They talk about the positives of isolation, from improved concentration to time to connect more deeply with friends. Finally, Helen shares a fascinating recent discovery found sorting through the materials in her own basement. Helen W. Drutt English (Helen Drutt) was Founder/Director of her eponymous gallery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1973–2002), which was among the first galleries in the United States to make a commitment to the modern and contemporary craft movement. In 1979, American Craft magazine stated that the gallery was to crafts, what Alfred Stieglitz’s Gallery 291 was to photography, earlier in the twentieth century. Drutt developed the first syllabus for a college-level course in the history of the field in 1973. She has published numerous essays; conceived many exhibitions, e.g., Brooching It Diplomatically: A Tribute to Madeleine K. Albright (1998), Poetics of Clay: An International Perspective (2001–03), Challenging the Châtelaine! (2007–09); and curated American studio jewelry for the Museo del Gioiello, Vicenza, Italy (2016–18). The Helen Williams Drutt Collection of international studio jewelry has been exhibited internationally. In 2002, 800 works entered the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Drutt has built a permanent collection of contemporary crafts for The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia (2014), and is currently building a collection of American crafts for the National Museum of Sweden and a collection for the Ilias LaLaounis Museum of Jewelry, Athens, Greece. In 1984 Drutt established the Maurice English Poetry Award (MEPA), which has supported a yearly award for a distinguished book of poetry (1985–2005) and annual poetry readings (2006–present). In 2012 she established the H. Peter Stern Lecture under the auspices of the World Monuments Fund, given semi-annually. In 2020, Drutt announced that she is donating her expansive collection of art books to Temple University. Drutt has received numerous awards and three honorary degrees. She is a trustee of the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; Fellow of the American Craft Council; and a recipient of the Distinguished Educator’s Award 2018, James Renwick Alliance, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Drutt is currently researching a book that documents activities central to the craft field from 1960 to the present.

Jonah and Renessa briefly express their current rage at the state of the U.S. system and politics, and then to lighten the mood, chat about the new show Ratched! Our very exciting guest this week is Ayumi Horie, a potter artist from Portland, Maine who believes that the best handmade pottery encourages connections between people and makes daily life better. She received a Distinguished Fellow grant in Craft by the United States Artists and is the first recipient of Ceramics Monthly’s Ceramic Artist of the Year award. In 2020, she was awarded an Honorary Member at National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts for “outstanding contribution” to the field. She also organized Obamaware, a fundraiser involving the work of nationally known ceramic artists who made Obama-themed work, which raised funds for the Obama/Biden campaign. Ayumi is currently on the board of the American Craft Council and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and her work is in various collections throughout the US. We talk with Ayumi about pottery as functional art, her Japanse background, family (and redefining family), and social media.Show links:https://ayumihorie.comInstagram: https://instagram.com/ayumihorieFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ayumi.Horie.PotteryPots in Action: https://www.instagram.com/potsinaction/The Democratic Cup: https://www.instagram.com/thedemocraticcup/Portland Brick: https://www.instagram.com/portlandbrick/Slay Queens Podcast: Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/slay-queens-podcast/id1487393379 / Google https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9mYjdhZTFjL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz

What you’ll learn in this episode: How San Francisco’s art jewelry scene has changed over the last three decades. Why art jewelry made from non-precious materials is still worthy of a high price tag. How the Society of North American Goldsmiths has responded to the coronavirus pandemic, and how you can help support the organization. Why it’s important for museums to have art jewelry collections. About Elizabeth Shypertt: Elizabeth Shypertt was the co-founder and co-owner of Velvet da Vinci Gallery in San Francisco for 23 years. The focus of the gallery was art jewelry and craft-based sculpture. During that time, she organized more than 80 exhibitions including one-person and group shows. Since leaving the gallery, Elizabeth has curated jewelry shows for the Petaluma Arts Center, the Center for Enamel Arts, the Shibumi Gallery in Berkeley and the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco. She has also twice juried the Emeryville Arts Festival and jewelry section of the American Craft Council shows. Elizabeth is a long-standing member and was a board member for both the local Metal Arts Guild and the Art Jewelry Forum. She is currently on the board of the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG).  Additional resources: Society of North American Goldsmiths Website LinkedIn Kat Cole Jewelry Brooke Battles Jewelry Uli Rapp Jewelry Transcript Angular Neckpiece - by Brooke Battles, enamel on copper, 22k gold leaf. I love this piece because it's big and bold, yet still very wearable. Build #1 Neckpiece by Kat Cole (President of SNAG). Enamel on steel. Once again, big, bold buy wearable. And I do love enamel. wearing an Uli Rapp necklace. fabric printed on neoprene.

Lynda Moss is the fmr. State Senator and an executive leader of the Foundation for Community Vitality, executive director of the Western Heritage Center and elected to the Montana Senate and served on the Judiciary, Local Government and Public Health Committees and was appointed to serve on the Legislative Audit Committee and the National Council of State Legislature Economic Development, Trade and Cultural Affairs Committee. Moss sponsored and directed legislation that established the Governor's Historic and Cultural Advisory Council to develop statewide policy recommendations. Moss was the Majority Whip and selected to serve as the Senate representative to Reforming States Group focused on national and international healthcare policy, supported by the Milbank Memorial Trust. During her tenure, Senator Moss was a Private Advisor at the United National Permanent Forum for Indigenous People, a Flemming Fellow and participant in Emerging State Leadership Program at the University of Virginia. Currently Lynda serves as the Board Chair of the Northwest Area Foundation and on the boards of the Montana State Fund, the American Craft Council and Montana Innocence Program Advisory Committee and CEO of Moss Consulting. Guests: Lynda Moss, Fmr. State Senator, Board Chair, NW Area Foundation Host: Dr. Anita Gupta, https://anitagupta.com/about Connect on Twitter @DocAnitaGupta, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts Official Hashtag: #Post Call Website: https://www.thepostcall.com

Receive This Glass                                                                                   "Receive this glass                                                                                    it holds my memories                                                                                    crafted blossoms                                                                                    suspended                                                                                    in stillness                                                                                    to be pollinated                                                                                    by your sight                                                                                    anticipating                                                                                    your touch through time."                                                                                                                                                                                                              - Paul J. Stankard     There are few works of art in any medium that are so beautiful, so transcendent that the viewer is transported inside the piece and into the soul of its creator. Such is the case with the paperweights and botanicals created by internationally acclaimed artist and pioneer in the studio glass movement, Paul Stankard. By blending mysticism with magical realism, his work references the continuum of nature and allows us to celebrate on an intimate level her primal beauty.    Considered a living master in the art of the paperweight, Stankard’s work is represented in more than 75 museums around the world. Over his 40-year artistic journey, he has received two honorary doctorate degrees, an honorary associate's degree, and many awards within the glass community, most recently the Masters of the Medium Award from Smithsonian's The James Renwick Alliance and the Glass Art Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a Fellow of the American Craft Council and a recipient of the UrbanGlass Award—Innovation in a Glassworking Technique.   In 1961, Stankard enrolled in Salem County Vocational Technical Institute’s Scientific Glassblowing program (now Salem Community College). During his subsequent 10-year scientific glassblowing career, fabricating complex instruments was his focus. As head of the glass department at Rohn & Haas in Philadelphia, the artist began experimenting with floral paperweights as a hobby. The work was eventually noticed by art dealer Reese Palley at a craft expo in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and in 1972, Stankard abandoned industry for art.   Stankard says: “Every artist’s transition from detail to delicacy will follow a different path. In my case, my techniques evolved from working as a scientific glassblowing technologist producing custom precision instruments used for medical and organic chemistry research. This gave me a platform from which to interpret nature in a personal way. From the get-go, I was able to employ a detail-oriented precision that was borrowed from my work in industry.”    He continues: “Art-making is as varied as there are artists working. You take advantage of the skill-set you know, and you make it personal. You go beyond the practical, and you go beyond making product. You learn from your process and build on your personal vocabulary, fusing your detail into the realm of delicacy.”   Stankard’s role as educator includes establishing the flameworking studio at Penland School of Craft, Spruce Pine, North Carolina, and serving as a founding board member and President of The Creative Glass Center of America, Millville, New Jersey. The artist taught students in the US at Penland; the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington; and abroad at Kanaz Forest of Creation Japan with Hiroshi Yamano as well as at North Lands Creative, in the Scottish Highlands. He remains an Artist-in-Residence and Honorary Professor at Salem Community College, where he founded the International Flameworking Conference.   Now dividing his time between flameworking and writing, Stankard is the author of three books; an autobiography No Green Berries or Leaves: The Creative Journey of an Artist in Glass, an educational resource Spark the Creative Flame: Making the Journey from Craft to Art; and most recently Studio Craft as Career: A Guide to Achieving Excellence in Art-making. His love of Walt Whitman poetry continues.   Stankard’s work will be exhibited at Habatat Prime Chicago, a pop-up gallery located three miles from Navy Pier, as part of Sofa Chicago, October 31 through November 3. The 7,500-square-foot space offers an incredible collection of the finest in contemporary glass, including Stankard’s newest work. For more information, visit www.habatat.com. Also, the Wiener Museum of Decorative Arts in Dania Beach, South Florida, will exhibit the Wiener collection of Stankard’s work in its The Art of the Flame exhibition. The exhibition preview weekend will be held November 9 and 10, and the show will run through April 30, 2020. Learn more at wmoda.com.     

Jennifer Ling Datchuk is an artist born in Warren, Ohio and raised in Brooklyn, New York.  Her mother came to this country in the early 1970s from China; her father born and raised in Ohio to Russian and Irish immigrant parents.  Beyond initial appearances, the layers of her parents’ past and present histories are extremely overwhelming and complicated – a history of conflict she has inherited and a perpetual source for her work.  She captures this conflict by exploring the emotive power of domestic objects and rituals that fix, organize, soothe and beautify our lives.  Trained in ceramics, the artist works with porcelain and other materials often associated with traditional women’s work, such as textiles and hair, to discuss fragility, beauty, femininity, intersectionality, identity and personal history. She holds an MFA in Artisanry from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and a BFA in Crafts from Kent State University. She has received grants from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio, travel grant from Artpace, and the Linda Lighton International Artist Exchange Program. She was awarded a residency through the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum to conduct her studio practice at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, Germany and has participated in residencies at the Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China, Vermont Studio Center, and the European Ceramic Work Center in the Netherlands. In 2017, she received the Emerging Voices award from the American Craft Council. Recently, she completed a residency and exhibition curated by Dr. Debra Willis for Artpace.  She lives in San Antonio, Texas where she maintains a studio and teaching practice. In the interview three projects were discussed; The upcoming project at Black Cube called "The Fulfillment Center", "Babe Cave" at Truth Before Flowers at Women and Their Work and Big curtain of red hair at thick at Artpace. The book mentioned in the interview is:  Her Body and Other Parties. Don’t Touch My Hair, fake hair, porcelain beads from Jingdezhen, China Originally commissioned and produced by Artpace San Antonio Photo credit Seale Photography Studios Don’t Touch My Hair, Detail, fake hair, porcelain beads from Jingdezhen, ChinaOriginally commissioned and produced by Artpace San AntonioPhoto credit Seale Photography Studios

Live at the American Craft Council show, Earth Day and Fashion, Harmony is back with the Tech Report, Fashion Week, and your Local Steals & Deals!

Live at the American Craft Council show, Target and Hunter boots fiasco, Bon Ton closing and what that means for malls, and Whose Look!

Joel Cherrico is back on The Potters Cast for another conversation. This time Joel spends some time talking about the power of chasing goals, finding an audience, and an award that he is helping to sponsor. Together with The American Craft Council, Joel is hosting the Emerging Pottery Business Awards. The goal is the find artists whose work and business embodies talent, passion, and business skills.

Today on the Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Podcast I have an interview with Kane Smego. We met at the 2018 Arrowmont Pentaculum where he was a writer-in-residence working on a forthcoming one-man show titled Temples of Lung and Air. Smego is a spoken word and hip-hop artist, a National Poetry Slam finalist, and co-founder of the youth arts nonprofit Sacrificial Poets. In our interview we talk about poetry slams, his time teaching with Next Level – a diplomacy program administered by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Cultural Affairs, and the development of his one man show Temples of Lung and Air. For more information visit www.kanesmego.com. To hear Smego’s spoken word performance at Arrowmont listen to episode 209 of the podcast.   This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Cherrico Pottery. Cherrico is teaming up with the American Craft Council to give out the 2018 Emerging Pottery Business Awards. Artists whose work and business embodies talent, passion, and a focus on promoting diversity and equity in the field will be considered for three $500 awards. The deadline to apply is March 30, 2018. For more information visit www.cherricopottery.com/awards.

Today on the Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Podcast I have an interview with Justin Rothshank. Justin applies floral patterned custom laser, luster and commercial decals over wood fired functional pottery forms to create a unique depth of surface. In addition to that body of work he produces politically themed tableware that features portraits of past presidents and historic figures. In our interview, we talk about his role in cofounding the Union Project in Pittsburgh, PA, his Mennonite faith as it applies to social responsibility, and the growth of his online business from his home base in rural Indiana. To find out more about Justin visit www.rothshank.com. Justin is also a founding member of the Michiana Pottery Tour, which happens in September of every year. Visit www.michianapotterytour.com for more info.   Hey Red Clay Rambler fans, I need your help. We need 25 new patrons to reach our December fundraising goal. Visit patreon.com/redclayrambler to pledge your support and become a sustaining member. We have a batch of rewards to offer including the new Vintage Radio shirt, handmade pots, posters and much more. Visit patreon.com/redclayrambler to sign up today.   I want to send a special thank you to Joel Cherrico Pottery for sponsoring the podcast through our Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Patreon fundraiser. Joel Cherrico's art is currently on display at the American Craft Council Headquarters in Minneapolis. You can view his art in person by visiting the American Craft Council and their public craft library, or by visiting his website cherricopottery.com/acc.

Today on the Tales of a Red Clay Rambler Podcast I have an interview with Andrea Gill. Her large-scale hand-built forms reference historical European vessels, patterns and the figure. Her most recent body of work springs from an ongoing fascination with the patterns of Chinese export ceramics. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tiffany Foundation, and the American Craft Council. Her work can be found in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery.   In the interview we talk about gender dynamics within the ceramic world in the 1960’s, knowing how to get a student to dig deeper in the studio, and her time teaching at the NY State College of Ceramics at Alfred, where she has been on the faculty since 1984. For more information on her work please visit www.alfredceramics.com/andrea-gill.html.   This week’s Tales of a Red Clay Rambler episode is sponsored by Big Ceramic Store.com. We’ve partnered together to offer you 15% off their entire website when you visit bigceramicstore.com/ben. Since 1999, BigCeramicStore has supported artists with an exceptional product line, outstanding customer service & insightful tips and techniques. So go to Bigceramicstore.com/ben to save 15% on glazes, tools, clays & much more!   This episode of the podcast is also sponsored by Adam Field Pottery. Adam has just updated his website with new workshops on Korean coil and paddled Onggi jars, as well as the intricately carved porcelain pots for which he is known. The extensive list of workshop locations includes Brooklyn Clay March 4 & 5th, two-weeks at La Meridiana in Tuscany April 9-22, as well as workshops in Boulder, CO, Gatlinburg, TN, and Deer Isle, ME to name a few. For more details on these wonderful learning opportunities, including a full list of locations and enrollment information, please visit AdamFieldPottery.com.

Joel Cherrico is a potter, entrepreneur and former author for the American Craft Council website. After graduating college with a degree in art, he immediately launched his business, Cherrico Pottery, LLC. For the past five years, he has supported his livelihood full-time by creating and selling handmade pottery.

Julie Wiggins is a full time studio potter living and working in Charlotte, North Carolina.  She graduated from East Carolina University in 2001 with a BFA in Ceramics. In 2005, she received an honorary degree from the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China, where she focused her studies on traditional Eastern techniques. Her work has been shown in galleries across the country, including AKAR Gallery, Charlie Cummings Gallery, CrimsonLaurel Gallery, and Lark & Key.  Julie’s work has been featured at the American Craft Council and the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, as well as several national conferences and exhibitions, including NCECA.  Julie has over a decade of experience as an educator and will be one of the presenters at the Functional Ceramics Workshop in 2016.