emiko-o reware

Mark your calendars for this Sunday, Nov 9 from 1-3pm when I and fellow Critique Collective members are hosting a Meet the Artists Open House at the San Francisco Museum of Craft+Design. Artist walkthrough/tour begins at 1:30. I’ll be giving a tour of My First Royal Jewels Jewellery Collection LEGO necklaces, and the Collective will be talking about the Jewelry_cycle exhibition.

Jewelry_cycle:Artists Discover Hidden Sparkle in the Discarded is an educational showcase of wearable treasures made from re-purposed and re-cycled materials. With the idea of an exhibition in mind, co-curators Christine Dhein and Christoph Koch asked the Critique Collective to create wearable art from a variety of small, discarded circuit boards. Circuit boards are commonly made from fiberglass, epoxy resin, and a variety of metals, which is likely to be one third of the material. These metals include copper, silver and gold, which add a precious element to what would otherwise be considered e-waste. These artists discovered the hidden potential, and transformed these materials to create brilliant, sparkling jewels.

Participating artists are: Shana Astrachan, David Casella, Christine Dhein, Reed Easely, Aimee Golant, Christoph Koch, Kelly Nedderman, and myself. Shout out to Christine for working extra hard to have the exhibit be super clean and pro looking! Check out Julian on the job!

Come join us and learn some facts about environmental waste and how you can do your part to lesson your carbon footprint while being creative!  Plus sit down and make your own jewelry from recycled toy parts at the MakeArt:Jewelry + Objects self-serve table that I developed.

Shout out to SCRAP and UGlu for being awesome sponsors of my MakeArt table and workshop!

In the midst of setting up the SF Museum of Craft+Design show, I managed to whip out a necklace for Ethical Metalsmith’s Radical Jewelry Makeover. Revere Academy students were at it for 3 days and by the last night I couldn’t resist the piles of random costume jewelry and other jewelry bits. So, why not pull another all-nighter, this time channeling the ever-fabulous Vivianne Westwood! Way too much fun, wish I could have kept it, but here is the result, a collage necklace. Titled “Dia de los Muertos de Westwood“, named mainly for the skeleton charm that started the whole deal, along with having been inspired by the Westwood show that was at the De Young museum awhile back. (model photo by Christine Dhein).

The piece is now on exhibit at Velvet da Vinci, SF through Nov 9. It is for sale, one of the more pricey items at $300. Proceeds benefit Ethical Metalsmiths. If you’re in town, please check it out!

Some other works by Revere folks: Jenny Reeve’s ring

Christine Uemura’s ring/pendant/brooch

Elizabeth Oppenheim’s plastic pendants

Much has developed in the last week on the upcoming exhibition space at the SF Museum of Craft + Design. I’m developing the MakeArt Gallery: Jewelry and Other Objects activity table for the back room; a simplified version of the Accessorize with Toys workshop that Shana Astrachan and I will be conducting on November 15 in that same space. So for those who can’t make that Nov 15 date, you’ll have the entire run of the exhibition to stop in and create something of your own.

Complimenting that in that space the Critique Collective will be showing a BRAND new Group Project in an exhibition co-curated by Christine Dhein and Christoph Koch called, Re-Purpose, Re-Use, Re-CREATE! We’re all super pumped up and ready to get others on the Green Train. Hopefully I will get a chance to update the crit collective website to include the press release on that. Until then, click here to grab the pdf.

What’s this: A. Abstract depiction of California in an earthquake; B. The inside of an old computer I scavenged at SCRAP; or C. Future Man-thong.
If you chose C, you are Correct! Cher thong ensemble will be showing in the above crit show, and she will have a partner in crime. Here is a sneak peak of the parts I cut up a few hours ago. Think electronic jock strap. So far the title that strikes me is “Population Control 2.0″. Definitely conceptual, but will be wearable/lifesize. Commentary on how constant laptop use on male laps is being linked to impotence, using technology to create genetically superior offspring….

Soon to hit the bookstores is the newly published Art Jewelry Today 2, by Jeffrey B. Snyder. My work is in it, plus many others I know, like Shana Astrachan, Christine Dhein, Harriete Estel Berman. It is the second in a series pioneered by the late Dona Meilach, and is a survey of contemporary art jewelry around the world. Hardbound, published by Schiffer Publishing; if it’s anything like the first book, this one will be well worth shelling out the bucks for hardbound.