emiko-o reware

What a full, fulfilling day at Miami University, Ohio! After 5 hours of driving through a typical NE Ohio snowstorm (well at least through Columbus), we arrived Tuesday to the picturesque town of Oxford, home of Miami University. Not so used to major snow down here, they had actually shut down campus early. I guess it’s all relative; seemed like a tame Syracuse winter day to me, but not everyone has had an arctic college experience.  Anywho, check out these street banners! That top image look familiar? Yes, it’s a closeup of my Duchess 2 lego necklace! Fantastic; I’ve already got a good word in to get one of those at the end of the show in July. Wouldn’t it make a wonderful tote bag, or even just hang in the hallway!!!

This morning’s workshop “Top 10 Tips for Post Grad Success” was a small but serious group of metals grad students (led by Susan Ewing), who were super attentive and eager for the info. I managed to cram my 4.5 hour workshop into almost 2 hours. Did a few less interactive segments and flew through the info. Gave them their Resource packet, updated with a Green section including Christine’s “Making Eco Friendly Choices” article from Art Jewelry magazine, May 2009.

Had a great discussion at lunch with Curator of Exhibitions Lena Vigna (soon to be Curator of Exhibitions at Racine Art Museum, WI!) and Associate Dean of Fine Arts and Metals Chair, Susan Ewing (talk about major multi-tasking in the workplace). She’s taking her students back to Prague with her this summer, those lucky devils, it sounds so inspiring (i want to go to there).

The Adornment and Excess Exhibition is really worth visiting Miami (wait til spring, though) and the Miami University Art Museum is quite the facility with a very gracious, welcoming staff and a HUGE permanent collection (Syracuse didn’t even have anything like it on campus). My pieces were displayed right up front along with looping digital images on the imac of people wearing my work.
Across from my work is Harriete’s set of 3 recycled tin bracelets: Prestige, Value, and Identity.
One of my favs is a series of repurposed/transformed costume jewelry by Meg Drinkwater. She takes masses of pearls, vintage costume jewelry and encases them from behind in resin into solid, massive  necklaces. Makes me want to do more of my own Radical Jewelry Makeover!

Speaking of which, RJM has a presence in this show, smartly done with not only finished jewelry pieces from past RJMs around the country, but a huge wooden bin of “raw” materials (old junk jewelry) and a video installation with interviews from participants and organizers (see image below). And to my delight, Christina Miller, co-founder of Ethical Metalsmiths and the RJM was present at tonite’s lecture! She now resides in Oxford. Talk about small world! RJM is gearing up for Australia this summer! Check out the RJM blog for the latest updates!So much smart work, I would be remiss not to mention the performance metalsmith, Gabriel Craig, who will be concluding the events at MU on Earth Day this April bringing his Pro Bono Jeweler interactive performance to the Shriver Center (student center). Here in the exhibit plays 2 of his street performances as well as some of the polymer clay “freebie” rings made during the event. Check out his blog, Conceptual Metalsmith to see his latest street video, The Gospel According to Craft.

Shari Pierce Cardboard Democracy

In the spirit of trash into treasure, the work of Shari Pierce and her Mi Casa Su Casa /Cardboard democracy series is a well-executed display. The larger than lifesize, recycled cardboard necklace hangs suspended in the middle of the space (begging the viewer to get as close as they dare) with large photographs on the wall behind of the environments where the materials were collected. Also, her colorful cardboard purses hang exposed on the opposite wall next to photos as well.

Shari Piere's Mi Casa Su Casa

This evening’s Sustainability and Creativity lecture was very well attended by architecture, sculpture, and metals students and staff. Lena Vigna began the evening with an overview of the Adornment exhibition and her process in curating the show. Mary Ben Boham (Dept Architecture) presenting 3 positions on the positives and pitfalls of trying to design sustainable buildings, bottom line being “How are People being served”? Rod Northcutt (Dept Sculpture) bringing the focus on sustainability of materials and as artists being conscious of our process. I spoke last, speaking to how I work as a recycling artist and my progression from using jewelry as an outlet of personal Expression, to sharing it as an Experience on a public level, to Community outreach.

To round off the evening’s discussion, Curator of Education, Cynthia Collins gathered us up for an intimate round table discussion, which was led by grad student Lisa Wilson, the opening question being “What is the creative person’s role in moving a community towards sustainability?” Is it a grass roots movement or does success come from the top down? All of the above, but how can we instigate change? What small step can each person do towards living a more sustainable lifestyle? Ironically, people mentioned San Francisco multiple times (not me, by the way) and the mandates being given to get residents to comply such as citywide composting, elimination of styrofoam and plastic bags in stores. Realistically, people need to be threatened with fines in order to bring about citywide compliance (and still I find myself constantly resorting the misplaced trash/recycling/compost at work and in the neighborhood). Cynthia made an astute remark that got everyone thinking: last year’s Federal Mandate for HD TV. When is the last time that something was required by everyone on the Federal level? And to boot, there were no riots in the street, rather lots an lots of CRT screens and electronic waste. What does that say about our culture? It would be my wish to see recycling become a federal  mandate as well as federal subsidized organic farms. I’m curious, if people were asked what they value more their TV or  their health and grandchildren’s health, what would the nation as a whole choose?

Yep, next week I head back to the motherland Ohio for a special art-filled, emiko-o day at Miami University Art Museum in Oxford. A few weeks ago was the opening for the exhibition Adornment and Excess curated by Lena Vigna. The show runs through July 10 and is part of Luxury, Consumption & Excess, a larger suite of exhibitions comprised of both historical and contemporary objects that investigates the socio-cultural relationship between material goods, wealth and class. Some of My First Royal Jewels will be on display, as well as work by Harriete Estel Berman, Francesca Vitali, Kathy Buszkiewicz, Gabriel Craig, Anya Kivarkis, just to name a few.

exhibition announcement

Earlier last year, Lena co-authored with Namita Gupta Wiggers the article Mining History: Ornamentalism Revisited for Metalsmith Magazine, in which my Queen Margherita was the title image. I caught up with Lena at the recent American Craft Conference in Minneapolis last fall in the midst of my blogging for SNAG, and offered to visit during the run of the show.

Lo and behold she invited me to participate in a special round table discussion on Creativity and Sustainability that she is moderating Feb 10th, 6:00-7:30pm. Professors Mary Benedict Bonham (Dept Architecture) and Rodney Northcutt (Dept Art) will be speaking as well as Graduate Student Lisa Wilson. I’m excited to bring my experiences to the table! The event is open to the public, so please come if you’re in town.

Check out this article by Deniz Nural in Feb 2nd issue of The Miami Student (online and print) about the exhibition – my necklaces are in the accompanying photo. Can’t wait to see the show!

Friday Schedule

DAY 1
7:45 AM Friday: The early bird catches the worm and a whole lot of presentations here in the Radisson Plaza Hotel, Minneapolis MN. Arrived LATE last night (my need to take public transit everywhere) and signed in way too early this morning, thermos in hand. Harriete Estel Berman and I are Ready for action, and it didn’t take long for the atrium to be buzzing with anticipation (for the Thursday tours and pre-conference scoop, check  out Harriete’s blog). Used to the cattle rush of SNAG conferences, it is refreshing to be a part of a smaller group here at this conference (imagine half as many or less); surprising, actually since Craft embodies so many more fields of interest than just metals. Perhaps it’s the recession, time of year, or location, but I have a feeling that after people hear about this year’s conference, the next one will have a much larger attendance. (Yes, that is an img of today’s schedule: 9+ events, not including the evening craft tours!)

Many familiar faces in the crowd, many from the Philadelphia SNAG conference that for a moment I forgot what conference I was really at, and as Harriete and I were mentally preparing ourselves, a few stopped by to say hi and wish us luck: Sienna Patti, Namita Gupta Wiggers (who will be presenting a panel tomorrow about internet marketing for which I’m SO excited), and Lena Vigna (she co-authored with Namita the recent Metalsmith article, Ornamentalism Revisited, and is curating an upcoming exhibition with a similiar feel at Miami University Art Museum).
Lena tells me that she was part of one of 7 Convenings dialogues, small gatherings of specialized groups such as curators, educators, writers, of which the participants were specially invited by ACC. Forums for people to get to know one another and begin to raise questions. This arose due to feedback from the 2006 ACC Conference. Some of the issues that came out of Lena’s curators’ forum:
-What happens when artists don’t identify themselves as craftspeople?
-Recognizing that 20th Century Craft should be regarded as a Historical movement (and move forward with 21st Century craft as a new one).

8:30 AM: ACC Board Chair, Leilani Lattin Duke, opened this years conference speaking of the themes to Creating a Craft Culture:
-Thinking about Craft and the Individual, the Community, and the Marketplace
-The Idea of Making: how it address the rapidly changing world and Crafts place in it

Dr. Richard Sennet, Keynote

8:45 AM: Keynote Speaker: Dr. Richard Sennett. A little background: Sociologist and writer,  the most recently published book is The Craftsman. He founded, with Susan Sontag and Joseph Brodsky, The New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University, was an advisor to UNESCO & president of the American Council on Work; teaches at New York University and the London School of Economics.
The Craftsman argues that the craftsman’s realm is far broader than skilled manual labor; the computer programmer, the doctor, the parent, and the citizen need to learn the values of good craftsmanship today.

OK, enough background, let’s get down to it–I was glad the Dr. prefaced his talk with “You’ll have to excuse me, but I’m a Night Person” (so am I, Richard; trying to speak before 10 am IS challenging)–so I forgave him for the sluggish, somewhat philosophical sputterings at the beginning, comparing computer engineers to craftsmen, and Linux as public craft. I mean, I get it since my fiancé is a techie, but many artists glaze over after more than a few minutes of techie speak.

The question of the hour (and theme for the day) is: Why is it that Mediocracy tends to dominate over Quality in our society? In the modern workplace, delivering Quality is regarded/rewarded less than delivering Results. Thus we don’t reward craftsmanship since we don’t reward quality. How do we maintain the balance of Quality and Democracy?

Craft is exploratory; in craftsmen, there is a deep relationship between problem solving and problem finding–good craftsmen want to see what opens up when solving problems. It’s about the craftsmanship in learning, in stopping to dwell on things and find out what’s interesting and possible.  Unfortunately our society doesn’t look kindly upon learning at this pace.

What’s the solution?–Remove craftsmen from the need to produce Products and return importance to Process.

See what Harriete has to say on her blog here.

To add to my incredible emiko-o Month of Press (someone recently asked me “Who does your PR?”, and i was like, uhhhhh…you mean me?), the current issue of Metalsmith features My First Royal Jewels Collection, starting on page 46. An intelligent and interesting article, “Mining History: Ornamentalism Revisted“, written by Namita Gupta Wiggers (curator of Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland OR) and Lena Vigna (curator, Miami University Art Museum, OH), takes us on a tour of contemporary jewelers (myself included) whose work harkens back to an earlier period of the decorative arts . I was overjoyed and floored that a full-page image of my Queen Margherita necklace was presented opposite the title page!

I really  had no idea that a return to ornamentalism was happening on a larger scale until I saw the Decorative Resurgance show that my work was in (and won first place for) this May at Rowan University. Then this article came out and now I’m seeing more and more exhibitions pop up in this vein. Works for me!

metalsmith article

Queen Margherita in Metalsmith