emiko-o reware

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!

Creating a New Craft Culture SAT 9:45 AM
Round Table Discussion: “Riding the Long Tail”: Marketing Craft on the Internet
Namita Gupta Wiggers, moderator; Maria Thomas, Lisa Bayne, Amy Shaw, panelists

The moment was ripe for this discussion–Namita Gupta Wiggers (Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR) had brought together the CEO of Etsy–Maria Thomas, CEO of Artful.home (owned by Guild.com)–Lisa Bayne, and owner of the former Greenjeans store and webstore–Amy Shaw. Now we could get to down to the nitty gritty and hear from figureheads of 2 factions of craft. Unfortunately since Amy’s business was defunct, the questions and interest was more or less focused on the 2 CEOs. Honestly, it was a shame that this panel wasn’t given more time. None of the panels had been slotted enough time; one hour doesn’t cut it when there are 3+ voices to be heard plus audience interaction.

What the heck is a “Long Tail”, you ask? It really is a business term, referring to the curve of goods sold in a company. In the big retailers, 80% of their sales are from only 20% of goods in the store, which represents the high end of the curve. The goods that sell in lower quantities, at the low end of the curve is referred to as the “long tail”. Brick and mortar stores don’t have enough room to stock all of the long tail products, unlike websites. Research has shown that for online stores, the the total sales of these long tail products far exceeds the sales from the traditional top 20% of the curve. And what products are at this long tail end: Craft.

Maria Thomas

A few months ago I had attended an Esty Meet-up in SF, where Maria and heads of her staff invited local Etsy sellers to gather for a Q&A session. The turnout was impressive and the crowd was eager and hungry for the inside scoop. It felt like a family reunion of sorts. I was super impressed by the level of transparency in the company and especially how attentive Maria was to each question and person.

Here there wasn’t time for a proper Q&A, and now I see just how crucial it is for these craft factions to understand each other better and be properly introduced under neutral circumstances. (INSIDER TIP: the Metal Arts Guild San Francisco will be holding a one-day symposium in fall 2011 on the theme “Community”, and this may just be the springboard for such a meeting of the minds, especially since I’m in on the planning.)

I didn’t learn anything new and ground-breaking with what turned out to be a general explanation of how each company runs, but this is a hot topic right now, and it will be interesting to see how selling craft on the web evolves over the next few years.

Below are quotes by the panelists that sum up the hour:
Maria: “Esty never set out to be an expert filter [on the issue of Quality] but to help people make a living…connecting makers and buyers.”
Lisa: “DIY has been a lightening rod in the media. It’s not the only thing in craft happening today.”
Amy echoes Rob’s advice: “We all need to work together, collectively as we’re all working towards the same goals.”

Word loudly heard from the audience:”AMEN.”

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.

LEGO blog pin for conference

Well, almost Live from Minneapolis; heads up reware fans, it’s time for me to blog another amazing craft conference for SNAG starting this Friday for the American Craft Council’s “Creating a New Craft Culture.” A much shorter, but still as intensely packed line-up of speakers from Oct 16-17, culminating in a Saturday night banquet (we’ll see if the  ACC attendees are as fun as the SNAG conference folks….).

SNAG home page

Check out the SNAG home page and on the right hand column in “Announcements” is a link to the ACC Bloggers, meaning me and Harriete Estel Berman. We’ll try to keep it as live as possible, so stay tuned!

So what’s the big deal about the ACC conference, you ask? Well here’s just a few names in the lineup and see for yourself:
Garth Clark (craft critic and curator), Rob Walker (NY Times columnist & author of “Buying In”), Faythe Levine (director of “A Handmade Nation”), Panel discussion led by Namita Gupta Wiggers (Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland) on internet marketing, featuring CEOs Lisa Bayne of Artful Home and Maria Thomas of Etsy. Plus many more, but those are the ones that convinced me that flying to MN at the start of winter was a good idea. And this from a gal who’s sworn off snow…. Read more about the speakers, program and blog articles related to on the ACC site.

Just finished unpacking and repacking, having returned from a whirlwind month in NYC, London, and Greece. More next week about the cool UK jewelers, London exhibitions, as well as my talks at Syracuse University (my Top Ten Tips for Post Grad Success will be expanded upon here soon, promise) and at Museum of Arts & Design, NYC. I’m such a tease, I know.

Must go and pack my face mask for today’s many airplanes, and maybe nap….

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