We are fine-tuning our members-only trip to Texas for the long-awaited Houston MFA opening of “Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection”.
Houston MFA curator Cindi Strauss is thrilled that we will be in town for the museum’s many opening activities and has helped us plan our trip. There will be a number of events at the museum including a symposium (including Glenn Adamson from England, Grace Cochrane from Australia, Sharon Church from Philadelphia, and Cindi), a special privately guided tour of the exhibition, a personal opportunity to question Helen Williams Drutt about her thoughts on collecting, and a gala opening reception featuring a conversation between the museum director Peter Marzio and Helen. There will be many artists in town who are represented in the collection and we will take advantage of the opportunity to plan social and educational events with them. 
In the planning stages are visits to Houston’s other art gems. At the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft we may get a preview of the fascinating traveling show, “Women’s Tales: Four Leading Israeli Jewelers” curated by Davira Taragin. We are planning to visit the sublime Menil Collection, which is housed in a building designed by Renzo Piano and contains the contemporary, surreal, and tribal collections. We will also see the Rothko Chapel, the Byzantine Chapel, and the Cy Twombly Gallery, which are all on the Menil Collection campus. We will also visit the inspirational James Turrell Quaker Meeting house at sunset and the uniquely Texas folk art house called the “Orange Show” as well as the artist led urban renewal effort called “Project Row House”.
As is our tradition we will dine at highly rated restaurants, and for our first night in Houston we have planned a special private dinner party. The price for the trip is $580. This price includes all local transportation, two gourmet meals per day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and dinner on 
Wednesday, all museum and guided tour fees and as always a $50 donation to the Art Jewelry Forum.
Hotel accommodation and transportation to and from Houston are left up to you. We have arranged for a discounted rate at the delightful Hotel ZaZa (www.hotelzaza.com/houston), which will be our home base. This new hotel, located only steps away from the MFA, offers a wide range of Spa services you may want to find time to experience.
Knowing how many people will be making the trip optimizes our planning and guarantees the best time possible. If you will be joining us in Houston from September 26th to 30th we need to hear from you quickly. All you need to do now is send a short email to info@artjewelryforum.org and let us know if you are or are not going to make the trip to Houston. We will only be able to include 25 people. So who ever signs up first goes.
Photos are from AJF’s spring trip to Boston and were taken by Sally Von Bargen.
We combined lunch with a tour of the innovative new Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) museum on the Boston waterfront and an exhibition of work by Louise Bourgeois, one of our most influential living artists.
Back to Boston, where at the Museum of Fine Art we were greeted by Kelly L’Ecuyer. Kelly is the curator who worked closely with Daphne Farago to transfer her extensive collection to the museum. As she conducted our private tour of the first exhibition entitled “Jewelry By Artists, The Daphne Farago Collection,” she explained the wide-ranging plans the museum has for the collection. She also described how Farago was convinced of the artistic importance of the work and felt from the beginning that the collection should be housed in a fine arts museum which placed the jewelry in a large cultural context. Later that evening our group returned to the museum for the official opening reception to celebrate with the many artists, collectors and educators. As our trip came to a close we celebrated by sharing a wonderful meal together and gave a thankful toast to Pat and Susan for organizing such a terrific trip. As Orson Welles once said, “If you want a happy ending, that depends, on where you stop the story.” So, on a happy note we ended our trip to Boston. Next: Houston!
In the catalog that accompanied the Daphne Farago Collection exhibition we found this quote. It is too good not to be shared. Art historian Blanche R. Brown recalled her attraction and purchase of a brooch in 1947.
Kudos to Pat, Susan and Sharon. Among the many benefits of being a member of AJF, the collector trips are the most extraordinary and Boston proved the point. This wonderful trip was flawlessly organized by Pat Rodimer, Susan Cummins and Sharon Campbell. Thank you for making the trip so wonderful.
Mark your calendar: something rare is going to happen and you don’t want to miss it. A program will be on TV that you actually will want to watch, a program that you will find enlightening and best of all a program that will enthuse your passion for collecting. On Wednesday, May 30th, PBS will premier CRAFT IN AMERICA: Memory, Landscape, Community, a three-part high-definition series that explores the important role craftsmanship has played throughout American history. It gets even better because the television special is part of a multi-faceted project that includes this PBS documentary, a traveling museum exhibition, a lavishly illustrated book, and a resource rich website.
The project launches Wednesday, May 30th with the PBS premier of the Craft in America documentary which explores how craftsmanship has been passed from artist to artist over the last two centuries and highlights the central significance of craft in our society. In each episode we meet artists and discover what they do, how they do it and why they have chosen a life of creating art for all to appreciate.
Craft in America: Expanding Traditions is the landmark traveling museum exhibition associated with the TV program. It offers a historical survey featuring more than 200 works spanning a 200 years. These innovative objects will reveal how craft taps into, and shapes, wider cultural streams and flows freely into the broad narrative of contemporary art. The exhibition opened its eight-city, two year tour at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock. The exhibition travels to Portland, OR; San Diego, CA; and Brockton, MA, and beyond.
It gets better! President Jimmy Carter, a long time craftsman and craft advocate, contributed to the prologue to the book, Craft in America: Celebrating Two Centuries of Artists and Objects. This lavishly illustrated book published by Clarkson Potter (Random House) features more than 200 images and showcases some of the greatest works of craft of the last two centuries. The publication explores the unique qualities of American craft while highlighting the objects created by Americas most original and esteemed artists. The book was co-authored by Jo Lauria and Steve Fenton.
The Art Jewelry Forum is fortunate to have many members whose contributions to the arts help ensure that artists and their works are promoted, protected and perpetuated. In upcoming issues of AJFconnection we will meet other members and invite them to share, in their own words, their creative insights and passions.
AJF has launched the 2007 candidate search for our Emerging Artist Award. AJF member Nancy Worden will spearhead our search as AJF seeks to acknowledge promise, innovation and individuality in the work of emerging artists. Harriete Estel Berman, artist and teacher, and Jean Mandeberg, artist and metals professor have accepted Nancy’s invitation to jury the entries.
In its inaugural year, United States Artists awarded 50 USA Fellowships to a total of 54 artists, and four artists’ collaboratives. Expert panels selected the winners from among 300 applicants representing every artistic discipline in 43 states. As USA Fellows, each artist receives an unrestricted grant of $50,000 to support his or her creative work.
We are thrilled that so many AJF members have signed up for our Boston trip. We are fast approaching our maximum capacity of 25 and have even had the hotel increase our room allotment. There is room for only a few more members so it’s time to decide if you wish to join us in Boston May 19-21. We urge you to act now by calling the hotel to book a room before the April 18th cutoff date and immediately send us your registration form and check.
The work of Anya Kivarkis, Assistant Professor of Jewelry/Metalsmithing at the University of Oregon in Eugene was selected to be included in the 8th Northwest Biennial at the Tacoma Museum of Art. The Biennial is structured to prompt meaningful dialogue about the Northwest’s artistic strengths and accomplishments. The exhibit opened in February and closes on May 6th.
Women’s Tales: Four Leading Israeli Jewelers, is the first comprehensive study of Israeli contemporary jewelry to focus on the careers of four of its leading women jewelers. The show, featuring 127 jewelry pieces, opens at the Bellevue Arts Museum this month. The exhibition began an international tour at the Racine Arts Museum, moves to Europe to tour in 2008-09 and closes at The Israel Museum in Jerusalem during 2009-2010.
The exhibition is the first in-depth study of the works of leading jewelry artists Bianca Eshel-Gershuni, Vered Kaminski, Esther Knobel, and Deganit Stern Schocken. Each of these artists has played a critical role in forging an Israeli identity in the contemporary jewelry movement, one that is distinctive of Europe and America. Their work has brought international attention to a country that was previously largely unrecognized for its contribution to contemporary jewelry. All four artist were trained in Europe and looked for inspiration in other European contemporary jewelry, which has a focus on non-precious materials. These four artists’ works are uniquely autobiographical, reflecting their womanhood as individuals, wives and mothers living in Israel and strongly impacted by its culture.
AJF made a contribution to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston that may have gone unnoticed by many AJF members. In 2006 the Museum was seeking funding support for the acquisition of “Neckpiece for Zymrina: a prostitute of Pompeii” by Keith Lewis. The museum desired to connect and contrast this important contemporary work with its collection of ancient Roman fresco paintings and classical jewelry. AJF, along with many individual AJF members, contributed funds which enabled the museum to add this master work to their jewelry collection.
The Mint Museum of Craft + Design has focused on raising capital to expand its contemporary international jewelry collection. The museum will add breadth and dimension to it’s collection by acquiring contemporary jewelry works that exhibit innovation, and originality and distinction in design. The end goal is to assemble a collection which will chronicle original conceptual and technical developments.
AJF is pleased to sponsor Australian artist Catherine Truman’s speaking engagement at SOFA New York in June. Catherine is co-founder of Gray Street Workshop in Adelaide, Australia. Established in 1985, it is one of Australia’s longest running contemporary jewelry studios. Her work has always been informed by a strong political consciousness. In recent work she investigates the authenticity of the images we carry about our personal anatomy. The resulting objects, characteristically carved from wood or wax, are not exact anatomical replicas but rather evoke sensory responses of physical recognition and resemblance.
The interior of the body is a concealed territory - the less we see the more we imagine. I’m interested in how we reveal and conceal the unfamiliar - the unaccustomed, the invisible. A curiosity of the very nature of the human body itself has always been a potent resource for the subject matter of my work and my choice of medium.”
Join us in Boston on May 20 and 21 for the opening of the Daphne Farago collection at the Museum of Fine Arts. With a selection of about 150 objects, this collection exhibition will provide a chronological and thematic survey of studio jewelry in the twentieth century. While demonstrating the breadth of the collection and the variety of artists’ approaches to jewelry-making, the show also offers in-depth exploration of works by many key artists.
Later this fall, September 26-30, we will be in Houston for the grand opening of the Helen Drutt Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts. We are working on the agenda for this trip in order to take maximum advantage of the various other activities being planned in conjunction with this opening. We will also find time to visit some of Houston’s other outstanding venues, including the DeMenil collection.
On Wednesday, January 24th at 6 p.m., Susan Cummins will lecture on Coming Into View, a traveling exhibition of work featuring emerging jewelers that originated in the home of Yaan Wooley dueing the Society of North American Goldsmiths 2006 Chicago conference. The lecture will take place in Eugene at the University of Oregon, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, where the exhibition is currently on view. A reception with the academic, local, and regional community will follow the lecture.
(contributed by Jo Lauria) An enthusiastic group of AJF members participated in our trip to Southern California this past October. Like all of our tours, these four days were filled with visits to artists’ studios, museums, galleries and even a private collection. And, as past trips have set the bar high for offering excellent cuisine and ambiance, San Diego and Los Angeles restaurants rose to the challenge and provided our members with a delightful and delectable array of fine dining experiences.
Collector Lynn Altman with AJF members Rika Mouw and Don Newman.
Artist Kristen Beeler discusses one of her necklaces at her Long Beach Studio
Artist Marianne Hunter explains the drawing process she uses for her jewelry pieces during a studio visit.
Professor Sondra Sherman and several of her students at San Diego State University chatting with artist Nancy Worden during the fall show of student and alumni work at the university’s art gallery.
Hall Nelson, former director of the Long Beach Museum of Art, hosts a private lunch for members
Arlene Fisch discusses one of her early necklaces at her Sand Diego studio.
One of the nicest things about AJF members is your willingness to share your opinions and views with us which is exactly what many of you did recently in response to our first membership survey. (We learned a lot about online surveys and next time we will make it easier to participate.)
2007 is shaping up to be a very interesting year. We can look forward to large-scale contemporary jewelry shows in two of the country’s most prestigious museums, MFA Boston and Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Our website will continue to grow and our programs will continue to evolve. We’ll share gallery news, artists of note, developments in the field. We plan to send AJFconnection twice a month to keep you in the know. If you have news you would like to share please let us know. We welcome your suggestions Handy email links are just a click away.
We are delighted to announce this year’s Emerging Artist Award Winner is Natalya Pinchuk. The jury was comprised of retired metals professor Arline Fisch, curator Gail M. Brown and renown jewelry artist Nancy Worden. The jury chose from thirty-three entries representing all regions of the U.S. as well as the Netherlands and Turkey. The criteria used to evaluate the entries were: originality, quality of craftsmanship and continuity of design. The jury was challenged and inspired by the high percentage of exceptional entries.