Susan Cummins, Chair of the Art Jewelry Forum (AJF), and Susan Kempin, Award Program Chair, are pleased to announce this year’s Emerging Artist Award winner, Agnes Larsson. Larsson was chosen from among 117 entries, from 38 countries.
The goal of the Emerging Artist Award is to acknowledge promise, innovation and individuality in the work of emerging jewelers. The competition is open to makers of art jewelry who have recently completed their professional training and have not been a featured artist in a commercial gallery or museum. Larsson will receive a $5,000 cash award. In addition, her work will be featured by an AJF member gallery at the Sculptural Object and Functional Art (SOFA) Expo in Chicago and in AJF ads, and she will serve as a juror for next year’s competition.
Jurors for the 2010 competition were Namita Wiggers, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon; Susan Beech, long-standing member of AJF and collector of contemporary jewelry; and Sharon Massey, jeweler and recipient of the AJF’s 2009 Emerging Artist Award.
Criteria used in the judging were originality, depth of concept and quality of craftsmanship. Larsson used carbon and horse hair in the series of work she submitted. She allows the material to lead the way through the working process, drawing inspiration from thoughts about gravity, lightness and heaviness, death, life, transparency and darkness, growth, decomposition and transformation to show contrasts like fragility and strength, depth and surface, darkness and light.
Susan Beech commented, ‘This body of work most exemplified the guidelines for judging: originality, depth of concept and quality of craftsmanship. The use of carbon and horsehair, original materials, work well together. The first thought that came to mind when I looked at this body of work was elegant.’ Sharon Massey added, ‘Agnes Larsson presents a cohesive body of work that I found quite unusual and poetic. Her forms are simple, emphasizing the texture and blackness of the carbon as well as the fragility of the horsehair. Her artistic voice seemed the most authentic and unique.’
Larsson received a BFA, in 2004, and an MFA, in 2007, in Silversmithing and Jewellery from Konstfack University College of Arts, Craft and Design, Stockholm, Sweden.
Formal announcement of this award, with images of the work, will be made at SOFA Chicago, November 5-7, 2010.
NEWS RELEASE
December 1, 2009
Contact: Susan Kempin
917-459-0866
The Art Jewelry Forum (AJF) is pleased to announce grants have been awarded this year to Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue Washington and Miami University Art Museum in Oxford Ohio. Renate Raymond and Lena Vigna, Curator of Exhibitions, respectively, submitted the winning proposals.
Each will receive a $2,500 cash award. The total award of $5,000 is a substantial increase and more than double the amount awarded last year. 
The Bellevue award will support the exhibition “Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard” which explores Ms. Gralnick’s interest in gold and the profound way it exists in our culture. The project underscores some of the highly conceptual work being done in contemporary art jewelry. The exhibit will open March 23, 2010.
The award to Miami University Art Museum will support the exhibit “Adornment and Excess: Jewelry in the 21st Century”. Work by 19 contemporary jewelers will draw attention to how we consume materials and objects historically, visually and metaphorically. The exhibition will open January 21, 2010 and run through July 10.
The goal of the AJF grant award is to encourage and promote activities consistent with the mission of the Art Jewelry Forum and promote art jewelry to the broader community; activities include, but are not limited to publications and critical writing, exhibitions and conferences. Applicants for the award must be tax-exempt in the United States. The focus of the application must be on contemporary art jewelry and exhibitions must be held within the United States. 
Members of the grant review committee for the 2008 award were: Ulysses Grant Dietz, Curator of Decorative Arts at the Newark Museum; Jill Baker Gower, Assistant Professor Metals/Jewelry Department, Rowan University and recipient of the 2008 grant award; Rita Newman, long-standing member of AJF and Susan Kempin, this year’s Award Program Chair.
PHOTOS
Lisa Gralnick
The Gold Standard Part I: #8 (Rhinoplasty), 2005,Plaster, gold, acrylic Collection: Susan Beech
Photo: Lisa Gralnick
Lisa Gralnick
The Gold Standard Part III: Halo, probably 14th Century (detail), 2008, Recycled gold and enamel, acrylic and glass
Photo: Jim Escalante
Yael Friedman
White Elephants, constructed paper
Harriete Estel Berman
Presitge,Value and Identity (2001-2005), Recycled tin containers and brass rivets