Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelry
January 13 to February 28, 2010.
Velvet da Vinci 2015 Polk Street San Francisco, CA 94109 415-441-0109

During the Second World War, American troops in New Zealand were issued a concise guide to familiarize themselves with the country in which they were stationed. Published by the War and Navy Departments in 1943, Pocket Guide to New Zealand was a descriptive guide to the history, culture, peoples and language of New Zealand.

Reassuring readers that New Zealanders were a pioneering society who had been “seeing our movies, listening to our radio, and reading our magazines”, the Pocket Guide to New Zealand concluded that its readers would meet “a people with some of the British reserve, with many British methods and institutions, but with American outspokenness and directness – plus a working knowledge of American slang.”

Five decades later, the Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelry continues this tradition of cultural exchange, introducing a new generation of Americans to contemporary jewelry made, as the original guide put it, “deep in the heart of the south seas.” The Pocket Guide to New Zealand Jewelry is an indispensable introduction to a country that continues to transform cultural influences from England, Europe and America into jewelry that American audiences will find both familiar and strange. Curated by Damian Skinner

The exhibition will travel to The Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston in March 2010
124 page color catalog $19.95
Participating artists:
Anna Wallis, Jane Dodd, Jason Hall, Fran Allison, Warwick Freeman, Areta Wilkinson, Alan Preston, Renee Bevan, Lisa Walker, Peter McKay, Lynn Kelly, Octavia Cook, Andrea Daly, Pauline Bern, Niki Hastings-McFall, Peter Deckers
www.velvetdavinci.com