The Emerging Artist award was first given out in 2000 as part of the Art Jewelry Forum’s commitment to encouraging younger artists to pursue careers in this field. Since its inception, the Art Jewelry Forum is delighted to have been able to increase the financial award several times to its current $5,000 level. In addition, starting in 2003, AJF has been able to offer the winner an opportunity to show his or her work at SOFA Chicago thanks to the generosity of participating AJF gallery members. Exposure such as this provides these artists with an excellent forum to get their work in front of an enormous audience.

Applications for the 2008 Emerging Artist Award should be made at callforentry.org beginning on April 15, 2008.

To download the Emerging Artist Award call for entries, click here or click on the image to the right.

Purpose of Award

The purpose of the award is to acknowledge promise, innovation, and individuality in the work of an emerging jewelry artist and to help to advance the artist’s career. The competition is open to makers of wearable art jewelry who:

• have completed their academic/professional training,
• have been out of school for one year or more, and
• have not had a solo artist exhibition in a commercial gallery or museum.

Submitted work must have been unsupervised if from an academic setting.

This Year’s Jury

Jurors for the 2008 competition are: Cindi Strauss, curator of Modern and Contemporary Decorative Arts and Design at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Ron Porter, long-standing member of AJF and a collector of contemporary jewelry; and Andrea Janosik, jewelry artist and recipient of our 2007 Award.

Deadline for submission is July 20, 2008. Applications may be submitted at www.callforentry.org.

The winner of this year’s competition and $5,000 cash award will be announced at SOFA Chicago (International Exposition of Sculpture Objects and Functional Art), November 7-9, where the artist’s work will be exhibited at one of the AFJ member galleries.

The Art Jewelry Forum (AJF) is 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 well-known jewelry artist Nancy Worden. The jury chose from thirty-three entries representing all regions of the US 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.

Pinchuk submitted a body of work she calls Growth Series. In Growth Series, bright flowers seem to sprout from the wearer in formations suggestive of colorful fungi thriving on a vine-like host. They appear to be indigenous to the steamy tropics and Dr. Suess. Juror Gail M. Brown described these whimsical felt, plastic and enamel creations as “daring and joyful.”

Natalya Pinchuk’s work appears in the new Lark Books publication 500 Necklaces and will be included in the exhibition of the same title at Velvet da Vinci in San Francisco in November 2006. She is also represented by Charon Kransen in New York. Formal announcement of this award will be at SOFA Chicago, on Friday, November 10, at 1 p.m. in conjunction with an AJF-sponsored lecture by artist Mary Preston.2006 marks the seventh year that AJF, an organization that promotes education, appreciation and advocacy for contemporary art jewelry, has given an award to an emerging jewelry artist whose work shows exceptional promise.

This year’s winner, a runner up from last year, Sergey Jivetin is an MFA graduate of SUNY at New Paltz, NY, now living in Brooklyn. His use of manufactured watch hands as modular design elements yields jewelry that is visually complex and layered with meaning.The quality of the work submitted this year was, according to the judges, superb, making their task all the more challenging. Davira Taragin, Director of Exhibitions and Programs, Racine Art Museum; Don Firedlich, past president of the Society of North American Goldsmiths and a studioartist; along with AJF member Mia McEldowney, collector/independent curator worked their way through this year’s entries.

Sergey JivetinIn addition to the award of $2000 for Sergey, the panel also cited two other applicants in the finalist grouping: Anya Pinchuk (D.C.) and Natalya Pinchuk (IL). All have a fresh and personal voice, conceptual sophistication and technical skills.

According to the judges, Ms. Plante’s work shows an exciting use of elements, a strong visual direction and a high degree of technical ability. As the winner, she received $2,000.”The work of Amie Plante distinctly reflects thoughtful personal vision and a developed visual ‘voice’ and vocabulary. The hairpins and earrings have attitude–regal qualities implied by the forms, scale and proportions, a sense of majesty suggesting contemporary ceremonial wear. The intricate forms are a visual delight to explore–there is variety of line, color and material palette within the cohesive body of work,” concluded Gail Brown, one of the judges this year.

Amie is a BFA graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA graduate of Dartmouth College, now living in Massachusetts. Judges this year were: Mia McEldowney, Collector/Independent Curator; Gail Brown, Curator of Contemporary Craft; and Michael Jerry, Professor Emeritus of Sycracuse University.

The other finalists out of a field of 54 applicants were: Frankie Flood (IL), Sergey Jivetin (NY), Lonna Keller (IA), and Jessie Martin (IN).

The award was announced at SOFA Chicago where Amie’s work was shown by AJF member Charon Kransen.

Ms. Chang, a MFA graduate from the University of Wisconsin, won this year’s award of $2000.

“The work of artist Yuyen Chang was of consistent high quality and finesse combined with a fresh approach to art jewelry. In the best of traditions, the pieces are strongly sculptural but eminently wearable. The surfaces were handled beautifully and not overworked,” noted Mia McEldowney, independent curator and CERF trustee, who led fellow judges Nancy Worden, jewelry artist, teacher and collector; and independent curator Jo Lauria, former Decorative Arts curator of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.This year’s field of 50 applicant was a record. This was also the second year in a row that the Art Jewelry Forum has boosted the amount of the award to the current $2000.

The third year of this program saw yet another increase in applicants with Ms. Hawkins emerging as the winner. The announcement was made at the Society of North American Goldsmiths’ conference in Denver, CO.”Our goal was to acknowledge promise, innovation and individuality,” according to Suzanne Baizerman, the Imogene Gieling Curator of Crafts and Decorative Art at the Oakland Museum of California. “In the course of jurying slides for this award, I was immediately struck by Ms. Hawkin’s work. it had a presence. The subjects drew me in, arousing my curiousity. Were there stories imbedded within the pieces? The various materials that were combined intrigued me. Not inconsequentially, the works were well photographed.”

Ms. Baizerman was joined in this year’s juding by Mia McEldowney, independent curator, CERF trustee, and AJF board member, along with Sandy Grotta, an interior designer and trustee of the American Crafts Museum, AJF member and craft collector. This year’s award was increased by $500 to $1,500.

In this second year of the award program, Mark was the winner out of an overall field of 39. “His brooches focus on social issues that affect us all: our obsessions about body image, sex, wealth and guns,” noted Mia McEldowney, independent curator, CERF trustee, who chaired the judging this year. She was joined in this task by Joanne Rapp, a craft consultant, Haystack trustee, and founding member of the Art Jewelry Forum; and Judy Bloomfield, another founding member who is also an American Crafts Council trustee and collector.

Ms. Kang of Urbana, IL, won this first ever award which was announced at the annual conference of the Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) in Cambridge, MA.

“Our goal was to acknowledge promise, innovation and individuality,” according to Gail M. Brown, Independent Curator and Art Jewelry Forum member who was instrumental in bringing the idea of this award to fruition. “Ms. Kang clearly met all three of these attributes,” she concluded.

Ms. Brown was joined in judging by Bob Ebendorf, Belk Distinguished Professor of Art at East Carolina University, and collector Judy Bloomfield, a founding AJF member and American Craft Council trustee.

This competition is open to makers of art jewelry who have not been a featured artist in a commercial gallery and who have or shortly will enter the professional world. If still a student, the entrant must graduate before August in the year of the award.

“Presentation of this award marks a milestone for the Art Jewelry Forum,” said Sharon Campbell, President. “This is part of fulfilling our mission to nurture the field of contemporary art jewelry. Awards such as this will help to raise the visibility of the art form and encourage new entrants to the field. We look forward to this being an annual event.”