Emerging Artists archive at Art Jewelry Forum

Emerging Artists

2009 Emerging Artist Award Invites Submissions

Deadline for submission is June 14, 2009.
Applications may be submitted at www.callforentry.org.
For 2009 Emerging Artist Award flyer click here.

AJF is accepting applications for its 2009 Emerging Artist Award. The amount of this year’s award is $5,000. This is the 9th year that AJF has awarded a contemporary jewelry artist a cash 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.

Jurors for the 2009 competition are: Ursula Neuman, jewelry curator at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Gail Hufjay, long-standing member of AJF and a collector of contemporary jewelry; and Masumi Kataoka, jewelry artist and recipient of the AJF’s 2008 Award.

The award was established in 1999 and its first recipient, Yeon-Mi Keong, received the award at the 2000 Conference of the Society of North American Goldsmiths. 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 6-8, where the artist’s work will be exhibited at one of the AJF member galleries. The artist’s work will also be featured in the AJF ad for the SOFA catalogs, in Chicago and New York.

Jurors’ Perspective: Reflections on the 2008 EAA

The three jurors for the Emerging Artist Award — 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 the AJF’s 2007 Award, reflect on the process of choosing this years awardee.

Cindi Strauss…
Jurying the AJF Emerging Artist Award was a great pleasure this year. It was both invigorating and challenging as the quality and number of outstanding entries confirmed what we all know about jewelry today - there is amazing work being made by young artists all over the world. The new CAFE submission system was straightforward and allowed for a wide range of images and information to be at juror’s fingertips.

Ron Porter…
I had always wanted to try my hand at jurying, so I jumped at the chance to be one of three jurors for this year’s AJF Emerging Artist Award. The experience was exhilarating, but exhausting. The seventy-nine entrants challenged our concepts of jewelry and adornment in provocative ways; unique materials, bold concepts, and consistent vision. Our winner exemplified the best in new art jewelry, so it was a thrill to be able to praise her work and welcome her to the roster of distinguished AJF Emerging Artists.

Andrea Janosik
It was the first time I was asked to be on a jury - I spend a lot of my time critiquing my own work, but haven’t applied that thought process to other artists’ jewelry since I finished school - in that sense it felt very academic. Seeing that Cindi and Ron’s final choices coincided with mine made me feel confident that we had the same criteria. The initial impression was based on whether or not something captured my interest - there were a lot of entries and so many pictures to look at, but only some intrigued me visually, made me want to look closer, in a way ‘discover’ - although so many impressed with their technical skills.

Originality is hard to define, especially with words. I think it has to do with one’s personality, history and experience. I recognized many great pieces exhibited at shows, and some in print, but it made a big difference when they were presented in a group. Now they were viewed as a series of steps and actions. I looked at how one idea got to be more or less varied and explored. What I felt most groups lacked was seeing one idea continuously develop from it into another, one idea inspiring a new one without repeating itself.

It was a pleasure and quite an experience - I am very happy to have had this opportunity.

Masumi Kataoka Winner of Eighth AJF
Emerging Artist Award

The Art Jewelry Forum is pleased to announce this year’s Emerging Artist Award winner, Masumi Kataoka. Ms. Kataoka received a BFA in Metal/Jewelry at Northern Arizona University and completed a MFA in Metal Jewelry at the University of North Texas in 2003. Ms Kataoka was chosen from among seventy-nine entries, a record number, from the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Australia, Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands, and Iran.

Ms. Kataoka’s work emphasizes the intimate nature of jewelry as an object. Historical jewelry, such as Victorian-mourning jewelry, has been of great interest to Ms. Kataoka because it signifies a deep affection and bond with another person and consequently with the object itself. Ms. Kataoka uses materials that may suggest skin and internal organs as if they were an extension of the body, as if one’s inner feelings are outwardly displayed. She finds the use of body elements and materials that relate to the body in jewelry interesting because it blurs the boundary between the person and the object itself and emphasizes the intimacy of objects.

Jurors for the 2008 competition were 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 the AJF’s 2007 Award. Criteria used in the judging were originality, depth of concept and quality of craftsmanship. Jurors felt her work had both a distinctive look and a range of form; they described her work as having an organic feel and commented on her seductive use of the materials.

Jurors Name Andrea Janosik 2007 AJF Emerging Artist

Andrea Janosik 2007 AJF Emerging Artist Winner

The Art Jewelry Forum (AJF) is delighted to announce this year’s Emerging Artist Award winner is Andrea Janosik. She will receive $2000 from AJF in recognition of this achievement. There were 21 entries from all over the United States and Canada.

Artist and educator Nancy Worden led the effort, joined in jurying by studio artist Harriete Estel Berman and Jean Mandeberg, artist and now metals professor at The Evergreen State College. “This year’s jury was unique,” notes Worden, “in that all three of us are practicing jewelry artists and know intimately how difficult that transition from school to independent artist can be. This artist proved to us that she has the professionalism and work ethic to become a peer.”

Bringing their insight to the decision, the judges’ criteria were originality, quality craftsmanship and continuity of design. Another major consideration was whether the work submitted had been created in a supervised or academic situation. By defining an Emerging Artist as an artist who has been out of school for at least a year and created all eight entries unsupervised, the judges were able to narrow the selection down to the winner.

“Andrea Janosik was our choice for the Emerging Artist Award this year because her work is well-crafted, well-designed, and very creative in her use of materials,” Worden contends. “She finished her formal education in 2001 and has been producing on a consistent basis ever since, which was an indication to us that she is in this career for the long haul.”

Andrea earned a BFA in product design/metals and a BA in creative writing from Parsons School of Design, New York. Born in Slovakia, Andrea lived in Zambia, Africa, and Germany before coming to the United States to complete her studies. Her work has been featured in the Schmuck 2006 exhibit in Munich, Germany, and at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.

Formal announcement of this award, with images of the work, will be at SOFA Chicago on Friday, November 2 at 11 a.m. in conjunction with an AJF-sponsored lecture by artist Gerd Rothman. At SOFA, Andrea’s work will be shown by Charon Kransen Arts.

2007 marks the eighth year that AJF, an organization that promotes education, appreciation and advocacy for contemporary art jewelry, has given an award to an emerging artist whose work shows exceptional promise.

2006 Emerging Artist Winner: Natalya Pinchuk

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.

2005 Emerging Artist Winner: Sergey Jivetin

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.

2004 Emerging Artist Winner: Amie Louise Plante

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.

2003 Emerging Artist Winner: Yuyen Chang

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.

2002 Emerging Artist Winner: Mindy Michelle Hawkins

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.

2001 Emerging Artist Winner: Mark D. Rooker

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.

2000 Emerging Artist Winner: Yeonmi Kang

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.”