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.
Andrea Janosik 2007 AJF Emerging Artist Winner
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.
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.
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.
“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.”