news

i am very pleased to announce i am going to be a part of quirk represents, a jewelry gallery in richmond, va. this is my first artist representation.

i am also excited to report i will be selling my work at my first wholesale show in august at the buyer's market of american craft in philadelphia. i have avoided shows like this for long enough and now it is time for a new challenge. i am ready!

august 2-4, 2008
philadelphia convention center

thanks for reading.

guest star friday no. 8...karola torkos

today's guest star is karola torkos. she's been on my list of "jewelers to remember." karola makes interesting, playful work, rich with lines and pattern. many of her pieces are "changeable/variable," a concept i am drawn to. i am very interested in jewelry that can be worn more than one way and even have a few pieces in my collection that are mildly changeable. karola says in her statement, "Giving the wearer the possibility to change the look of a jewellery piece is in some way handing over the last step in the design process. This is a challenge for both the designer and the wearer and it leads to a very personal relationship to design or art." love it. this connection between maker and wearer is fantastic, so worthwhile. karola works with a variety of materials, creating shapes and patterns, and then layers them. these layers are attached or hinged in such a way that each piece can be folded, looped, wrapped, or flipped into several different pieces. another interesting aspect of karola's work can be seen in the top piece which is an "interpretation of exercising a three-dimensional drawing." as i mentioned just the other day, i've been studying and making jewelry that references or incorporates drawing so i was immediately intrigued by this piece. love it again.

karola's website
her blog
her etsy shop

thanks for reading.

machine

this week i felt like a machine...


thanks for reading.

drawing on metal

since i have been trying to draw with metal and due to my personal interest in line drawings of late, i have been noticing all kinds of jewelry with drawings. i find this stuff so interesting so i started collecting images a few weeks ago...

this first image is a brooch by kristin beeler. this drawing is ink on mother of pearl. you can find lots of other pieces at velvet da vinci. along with work like the piece shown here, you will also see some etched drawings and what looks like scrimshaw. all the drawings are very simple and very delicate.

here is a brooch by esther knobel - sterling silver with perforated (drilled) drawing sewn with iron wire. this is from the fantastic series "the mind in the hand." see more at sienna gallery.












joanna gollberg - these sterling silver earrings with little perforated drawings of familiar shapes are sewn with plastic thread and are one of many of jo's experiments.

ps...joanna just blogged about a a similar concept. check it out here.







iris eichenberg... more examples of perforated drawings - "heimat brooch" in sterling and bone. please also click here to see a perforated and stitched necklace by iris eichenberg.





so, like all my posts on pop-out/pop-up jewelry, i will continue to post images of work that include drawing on metal as i find them.

thanks for reading.

guest star friday no. 7...my studio, plus a little wrap-up

today's guest star is not a jeweler, but the place i make my work..my studio. this morning i took a few shots of my space located in lovely downtown asheville, nc. i share this studio, composed of one big working area and several small rooms, with three other jewelers, joanna gollberg, geoff giles, and molly dingledine. our work is all very different, as well as our working styles and schedules, but we get along great and love sharing the studio. i feel very lucky to be a part of this special group of artists.

one final note about snag... i hoped to spend more time contemplating the conference and then writing about it, but i've been too busy ever-since to process it the way i would have liked. so, to summarize now and move on, the conference was a totally worthwhile experience for me. i listened to some excellent lectures including iris eichenberg and carlier makigawa; i met lots of interesting people, talked about jewelry and the field, and made some great connections. AND, the best part, i got to spend some serious quality time with a few close friends who live far away.

oh, yes... there was the presentation i gave. that was pretty fantastic, too!

finally, please do visit my website. i just added all kinds of new collection pieces, created a direct link to my blog, organized the art jewelry section (now called "studio jewelry), added a next button in the shop, and a few other little things. of course, i'm not done... my website is very much a work-in-progress. you'll see more changes in the near future.



as always, thanks for reading - have a great weekend!

tomorrow it's on!

well, tomorrow is the big day...new collection pieces, a slightly modified website, free shipping! i've been busy all week working with my people - my web designer (needmore designs in portland, or) on my site and my graphic designer (brandon dawley in richfield springs, ny) on my new catalog and line sheets. i'll be up to the wee hours of the morning adding all the new work so you all can see first thing tomorrow. (if you're up late, too, you might just get a first look before everyone else!) then tomorrow i will photograph my studio space and will post images here at some point during the day...stay tuned.

thanks for reading.

studio update

this week is an exciting one for me. i am updating my website with all the new pieces i designed back in january as well as making little changes here and there to the site itself. (thanks to all those who critiqued the site for me and for all the great ideas!) the new work and "improved" site will go live on friday. (and so will free shipping for a month!) i'm also busy filling orders to stock my shops. last week i completed my work for 21st century jewelry and sent the final three pieces (a necklace, a ring, and a pair of earrings) to my photographer, hank drew, in seattle. i did make these pieces more 3d, my goal as i mentioned awhile back. i am very pleased. it was a fun challenge figuring out how to make it all work. plus, spending all of last week on studio jewelry was so refreshing.

here's another sneak peak from my new collection pieces...a steel and gold long oval link necklace. thanks for reading.

books, snag installment #4

i love books. they are one of the only things i spend money on these days and collecting them can be (is) a weakness. while at snag i made sure to take some time to look through charon kranson's selection. he usually has several long tables covered in books upon books, all about jewelry. this time, i was most interested in exhibition and artist catalogs and, i swear, i looked through every single one he had! i started by taking a quick look and if something sparked my interest i would hold on to it. after making the rounds, i had a pile of books and went through them again, but this time not so quickly. i finally decided on a mikromegas, vera siemund - schmuck, and esther knobel - the mind in the hand. each catalog is just fantastic, great pictures, and just enough text. they will inspire me for years to come.

the above pictures - brooch/esther knobel, necklace/vera siemund, and a page from mikromegas

thanks for reading.

guest star friday no. 6 (snag installment #3)...carlier makigawa

i know it's saturday, not friday...i've had a busy week!

anyway, this week's guest star friday is carlier makigawa, a metalsmith from australia. i was not familiar with carlier's work until the snag conference where i attended her lecture. her work is composed of cage-like wire stuctures that are clustered or grouped together to form pendants, bracelets, and brooches. the work is light and airy with a subtle strength. the pieces resemble pods, buds, and other organic forms, but because of the rigid metal structure and simple monochrome the pieces become something quite different, other-worldly perhaps. i was particularly interested in her use of negative space because this is something i think about carefully in my own work. she talked about how negative space can suggest that something was there. nice. i enjoyed her talk very much. she began by discussing earlier work and progressed through her career to recent projects which include sculptures and public art.


the top piece is a pendant - cluster #1, flourish 2005–06 from hybrid clusters 2005-06
sterling silver, silk thread, 50.0 x 8.5 x 7.5 cm. the bottom piece is a bracelet - in silver and monel

thanks for reading.

megan auman, snag installment #2

one of my fellow presenters at the professional development seminar was megan auman, a bright, talented, and enthusiastic metalsmith. she lives in pennsylvania, where she makes jewelry and sculpture and also teaches at towson university in maryland. megan's presentation was about navigating the web, blogging, websites, etsy, etc. her presentation was just before mine and i felt like they complimented each other perfectly. it seemed as though they were meant to be partnered. i enjoyed meeting and talking with megan. we even talked about a way for us to combine our efforts on these topics for emerging artists...very exciting.

let me just say, this girl is on fire! she's exhibiting, selling, teaching, speaking up, and making her mark in the community. that's all very exciting, too.

here's where you can find her:

her website
her blog

thanks for reading.

presentation report, snag installment #1

time to start writing about all that happened at SNAG... i think the best place to start is my presentation. after a few intense weeks of preparation and some serious self-doubt (including a desperate phone call to my mom), i put my very first power point to bed the night before the seminar. (come on, how much fine-tuning can one really do?) i felt good about the content and visuals and had practiced many, many times. i had to stop, but not before another run-through with my friend and fellow presenter, marthe le van. we practiced one final time at about 11:30pm as we lounged in our matching twin beds in what we now refer to as "mansion camp." (we stayed at an extravagantly decorated brownstone in downtown savannah.) the next morning we made our way to the conference hotel, stopping at the fantastic SCAD shop for some very helpful retail therapy. (i was so nervous at this point!) i bought a ridiculously good fabric brooch made by kristen hlis. (this name might be a little wrong...i'm taking it from my receipt.) for the next 4 hours we dealt with all the technical stuff, which wasn't easy - there were a lot of issues. finally, after transferring our presentations to one laptop, the seminar started at 2. i spoke at 4:30. by that time, i had calmed down quite a bit and i have to say, i am pleased with the way it went. my talk had 4 sections, starting with my background. then i outlined indie shops and galleries, indie craft shows, and trunk shows. i defined each topic, discussed pros and cons, and mentioned my personal experiences. i really hope the attendees (all 200+) got something out of it.

now about this public speaking thing, i think it's always good to make oneself do difficult things, like public speaking. (it builds character, no?) like i said, i wouldn't do anything differently, but over the next few days i paid extra attention to the other presenters. they are much farther along in their careers and have more experience presenting. i listened to how they opened and concluded their talks, noted their transitions, and the overall structure. i even took some notes which i'll just file away for future reference. eventually, i would like to make my presentation public. it might be a good resource for many emerging jewelers and other artists.

p.s. marthe le van is an editor at lark books. they publish wonderful art and craft books including my favorites in the 500 series, like 500 brooches.

thanks for reading.

it's saturday, the last day of the SNAG conference. so much has happened! it's been a great couple of days, but i am ready to go home. it's going to take me a bit to process everything, so i thought i would break it up into segments over the next week. i can say right now that the best part has been spending time with my faraway jewelry friends that i don't get to see that often.

i did not expect to get so much quality time with them...
suzanne pugh (above left), adrienne grafton (below left), seth papac (middle), andy cooperman (above right)...more on that and others later. now i am off to the big party.

thanks for reading.

savannah bound

i am off to savannah, ga tomorrow for the SNAG conference. my presentation for the professional development seminar is wednesday afternoon. i feel pretty good about my power point, but those nerves do like to creep up...

i am really looking forward to the conference! i love a good lecture. i am most looking forward to hearing iris eichenberg's lecture.

here's a picture of her work - a brooch made of silver. you can see more images of her work at ornamentum gallery.












as soon as i get back, it will be time to get my website all ready for the new work on march 21.

thanks for reading.