The series “Inside the Jewelry Box” offers a glimpse into the jewelry collections of members of our community. Collectors, curators, gallerists, artists, and others are featured. Suggest someone whose jewelry collection you’d like to see by emailing Jennifer Altmann, here.
The jewelry of Tanya Crane is instantly recognizable. Crane’s work, often in black and white with pops of color, uses a technique called sgraffito, a reductive method in which she scratches away black paint on copper to reveal the white enamel underneath. “I don’t think there’s anything more genuine and true than creating with your hands,” she says.
In September, Crane began a teaching job at Long Beach City College, in California, as assistant professor of 3D foundations, jewelry and sculpture. She was also recently awarded a United States Artists Fellowship, a $50,000 prize that recognizes practitioners in all disciplines.
When Crane chooses a piece of jewelry by another artist, she often looks for something that is emblematic of the maker’s body of work. Crane displays much of her jewelry collection on the walls of her home.
The pattern in this laser-etched enamel brooch by Arthur Hash “reminds me of a video game. It’s very sci-fi,” Crane says. “Arthur is great at making patterns that are kinetic, so they pop.” The brooch’s surface doesn’t rest on the pin mechanism, so it can be flipped up.
The piece was a gift from Hash, whom Crane first met when he was her instructor in the metal program at SUNY New Paltz. Hash, who is based in Rhode Island, combines traditional craft techniques with digital fabrication.
Crane first saw the work of Jessica Calderwood at the Facèré Jewelry Art Gallery, in Seattle. “It was the place where I first found out about contemporary jewelry, when I was taking classes at Seattle’s Pratt Fine Arts Center. I used to go there and covet all the enamel pieces.”
Years later, Crane took a class with Calderwood at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and traded with her to acquire this brooch, which is graphite on enamel, made by firing a pencil drawing onto the enamel. Calderwood, a professor of art at Ball State University, in Indiana, is a visual artist who often creates brooches to explore forms and materials for her work in sculpture and other mediums.
The image on the brooch shows a couple in bed with only their backs and arms visible above a polka-dot comforter, their heads obscured by pillows. “I wear it on special occasions,” Crane says. “It’s great on a jacket or coat.” Crane loves that the brooch “captures an intimate moment and puts it on display. It’s relatable, and makes me consider my own relationship to intimacy and coveting sleep.”
Crane and her friend Catherine Armistead, a jeweler, bought this brooch together and have “joint custody.” It switches from one owner to the other “whenever we are feeling it,” says Crane.
They spotted the brooch at the yearly art sale at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It was made by Yoshiko Yamamoto, who retired in 2011 after decades of teaching at the school. Yamamoto is a master metalsmith known for her hollowware. The shape of this hollow silver brooch reminds Crane of the ridged body of a pill bug.
Lori Talcott “makes witchy jewelry for incantation,” Crane says. “I love her work.” Talcott, who is based in Seattle, believes jewelry is imbued with magic, and her work explores theories on magic and the agency of objects.
These sterling silver earrings are made of two big As and two little As. The eyes above them have a beaded texture. In the Middle Ages, the letter “A,” which often appears in Talcott’s work, was considered a powerful amulet to protect the wearer from harm for two reasons. It stood for amor vincit omnia—love conquers all, in Latin—and for the first letter of “Ave Maria,” summoning the power of the divine feminine.
A birthday gift from artist Kelly Jean Conroy, this banana brooch is laser-etched mother-of-pearl with a line of ants engraved onto it. The back is sterling silver. The piece is part of Conroy’s signature series of illustrations of nature. Conroy, who is based in Massachusetts, calls her work “layered paintings” that set out to capture the beauty of life. For Crane, the brooch is “borderline kitsch, but made in a really sophisticated way.”
Want to see more?
Peek into the collection of artist Helen Britton here.
And take a peek into the gallerist Atty Tantivit’s collection here.
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