The jury of distinguished professionals for this grant cycle will be: Curator-in-Charge, Contemporary Art and Programming at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Claudia Schmuckli (United States); grant founder and collector Susan Beech (United States); and internationally recognized maker and academic Eija Mustonen (Finland).
Claudia Schmuckli started her career in curatorial roles at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. She was later appointed director and chief curator of the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston, Texas, and today is the inaugural curator-in-charge of contemporary art and programming at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, charged with defining a vision for integrating contemporary art into the programs and collections of the museum.
Susan Beech was introduced to studio jewelry in 1989 and over the years has assembled a major and important collection of international art jewelry. She was instrumental in helping the Mint Museum start its international jewelry collection and received the 2008 McColl Award, which recognizes the gifted vision, extraordinary generosity, and endless energy that are pivotal forces in assuring the success of the museum. Susan created the Susan Beech Mid-Career Grant to provide a way to ease some of the financial pressure that gets in the way of a mid-career artist thinking, being creative, and developing wonderful ideas.
Eija Mustonen is a maker whose work has been exhibited throughout Europe and the US and can be found in major collections worldwide. In addition, she has been a teacher of jewelry art and, since 2010, has been serving as the manager of fine arts at the Saimaa University of Applied Sciences in South Karelia, Finland. She has also coordinated and organized several international jewelry events, such as Alchemy in 1997 and the KORU1234 events, which are jewelry triennials.
The Susan Beech Mid-Career Grant is open to makers between the ages of 35 and 55 at the time of the proposal deadline. The proposed project should be about jewelry, loosely defined. The grant recipient will receive a cash grant of $20,000, to be paid over the two years in which the project will be implemented.
Applications will be accepted starting November 1, 2018. The deadline to apply is 11:59 p.m., MST, on Monday, January 14, 2019. More information and complete guidelines can be found here.
About AJF
Art Jewelry Forum is a nonprofit organization spreading awareness and increasing appreciation of art jewelry worldwide since 1997. AJF advocates for art jewelry through an ambitious agenda of education, conversation, and financial support. It commissions critical writing that sets the standard for excellence in the field and publishes artjewelryforum.org, an online resource for original content on art jewelry.
