September 2025, Part 1

Art Jewelry Forum is pleased to share the news that members of our community find noteworthy. Is something missing? The success of this compilation of compelling events, news, and items of interest to the jewelry community depends on YOUR participation. If you’re a member of AJF at the Silver level or above, you can add news and ideas to this bi-monthly report by going here. If you aren’t a member, but would like to become one, join AJF here.

THE 2026 AJF YOUNG ARTIST AWARD, SUPPORTED BY KAREN AND MICHAEL ROTENBERG
Now accepting applications, this competition recognizes innovative work created by an early-career jewelry artist (age 35 and under). For the fourth cycle in a row, it’s generously supported by the collectors Karen and Michael Rotenberg, whose collection focuses on the innovative use of alternative materials by emerging and mid-career artists. Prizes: US$7,500 for the winner; US$1,000 awards for each of the four finalists; a travel allowance of US$1,000 each for the winner and the finalists who travel to Munich to receive their award; exhibit at Platina during Schmuck 2026 for the winner and four finalists. Deadline: November 9, 2025. Info.

FEEL LIKE SEEING A JEWELRY SHOW?
Find listings from around the world on our dedicated exhibition page.

EVENTS
We have a dedicated page for them. Go here to see the list.

FROM OUR MEMBERS

FOUR OPENS ITS DOORS IN UMEÅ, SWEDEN
It will share the new space with Röbäck Glas & Lera, a gallery for contemporary craft and a ceramic and glass workshop. (Address: Kulturmejeriet, Skravelsjövägen 2, Röbäck.) Four Gallery very much looks forward to seeing the different activities collaborate, both visually and practically. For its first Umeå exhibition, Four presents works by the Mexican/Spanish artist Esteban Erosky.

UTE DECKER TO SHOW IN RINGS: THE RING IN ALL ITS GLORY, FROM 1960 TO TODAY
From radical design to contemporary art jewelry, Rings explores a powerful symbol constantly reinvented by artists and makers. This exhibition shines a spotlight on the ring as a form of wearable sculpture—a deeply personal piece of jewelry, a globally recognized symbol, and a fertile medium for modern artistic expression. It highlights key artists and designers from various eras and backgrounds who have all embraced the ring as a canvas for creative freedom and a vehicle for personal expression, including Decker, Ettore Sottsass, Claude Wesel, Sophia Vari, Marie Beltrami, Vivianna Torun, and Giampaolo Babetto. At Collectors Gallery, 12 Rue des Minimes, 1000 Brussels, September 25–28, 2025. Info.

LISA & SCOTT CYLINDER ANNOUNCE THEIR FIRST EXHIBITION IN FOUR YEARS
Titled Calliope, it’s on view at Gravers Lane Gallery, in Philadelphia, September 4–October 18, 2025. Calliope symbolizes the artists’ convergence of concepts and imagery taken from Greek mythology, the circus, and carousels. Emphasizing fantastical creatures composed of brass wind instrument parts combined with their fabrications, the works are irreverent, metaphorical, and playful, evoking notions of youthful wonder and discovery. More.

MARITIM: DOERTHE FUCHS, AT PLATINA THROUGH SEPTEMBER 27, 2025
This show reflects the artist’s deep love of the sea and the oceans. Here we encounter fish in many forms, music boxes created as tributes to those who lost their lives at sea, as well as boats, among them the great ships known as windjammers. Their rigging—masts, sails, and ropes—suggests elaborate adornment, a concept that resonates within the world of jewelry. More.

VIDEO: IT STARTS WHERE IT ENDS, WORK BY ANA ESCOBAR SAAVEDRA
The artist guides us through her exhibition, with insight into the ideas, materials, and moments that shaped her process. Using marble and granite, she explores nuances of identity, identification, and the systems that rule our lives. A replica of her son’s birth tag, a sentimental object, also represents most people’s initial encounter with bureaucratic and political systems. A sort of bracelet, it’s the very first object we wear, before even being dressed. Watch the video here.

RACHELLE THIEWES EXHIBITION COUNTED AMONG THE BEST
Every week, Glasstire—the oldest online-only art magazine in the country, it has promoted the visual arts in Texas since 2001—counts down the top five art events in that state. Congrats on the inclusion of Paint: Rachelle Thiewes, at the El Paso Museum of Art! Gooooo, jewelry! Check out Glasstire here.

REPAIR DAYS: OCTOBER 16–19, 2025
Repair Days is the Metal Museum’s largest annual fundraiser. Bring your metal items to the museum to have them restored to their former glory. All proceeds help to support annual programming, such as new exhibitions, the apprenticeship program, the M4 on tour, and the museum’s after-school program. Info.

PAUL ADIE AT JEWELERS’WERK
The Scottish jeweler on his working method: “Spontaneity guides my hand … I play along, creating works with a gestural, intuitive, and childlike aesthetic. I … include humor … to build community and poke fun subversively at established power structures. Jewelry is usually small, often overlooked, and only really gets noticed for the cost of the raw materials. I aim to show that [it] can act as a tool to raise awareness—especially when worn on the body and taken into society.” Opening: September 6, 2025, 12–4 p.m. Info.

GERD ROTHMANN: DON’T TOUCH, THROUGH SEPTEMBER 21, 2025
This exhibition, at Ornamentum, showcases the latest works from Rothmann’s ongoing exploration of the intimate, direct relationship between jewelry and the skin of the wearer. Silver cuffs and breastplates, cast with the impressions of skin, are beset with stones like subtle constellations of freckles on the skin. More.

JOLYNN SANTIAGO | SURROUNDINGS, AT BROOKLYN METAL WORKS
The artist’s new jewelry draws from her investigations of settling dust and the accumulations which mark the gentle passage of time. By fusing silver and gold fragments within ring-shaped molds, Santiago creates a cycle of renewal formed by debris. With these works, she asks us to become attuned to our surroundings, register the layers beneath us, and take a breath. September 13–November 9, 2025. Opening on September 13, 7–9 p.m. More.

VIDEO: PORTUGUESE CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY IN “DIALOGUE” WITH THE CALOUSTE GULBENKIAN COLLECTION
The exhibition Guest Summer: Contemporary Jewellery in Portugal, curated by Cristina Filipe at Lisbon’s Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, aimed to create a dialogue between jewelry made 1958–2018 and artwork from the museum’s modern and contemporary collections, including its Lalique works. Filipe’s talk gives a brief and straightforward 40-year overview of the subject matter and its affinities with the collection. Watch here.

EROTICISM, SLOW-GROWING WORK AND BALD PATCHES
Karin Roy Andersson exhibits new work focused on youth, middle age, and old age. It talks about eroticism, politics and power, slowness, reflection and poetry, and aging, decay, and humor. Jewelry often attracts attention. Wearing a piece can become a performance and create discussions, but those less comfortable with being the center of attention can hide behind it. (The focus is on the jewelry and conversations are about the object, not you.) Jewelry gives status, shows identity, communicates with others and, when worn, has a physical impact. You finger a small pendant while you think, or become aware of the ring you’re wearing when you shake hands with someone. Repetition and organic, nature-inspired shapes are two of the most characteristic features of Andersson’s work. At Röbäck Glas & Lera, in Umeå, Sweden, September 6–27, 2025. Opening: September 6, 1–4 p.m.  Info.

UTE DECKER AT GOLDSMITHS’ FAIR 2025
AJF member Ute Decker will exhibit at the leading annual event showcasing the work of internationally renowned and emerging UK-based studio jewelers and silversmiths, whose work represents both contemporary jewelry, classical fine jewelry, contemporary silver, and classical silversmithing. Accompanied by a series of talks and curated exhibitions. Held in the gilded Goldsmiths Hall over two weeks, each week showcases a different group of makers. Find Ute Decker during week 1—September 23–28, 2025—in stand #60. Info.

AMERICAN CRAFT INTERVIEWED KAREN DAVIDOV

The Jewelry Library, in New York City, is where jewelry people gather. It fosters scholarship and creativity while building community. “Everyone has a jewelry story,” says its founder, Karen Davidov. Read the article here.

VIDEO: NO INSTRUMENTS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS JEWELRY
Lisa and Scott Cylinder create one-of-a-kind sculptural and wearable art. Watch this video to find out about their artistic process.

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PISTACHIOS AND THE JEWELRY LIBRARY MENTIONED IN UPPERCASE
In its latest issue, the magazine published a gallery of photos of jewelry and adornments that included Rachel Butlin. The artist said she’d made the pieces for the Things Unsaid exhibition, which is currently on view at Pistachios. Also, as part of an article on nameplate jewelry, the magazine asked Karen Davidov, of TJL, to weigh in.

VERONIKA FABIAN: B O T T L E D, AT GALERIE BIRO
Fabian, who serves on AJF’s editorial committee, explores the impact of contemporary capitalism on daily life and personal identity. She investigates the role of artifacts as signifiers of identity. Using jewelry as an intermediary between the self and society, her work comments on the contradictions of contemporary life and the dilemmas of the 21st century. September 12–October 10, 2025. Opening: September 11, 6:30–8 p.m. More.

OTHER NEWS

ANVITA JAIN REPORTS ON PIN PIN AN AN
This show, at Munich 2025, explored and reinterpreted Taiwanese amulets as objects that provide an anchor, comfort, and sense of security in a fast-paced and uncertain world. Pin pin an an means “safe and sound.” The four artists—An Chi Wang, I Ting Wang, Yu Chun Chen, and Amal Yung Huei Chao—are jewelry makers as well as educators in metal and jewelry. More.

ARABIC CNN REPORTS ON LUCI JOCKEL
“I wanted to express my concern about our impact and relationship with the environment by focusing on bees,” the American artist, who works with bee wings, explains in the article. “I explored ways of expressing grief through objects and was drawn to jewelry and Victorian mourning arts.” More. Jockel’s work was also included in the newest edition of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

ICON: IDENTITY X CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY
This show, at Kunst und Handwerk, in Munich, features works by artists from Japan’s Kobe Design University. It explores jewelry as an expression of one’s own identity, with jewelry that becomes a personal icon. September 5–November 11, 2025. Info.

SIX-WEEK JEWELRY COURSE AT U. OF JOHANNESBURG
Combines practical, guided sessions in a professional jewelry studio with instructional videos to reinforce learning. Participants will create three sterling silver pieces—a ring, a pendant, and a pair of earrings—using foundational techniques: drilling, sawing, soldering, and polishing. Learn from award-winning, industry-renowned jewelers. No prior experience required; all tools and materials are provided. Starts October 11, 2025. Info.

IS DISNEY SELLING A SORT OF SHOULDER JEWELRY?!
Mouse ears. T-shirts. Backpacks. Charms. Stickers. And now: shoulder sitters. A magnet inside the toy connects to one placed under the shirt. They’re a must-have accessory for some superfans. (Ahem. No comment regarding the extremely Photoshopped model.) More.

VICKISARGE AWARDS CENTRAL SAINT MARTIN GRADS
The awards recognize three BA jewelry graduates whose work reflects originality, sustainability, and bold creativity: Saravich Sungtrakankul, Amina Badylbayeva, and Aimee Barlow. Congrats! The winning pieces will be on display in the Vickisarge store, in London, for two weeks, starting September 9, 2025.

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