Articles

Rita and Don Newman <–break–> As a collector, Rita had a well-developed eye. She responded strongly to works and never shied away from ‘tough’ pieces. She committed to acquiring pieces by senior jewelry artists such as Kiff Slemmons but remained on the lookout for new talent such as Jennifer Trask. In doing so she built […]

Susan Cummins But before I dive into my next post, I would like to thank Mike Holmes and Damian Skinner for keeping the AJF blog a dynamic and engaging place for the past year and a half. Without their vision, this new website and blog would not exist. Thanks so much, you two.

The redesigned website is envisioned as an online magazine full of original content relating to contemporary jewelry.  This redesign centers on AJF’s desire to be a major resource about the international art jewelry scene. How did that vision come about? AJF editor Damian Skinner and board member Mike Holmes, who were originally working on the

Lisa Walker Lisa Walker, Galerie Ra Lisa Walker, Cobra Museum of Modern Art Lisa Walker, Galerie Ra Lisa Walker,Galerie Ra It seems that anything can become art jewelry, you just have to figure out how to get it onto or relate it with the body. And make no mistake, 85 of the 86 works are

Klaus Bürgel, LOOP XIV, brooch, sterling silver It is another frequently unacknowledged fact that during the late Medieval and early Renaissance periods tapestries were valued as much as paintings—and in certain parts of Europe, even more so. Outside of Italy, tapestries solidified dynasties in a way that paintings could not. The nobility throughout Europe and

Alexander Blank Where did the night go? encompasses three bodies of work all which exhibit a stunning level of craft and are related to fantastic realities. The work began as a conscious departure from Blank’s conceptual methodology. As a student at the Munich academy Blank reached a moment in his artistic practice where he needed

Triennale Européenne Du Bijou Contemporain 2011, Photo: Cristina Filipe In her essay In search of “Jewellery”, Dempf states, “contemporary jewellery in Germany is, above all, international”.  I don’t dispute this for one second and would expand the statement to say that contemporary jewellery in Europe is international. Therefore I was curious to see if and

Marta Mattsson: Brown Beetle, brooch Masumi Kataoka: Clouded 2 brooch Marta Mattsson, Brown Beetle, brooch Satomi Kawai, Biorhythm, brooch I was nervous as a first time curator about the way everything would come together.  Not just if everyone would agree to participate or if we would be able to meet all the deadlines.  I was

Another element of the California Design photos has to do with people. In the 1960s and 1970s artists such as Arline Fisch were working with large scale jewelry objects made to be worn on the body. Although conventionally-scaled jewelry—rings, bracelets and necklaces—were often photographed as isolated objects or in groups for the California Design catalogues, larger

B-SIDE FESTIVAL This year the organizers produced a map available at participating venues with event locations, opening times and short statements submitted by each participants. To start, we downloaded a stripped-down printable version of the map from the B-side blog, which, if you were lucky, functioned as a way to find a venue with a