Interviews

Tilling Time/Telling Time: Curated by Karen Lorene

Interviews /

Karen LoreneTilling Time/Telling Time is the latest jewelry exhibition held at the Facèré Jewelry Art Gallery. The exhibition is in conjunction with the launch of Karen Lorene’s newest novel of the same name. The show features jewelry artists Kit Carson, Jude Clarke, Kevin Crane, Marita Dingus, Robert Ebendorf, Cynthia Toops, Roberta and David Williamson, Deb Karash, and Anne Fischer. Karen loves words and jewelry separately and together, but always with a story in mind.

Susan Cummins: Karen, you have done a number of shows relating words and jewelry, such as Louder than Words, Woman Working Words, and your series of publications called Signs of Life. Now you have published your own novel called Tilling Time/Telling Time. Can you tell us what it is about?

Karen Lorene: The novel is based on a grandfather I never saw, never met. I knew only one thing about this man: he ran away with the neighbor lady. And so begins a made-up tale about a granddaughter and a grandmother, each telling her story about falling in love, marrying, and then how life, as life is wont to do, comes along and hits each upside the head and makes each a strong, independent woman.

Why did you decide to write this particular story?

Karen Lorene: Half of my life is writing. Ideas appear, and then words, and then, strangely enough, a novel. Creating a world, populating it, following where characters lead is like indulging in the finest chocolate, the finest meal.

 

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Christian Hoedl: Unconventional Armour

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Christian HoedlChristian Hoedl, who has lived in both Austria and Germany, is known for creating thought-provoking contemporary jewelry for men. In his work, Hoedl moves effortlessly between fabric and metal, constructing precise yet deeply personal pieces. Jewelers’Werk Galerie in Washington DC is presenting his latest work.

Olivia Shih: In the past, you’ve often worked with scintillating fabric chains, which shift and change with the moving wearer. What first inspired you to “fabricate” with fabric instead of with metal?

Christian Hoedl: My inspiration came from contemporary dancers, who are gorgeous and most precise in their unique techniques and are constantly developing new modes of expression. I admire their endurance and their ability to redefine postures daily.

Next is my love of fabric, which comes from early childhood experience on the north Tyrolean Alps, with high quality cotton and many different interpretations of cotton into fabric. The last generation of amazing and newly developed threads, from Europe to Japan, has given me a large number of possibilities to work with, and my eyes shine bright just thinking of this.

 

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Protective Ornament: Curated by Suzanne Ramljak

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Book cover: On Body and Soul: Contemporary Armor to AmuletsSuzanne Ramljak is the curator of Protective Ornament: Contemporary Armor to Amulets, currently on view at the Metal Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. Suzanne is a writer, art historian, and curator, and best known as the editor of Metalsmith magazine. Her interest in jewelry as a protective device led to her organize this exhibition, as well as the book called On Body and Soul: Contemporary Armor to Amulets, just published by Schiffer Publishing. The show will travel to the Tacoma Art Museum in October of this year. Suzanne has assembled a strong exhibition and has some fascinating thoughts about the role of protective jewelry. It’s powerful stuff. 

Susan Cummins: Please tell the story of how this exhibition and the related publication, On Body and Soul: Contemporary Armor to Amulets, came into being.

Suzanne Ramljak: In studying jewelry’s functions over the years, I have come to view its protective role as perhaps its most compelling. This ancient and universal dimension of jewelry addresses our essential vulnerability and attempts to overcome fear and uncertainty through wearable ornament. The ability of adornment to empower and safeguard wearers also stands in opposition to common notions of jewelry as merely decorative; jewelry in this context becomes a necessity, not an accessory. 

 

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Kadri Mälk

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Kadri Mälk, photo: Tanel Veenre Aaron Patrick Decker: How did you come to jewelry? Kadri Mälk: Initially I studied painting for four years and really enjoyed it. Before that, I worked in a publishing house. After studying painting, I suddenly felt that maybe it wasn’t for me, maybe I needed something more intimate. After that

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Julia Turner: Surfacing

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Julia TurnerJulia Turner loves surfaces and textures. Her wood jewelry is beautifully colored, sanded, scraped, and generally abused in the most aesthetic of ways. Her show at Shibumi Gallery in Berkeley is a delightful grouping of lightweight and utterly wearable jewelry featuring a mixture of one-of-a-kind and production work, with the two types seamlessly working together. I asked her to tell her story and answer a few questions.

Susan Cummins: Can you tell us the story of your education and how you came to be a jeweler?

Julia Turner: I started college studying various things relating to language, not thinking I would end up in an art field although I’d been making things since I was little. At some point I took an art class as an elective, and that led to another, and another. In my junior year I went to Italy on a study-abroad program that combined language courses with studio art courses, and I think the change really happened there.

 

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Anna Cheng: Building Jewellery

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Yung-huei ChaoAlthough Anna Cheng grew up in a family of jewelers, she spent more than 10 years working as an interior architect before founding Ame Gallery. “Working in contemporary jewelry,” Anna says, “is a bridge between my education in architecture and my family heritage.” In a recent exhibition, Building Jewellery, Ame Gallery showcased a cross-pollination of the two fields by displaying architecture-inspired contemporary jewelry and hosting a jewelry workshop for six Hong Kong architects. 

Olivia Shih: This project, Building Jewellery, intended to illustrate the relationship between architecture and contemporary jewelry. Can you discuss what that relationship is? What drew you to this particular topic?

Anna Cheng: Architecture is very close to me because of my previous profession as an interior architect. Since I started working in contemporary jewelry, I have noticed that there are many things in common between the two. To me, architecture is a way to perceive the world, and its concepts are not limited to building environments. I wanted to explore its concepts in contemporary jewelry and see how artists express elements of architecture in their work. 

 

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Todd Reed: Raw Elegance

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Todd ReedTodd Reed has been designing jewelry for over 20 years, and is today living and working out of his Boulder, Colorado studio. His early work incorporated raw diamonds, which was quite unusual at the time. His venture has grown from a one-man operation into a large team of master jewelers, and Todd spends his time creating new designs, collaborating with his team, and managing the business. He currently has a show at de novo in Palo Alto, California, and this provided an opportunity to ask him about his background and current work. 

Bonnie Levine: How did you get your start as a jeweler? When did you know you were interested?

Todd Reed: I started to get interested in jewelry when I was 10, primarily watching and being interested in the craft of putting things together. By the age of 19 I had a studio and was teaching myself jewelry making and starting to realize what it took to turn an idea into a well-constructed finished piece. At this time I was a leathersmith and making silver adornments for handbags and leather jackets, etc. I would simply adapt the ornaments to jewelry items by adding an ear wire or ring shank.

 

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Matthieu Cheminée: Stampclastic

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Matthieu CheminéeMatthieu Cheminée, a Canadian jeweler, focuses on the fundamental metalsmithing techniques that are practiced across the world today, with a focus on stamping and casting. From his early start learning from Native American silversmiths to studying with jewelers in West Africa to learning traditional jewelry-making techniques in Montreal, Matthieu is passionate about facilitating a collaboration of learning and teaching between jewelers. His recent show at L. A. Pai Gallery in Ottawa, Canada, called Stampclastic, coincides with the launch of his new book, Legacy: Jewelry Techniques of West Africa. Here Matthieu shares more about his background, career, and work in Africa.

Bonnie Levine: How did you get started as a jewelry designer? Was there someone or an experience that inspired you?

Matthieu Cheminée: My mother had a beautiful jewelry collection from all around the world, pieces that my dad would bring back from trips. She had bracelets from Afghanistan, crosses from Ethiopia, pendants from Peru, and more. I had always been attracted to them but my passion for the trade really started when I went to Taos, New Mexico, to visit an aunt when I was 17. I fell in love with all the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni jewelry. Just before I turned 19, I moved to Taos from Paris to learn English and ended up learning jewelry making with great artisans. For almost seven years I made stamped bracelets and concho belts and I learned inlay and overlay.

 

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Amber in Contemporary Jewelry

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Sara GackowskaAmber has a long and storied past as a material used in jewelry. From being called “the Baltic gold” to rarely being used in contemporary jewelry, today amber is experiencing a renaissance. This renewed interest in the material is the subject of an important exhibition at Gallery Putti in Riga, Latvia. Called Amber in Contemporary Jewelry and running from May 22–August 2, 2014, this exhibit demonstrates the possible range of application of amber in contemporary art jewelry as created by 20 artists from Latvia and Italy, as well as from countries along the ancient Amber Road (Russia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Austria, Slovenia, and Hungary). It not only links the Amber Road geographically but also historically by connecting ancient times with the present, and by demonstrating the richness of amber jewelry creation today. Here Bonnie Levine speaks with Gallery Putti’s Eva Melnika, who is interning with the gallery this year.

Bonnie Levine: Amber has been around for 40 to 60 million years and there’s a real mystique to it—it’s been traded, worshipped, and used for healing and protective purposes going back in time. Can you elaborate on the history of amber and why it’s important today?

Eva Melnika: Amber has always been known as the Baltic Gold—it can feel warm and fragrant, and the Etruscans valued amber even more than gold for its beauty and the healing properties they believed it held.

 

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Eunmi Chun: Precious Beasts—Blooming

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Eunmi ChunEunmi Chun is a contemporary jewelry artist who began her jewelry and metal studies in South Korea and eventually traveled to Germany to study under Otto Künzli at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. Her current show, Precious Beasts—Blooming, at Rob Koudijs Gallery combines her meticulously crafted and organic work with her insights into human psychology. Known for working with repelling, unusual materials such as cow intestine and pigskin, Chun talks about her deviation from traditional metalsmithing materials in this interview.

Find out more about Chun’s work from Pravu Mazumdar’s One on One article about Eunmi Chun. 

Olivia Shih: You started your education with a BFA in mathematics and craft, then a MFA in jewelry and metal in Korea. Afterward, you traveled to Munich and studied under Professor Otto Künzli. Could you talk about the transition from one environment to the other and your learning process?

Eunmi Chun: I first started my college education in mathematics, so when I joined the metal department, I had to start with senior (third year in Korea) students. As a result, I learned demanding skills in quite a short time, during which my work was inferior to that of fellow students. But due to that situation, I started to develop my own methods.

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