How does a piece of jewelry graduate from your personal wardrobe to an institutional collection? I have embarked on this journey several times in the past, but the rules have changed and the museum acquisition process is more formal now. Recently, I began the process again with three pieces of art jewelry, each acquired in…
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I have a habit of making calendars, almost obsessively – in my sketchbook, by the computer and pinned up in my studio. So I know that it’s only been a month since I returned from Seattle and the SNAG conference, but it feels like a full season has passed. Somehow I’m still scrambling to avoid…
Namita Gupta Wiggers is curator at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in partnership with Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, where she leads the exhibition, collection and public programs. Wiggers combines a background in art history, museum education, anthropology, design research, teaching and writing into a program that explores craft, design and curating…
Opening night at SOFA NY The Park Avenue Armory is much as the name suggests: a building completed in 1881 for the Seventh Regiment of the National Guard. SOFA NY (April 14-17, 2011) is held in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, a huge space of about 200 by 300 feet with a barrel-vaulted roof spanned…
Since its inception in the mid-twentieth century, art jewelry has been defined by limited hand production in an artistic studio-practice paradigm. However, in the 1980s, advances in computer-aided design and manufacturing technologies led to the expansion of this definition, rendering the studio and hand manufacturing useful characterizations rather than steadfast criteria for defining art jewelry….
This essay was first delivered as a talk at SOFA Chicago in November 2010. Watching, Looking, Learning ‘And viewers like you.’ The title of this talk was stolen from the PBS sign-off to most of their programs. They thank various corporations, foundations and individuals and then they thank ‘viewers like you.’ They are expressing gratitude…
This essay was first delivered on a panel ‘Touch in Contemporary Art’ at the College Art Association, Los Angeles, in 2009, through travel funds provided by the Society of North American Goldsmiths. The paper was further developed into a lecture and presented at SOFA Chicago in November 2009 and subsequently presented at University of El…
This essay was developed from the lecture ‘Holding Objects: What It Means to Wear Jewelry: The Psychoanalytic Mechanisms,’ presented at the Facets of Meaning symposium at Tacoma Art Museum, June 28, 2009. A version of the talk was also presented at SOFA NY in June 2010. Marcia Macdonald, If You Sit Still … You Can…
