Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
Issue link: http://ornamentmagazine.epubxp.com/i/104373
DANIEL ICAZA, Arizona State University. KATHLEEN JANVIER, University of Georgia. Aaron Decker is immersing himself in the contemporary jewelry scene in Portugal, reveling in the passion, drive and skill of the jewelers he is encountering. He enthusiastically explains: "For me it is an honor and privilege to soak in this kind of atmosphere and really explore myself through other scopes and lenses." Rachel Columb is traveling to London where she will attend the London Design Festival, and will visit "various museums to see objects from old wunderkammern and natural history collections as part of a visual research project to influence a new body of work." Craig Kelly (2008), who combines contemporary imagery and materials with traditional Navajo materials and techniques, beautifully illustrated by his Traditional Circuitry necklace that pairs an Ethernet cable with beadwork, visited museums in San Francisco and New York for inspiration and study. Kelly's thoughtful incorporation of modern elements combined with his skillful and reverent use of traditional Native American beadwork techniques results in an intriguing hybrid of tradition and modernity. For JooHyun Lee (2009), her initial fellowship activity led to a series of educational opportunities and connections culminating in a graduate degree. She participated in the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts workshop in 2009 with Manuel 47 ORNAMENT 36.2.2012 Many Windgate Fellows spend their grant periods on personal development—from straightforward technical training, to cultivating an informed eye by visiting museums and craft shows, or investigating their cultural heritage—all in order to have the skills and inspiration to be better artists and stronger contributors to the field of craft. Amy Hamai (2010) learned new skills through courses at Penland School of Crafts and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. Wes Valdez (2011), who considers himself "a glass artist that occasionally makes jewelry," is using his fellowship to work with professional glass artists. Inspired by stories shared with him as a child by his mother, a registered nurse working in a cardiovascular intensive care unit, much of Valdez's work plays on human anatomy and personal memories; his recent torque necklace Precious, made of cast glass fingers and copper, was inspired by seeing people scavenge copper from buildings in order to sell it for scrap to have money for food. Rachael Nyhus, as part of a "three-month art history immersion in Europe" spent a week studying chasing and repoussé with Valentin Yotkov in Tuscany and a month as a resident artist at a coal forge and sculpture park in Méjannesle-Clap in France, an experience that "deepened [her] knowledge of and ability to work with the plasticity and malleability of steel." She adds, "But maybe more importantly, in the coal forge, I felt a connection to the past, practicing skills that have been employed by human hands for centuries." Through much of her recent work, Nyhus seeks to recapture the texture and beauty of the metal she observed in a scrap yard near the forge by using reclaimed steel that she enamels, folds and forms, and allows to rust.