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Early
Navajo Textles and Silver The First Phase. Todd Reed
A Rare Accomplishment. Doshi Mindful Creativity. Ellen
Wieske A Cross-Disciplinary Universe. Tobias
Hoheisel
Making Magic in The Magic Flute. Lightweight Gold
Jewelry From Kerala. Mauritanian Powder-Glass Kiffa
Beads Decline. Revival. Imitations. Gallery Showcase
Jett Gallery. Artist Statement Lauren Van Hemert. Marketplace
Jacques Carcanagues. Exhibition Hatshepsut from Queen
to Pharaoh.
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Early
Navajo
Textiles and
Silver |
by
Cheri Falkenstien-Doyle |
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THE FIRST
PHASE
During the first half of the nineteenth century, Navajo weavers
created textiles that today are among the most powerful examples of
Native American artistic expression. With wool from their own flocks,
Navajo women produced blankets and other garments to clothe their
families, and engaged in a thriving trade that carried their products
to indigenous and European peoples throughout North America. After
1849 when clashes with American occupying forces brought drastic changes
to the Navajo, they responded in part by developing a new craft—silversmithing—that
not only provided an aesthetic outlet but brought economic opportunity
as well. Photographs by Michelle McGough and W. J. Andrus.
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Todd
Reed |
by
Glen Brown
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A
RARE ACCOMPLISHMENT
Sparkling—not with crystalline brilliance but with the hard, opaque
glitter of pavement after a rain—the majority of gems in Colorado
artist Todd Reed’s unique jewelry are as subtle in their attraction
as the lustrous gray oxidized silver and coarsely brushed, or even scraped,
gold surfaces that surround them. When one notices these stones, each
distinct in color, surface and refractive capacity, perfection is not
a word that comes immediately to mind. This is, however, precisely Reed’s
point. No superficial conformity characterizes his jewelry, the beauty
of which seems to derive rather from the dignity of things that with
quiet inner strength persist in their individuality despite conventions
that cast them as oddities. One might even speculate that the capacity
to appreciate a kind of beauty where it is not immediately evident—
in the way that Van Gogh discovered beauty in the pockmarked features
of Sien, his model and mistress—accounts for much of the curious
appeal of Reed’s work. Photographs by Azad.
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by
Carolyn L. E. Benesh |
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MINDFUL
CREATIVITY
As much as is possible in a post-twentieth-century world, Doshi balances
a spontaneous, yet conscious, state of mindful creativity to affirm
and inspire her artistic desires. For this, one needs to practice one’s
work with a clear heart and mind, united as it were, uncluttered by
the impediments we so often bring to our lives. Her spiritual advisor
Gregory Penn named her nirdosh (without guilt or shame) sadau (a wandering
monk in whose wake beneficial and good things happen without his knowledge
or awareness). Choosing innocence and simplicity to illuminate what
he saw innately within her, Penn helped inspire her personal rebirth.
So Doshi is now a name more natively, inherently hers, a delightful
lesson in living more purely and honestly, without premeditation. This
is a very good place to occupy while living the artist’s life.
Photographs by Jack Yonn.
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Ellen
Wieske |
by
Carl Little |
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A
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY UNIVERSE
When she sets out to make jewelry, Wieske likes to give herself a simple
assignment open to invention and exploration. For her exhibition at
the Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this past spring, for
example, she knew she wanted to use non-precious materials—Popsicle
sticks, felt and tin—some of them purchased at a craft shop. She
covered her bench with samples and started to play with them, arranging
them in different configurations. Scissors and hot glue were among her
tools. Wieske looked upon the felt as a means for getting color into
her work. “A lot of metalsmiths reach a point where they think,
‘What are the colors I have available other than the colors of
metals?’ ” She shows off light-as-a-feather earrings made
of bright layers of felt held in place by a piece of tin made into a
button. Preparing for the Mobilia exhibition was a means to return to
the past and she revisited some of her earliest work as a source of
inspiration. Her goal was simple: “I wanted to take the pieces
I had done in the past and make them oversized to see how they would
translate.” Producing this work provided an occasion to consider
where she came from and what had changed along the way. Photographs
by Robert Diamante.
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Tobias Hoheisel
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by
Leslie Clark
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MAKING
MAGIC IN THE MAGIC FLUTE
She
glides onto the stage, a vision of regal hauteur. Even without the Three
Ladies heralding her approach, you know instantly that this is the Queen
of the Night. She also happens to be wearing Elizabethan court dress,
with swags of pearls around her neck and her hair towering above her
head. The silvery brocade gown radiates an icy white brilliance as she
moves, accentuated by the ombré effect of rhinestones flashing
and glittering around the lower skirt hem. Though playing on an allusion
to the historic English ruler, this is a heightened, luminescent incarnation
of a queen. The reminder that behind even our most extravagant dreams
and fables lie real human passions illuminates the Santa Fe Opera’s
new 2006 production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic
Flute, thanks in part to the artistry of veteran scenic and costume
designer Tobias Hoheisel.
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Lightweight
Gold Jewelry
From Kerala |
by
Chitra Balasubramaniam |
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India is a dream market for gold jewelry. It is remarkable
how a country which produces virtually no gold of its own has such a
voracious appetite for it. The phenomenon is not recent and has its
antecedents in hundreds of years of history when Indian spices and silks
were traded for gold, silver and semiprecious stones. So large was the
appetite that all forms of this precious metal were devoured from a
seemingly bottomless golden bowl. India’s obsession still persists:
In 2005/2006, Indians bought more than eight hundred tons of gold (source:
Reserve Bank of India), and most of this gold was primarily for jewelry.
Gold in India has been historically considered an investment, an asset
which comes in handy in times of calamity. It is extremely liquid, can
be pledged and is as good as cash. Buying jewelry invariably favors
resale value more than the design. Its weight was and is usually paramount;
so intricate designs, resulting in waste, are usually frowned upon by
traditionalists. However, today there is a change in this perception.
Gold jewelry is still considered an investment, but there is an increasing
trend for acquiring it more for its design sensibility, wearability
and fashionable qualities. All jewelry courtesy of Malabar Fashion
Jewellery, New Delhi, India.
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Mauritanian
Powder-Glass Kiffa Beads |
by
Evelyn Simak |
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DECLINE,
REVIVAL, IMITATIONS.
It is believed that the manufacture of Kiffa beads commenced
during the nineteenth century due to a revival of centuries-old Mauritanian
traditions. Although no ancient beads resembling Kiffas have been found
at archaeological sites or excavations, the process is said to originate
from Tichitt (a village which existed in the eighth to fifteenth centuries
in the vicinity of Tegadoust), and from there spread throughout southern
Mauritania. During the second half of the twentieth century, droughts
and famine, combined with an influx of modernity and progress, forced
many nomadic families to change their way of life. While Kiffa beads had
become highly desirable objects for western and Asian collectors, the
craft was swiftly becoming extinct. Only a handful of master beadmakers,
all of well-advanced age, could be located during the 1970s. Photographs
by Robert K. Liu/Ornament.
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