Ornament Back Issues
Create or Complete Your Collection
Cover Feature: Yazzie Johnson and Gail Bird Aesthetic Companions.
2007 Smithsonian
Craft Show. Candiss Cole Reaching for the
Exceptional. Biba Schutz Haunting Beauties. Mariska
Karasz Modern Threads. Tutankhamun’s Beadwork.
Carol Sauvion’s Craft in America. Kristina
Logan Master Class in Glass Beadmaking. Exhibition
Skin + Bones. Exhibition Carter Smith. Artist
Statement Jonathan Lee Rutledge. Fiber Arts Silvia
Fedorova. Museum News Art of Being Taureg. Design
Experiment Blown Glass Wire Armature Ornaments. Marketplace
Scottsdale Bead Supply.
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Cover
Feature: Yazzie Johnson and Gail Bird |
by
Diana Pardue |
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Aesthetic
Companions That history and iconography were reflected in Johnson and Bird’s jewelry when they developed their first thematic belt in 1979. Made for the inaugural exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico, One Space, Three Visions was an extension of the buckles Johnson and Bird had been making with pictographic stones. Johnson and Bird placed jaspers and agates with inclusions and markings on one side of a belt buckle and designs of Southwest animals, birds, petroglyphs, pottery, and other inspirations on the reverse in silver overlay. Photographs by Craig Smith. Courtesy of the Heard Museum and the Museum of the New Mexico Press.
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2007 Smithsonian Craft Show | by
Carl Little |
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The jurying process has been streamlined in the past several years,
with an electronic system in place that makes the gargantuan task a
good deal easier. That said, the competition is stiff. This year’s
judges—contemporary craft dealer Helen Drutt English, from Philadelphia;
Gerhardt Knodel, vice president and director of the Cranbrook Academy
of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; and Michael Monroe, executive
director and chief curator of the Bellevue Arts Museum near Seattle,
Washington—had to make difficult choices.
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Candiss
Cole |
by
Leslie Clark |
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Reaching
for the Exceptional
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Biba
Schutz |
by
Robin Updike |
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Haunting
Beauties
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Mariska Karasz | by
Ashley Callahan |
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Modern
Threads
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Tutankhamun’s Beadwork | by
Jolanda Bos-Seldenthuis |
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Maybe Tutankhamun is better known for the so-called curse that befell the archaeologists who discovered his tomb and the speculations around the cause of his premature death. He is famous for the religious convictions of his father Akhenaten as well as for the turbulent times in which he lived. And he is certainly remembered for the fact that his tomb was found nearly intact. His gold is truly legendary, hundreds of precious and semiprecious stones, rings, bracelets, and a series of golden coffins were discovered behind the thick wall that sealed his tomb. Even now, almost a century after the discovery, Tutankhamun’s tomb is still written about in newspapers and magazines. However, nobody ever talked about the objects that were encountered most frequently among his tomb’s treasure: beads. And this category definitely deserves as much admiration as the more renowned objects. Thousands of beads, threaded together into a series of objects of remarkable originality, were encountered inside the tomb that made this pharaoh famous. The Eighteenth Dynasty in which Tutankhamun lived is incomparable in that aspect—beaded objects from this period show a unique creativity when compared to beadwork from other periods in Egyptian history. Photographs by Jolanda Bos-Seldenthuis and Bastiaan Seldenthuis.
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Carol
Sauvion’s Craft in America |
by
Carolyn L. E. Benesh |
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Almost
eleven years ago Carol Sauvion first raised the possibility of producing
what is now the reality of Craft in America. She says it was in the garden
of her atrium that she first told me about the project. That particular
night I no longer have in my mind, but I do remember thinking, if anyone
could achieve such a monumental venture, it would be Carol Sauvion; and
this appeared to be among the most reasonable visions in the world. It
seemed so right.
I have kept that memory in my heart as I have watched her build Craft in America from nothing to the achievement it is about to become as it soon launches to inform the American public. To understand why anyone would voluntarily go through unremittingly difficult years, and also such exhilarating ones, as Sauvion did with what has finally resulted in the successful completion of the Craft in America project, is simply stated—it was her labor of love, her passion, her desire to give a beautiful and healthy gift to America itself and American craft in particular. I say to myself, and to others that will hear this message, that such creations can still exist in the United States of today. Photographs by Lloyd Solly, Robert K. Liu, Doug Hill.
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Kristina
Logan |
by
Jill DeDominicis |
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Master
Class in Glass Beadmaking As students gather in the Blue Dolphin Stained Glass Studio in San Diego, California, renowned glass artist Kristina Logan (Ornament Volume 21, No.4, 1998) gets right to business. It is the second day of her two-part glass beadmaking workshop and students are anxious to experience another day at the torch under Logan’s careful, encouraging guidance. The workshop, organized with Heather Trimlett (Ornament Volume 26, No.3, 2003), another nationally-recognized glass bead artist, is a separate and special addition to the regular eight-week lampworking courses Trimlett offers at the Blue Dolphin. The students’ experiences and strengths may vary, but all are present for a similar purpose: to hone their glass beadmaking skills and gain control and precision in their movements. It is safe to say they could not have chosen a better teacher to demonstrate the ways of precision lampworking than Logan, an artist celebrated for her geometric and exacting dotted glass beads and one whose history in the redevelopment of glass beadmaking as an artform runs deep. Photographs by Robert K. Liu/Ornament. |
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Our upcoming issue 37.4 contains
Nubian Jewelry
Kate Mensah
Philadelphia Craft Show
Some of Our Popular Articles