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On approach to its thirtieth anniversary in 2006, the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show’s enduring standard in more palpable this year, as it continues to honor the artistry of the handmade. The traditional categories of media encompass basketry, ceramics, furniture, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, mixed media, paper, wood, and decorative and wearable fiber. Craft Show Manager Nancy O’Meara says that Show Management “is concerned that we are not reaching all of the talent out there in our art world.” In 2001, the Craft Show added an additional component to the show designated as the Guest Artist Program. This year’s Guest Artists are from Germany and are given the opportunity to dazzle the Show’s spectators. The Craft Show’s esteemed jurors include Mira Nakashima, Katya Heller, Kathleen Foster, Kenneth Trapp and Bruce Hoffman.

THE ART OF SILVER AND STONE
In the small, turn-of-the-century town of Richmond, Indiana, Terri Logan creates some of contemporary art’s most soulful modern jewelry, embodying a pitch-perfect, abstract elegance. Fabricated by hand in slim, sculptural yet sinuous forms of sterling and fine silver, her brooches, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and rings frame river rocks, virtually the only stone she uses. “I really think I’m a frustrated cubist,” Logan observes ruefully, “because I get the cleanest, strongest lines I can in my work. But I like a little ornamentation; I can’t go completely stark or Spartan because a piece has to have something engaging. That’s usually the rock, which has character and natural embellishment within it. Clearly I love the organic, and I live the industrial and the architectural, and those are reflected in what I do.” Photographs by Jerry Anthony.

THE COSTUMES OF STAR WARS
Costumer designer Trisha Biggar went all over the world to collect the raw ingredients for her magical combinations, with visible results in the finished garments. Preparing for each episode, Biggar spent time every three months at Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch in hear of Northern California’s Marin County, planning the design concepts and then hopping on a plane to scout fairs and markets around the world for exotic materials. When she discovers the perfect fabric, she traces its source and works directly with the manufacturer. “It is one thing to be able to draw something on a sheet of paper and another thing to make it three-dimensional and work,” says George Lucas. In Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, Biggar had twelve planets, each with twelve different species, environments and characters. The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum (FIDM) provides a wonderful venue for viewing the fruition of these labors. Photographs courtesy of © 2005 Lucafilm Ltd. & TM.

A GLORIOUS OBSESSION
He has been hailed as Britain’s leading artist-goldsmith, a true master who, for over thirty years, has created not only jewelry, but also tablepieces, trophies, medals, and sculptures, all of which are well represented in numerous prestigious public and private collections. Understanding this passion, this glorious obsession with music, particularly Mozart, is the key to truly appreciating the inspiration for, and poetry of, Coates’ work. Coates’ work has always been intimately linked to his musical sensibility, and the Alphabet collection makes the connection blissfully obvious. Some of his pieces are more directly inspired by music than others, but Coates says, music and art have always been so intertwined in his life that one automatically influences the other. Photographs by Clarissa Bruce. Courtesy of Mobilia Gallery.

UNUSUAL AND OTHERWISE
Over one hundred fifty items alone were buried with the mummy or within the wrappings (James 2005: 72); these and the other extant jewelry and artifacts recovered in his multi-chambered burial site makes Tutankhamun the richest and consequently the best studied of the dynastic rulers. Each of Tutankhamun’s coffins and the gold mask on his mummy bore representations of Broadcollars, with that on his mask virtually identical to the Horus of falcon broadcollar, all utilizing imitation bead plaques. Of seventeen actual collars found in his mummy wrappings, either four or six were falcon collars, depending on the author’s interpretations (Hawass 2005: 277; James 2005; 205). Even the four miniature canopic coffins holding Tutankhamun’s organs wore identical Broadcollars, although no falcon terminals were visible (Benesh-Liu 2005: 26). It is puzzling why this falcon broadcollar is so different. A comparison of the contemporary broadcollar being worn would differ little from what one sees in dynastic portrayals of such personal adornment. Photographs by Robert K. Liu and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.