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Cover
Feature: Cartier King of Jewelers
Cartier King of Jewelers. Felting a Life
One Artist's Journey. Elegantly Attired Victorian Fashion
in Coastal Maine. The Ghysels Treasures A World-Class
Ethnographic Jewelry Collection. Smithsonian Craft Show
2010. Trudee Hill Unambiguously Communicative. Valerie
Mitchell A Natural Order. Shoe Arts Beth Levine
First Lady of Shoes. Jewelry Arts New Jewelry Georg
Dobler and Margit Jäschke. Costume Arts Art of Motion
Picture Costume Design. Fiber Arts Nick Cave Meet Me
at the Center of the Earth. Bead Arts Teresa Sullivan.
Design Study Bamboo Torque. Antique Arts
Patterns of Long Ago Reflections of China in Japanese Noh Costume.
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Cartier |
by
Nancy Ukai Russell |
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King
of Jewelers
If anyone doubts the power of diamonds to draw crowds, just visit the
spectacular Cartier and America exhibition at the Legion of Honor in
San Francisco to bear witness. Audible gasps and appreciative murmurs
greet the diamond-studded tiaras, Elizabeth Taylor's ruby and diamond
necklace, and a long diamond sautoir from the 1920s that cleverly can
be converted into two bracelets and a short necklace.
The exhibition (December
19, 2009-May 9, 2010), which will not travel, marks the one-hundred-year
anniversary of Cartier in America, an era that began in 1909 when the
venerable French firm opened an outpost in New York City to better serve
the Astors, Morgans, Vanderbilts, and other Gilded Age clients. Until
then, Cartier's American clientele had traveled to Paris, sometimes
twice a year via ocean liner, to order their suites of must-have jewelry.
Images © Cartier.
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Felting
a Life
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by
Ruth E. Wiedenhoeft Walker |
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One
Artist's Journey
In 1982 I was barreling along in graduate school when I was distracted
by a blanket. I had been studying clathrin-coated vesicles of plant
cells. The coat subunit, named after a game floor seen in the original
Star Trek series, readily self-assembles to form an attractive spherical
basket of hexagons and pentagons. But here I was, transfixed by softly
gleaming parallel strands of fibers in the yarns of early Navajo textiles
at the Heard Museum, in Phoenix, Arizona. From before the Bosque Redondo,
they were woven of lustrous handspun Churro wool. I experienced a tremendous
compulsion to do “that.”
Later, in Canberra,
Australia, I learned to spin (not that gym-bicycling, please, but real
spinning, on a wheel), with wool fleece—and not recycled pop bottles,
but a real fleece shorn from an animal, long in staple, shiny and full
of fragrant lanolin. They say Australia was built on the back of Merino
sheep; certainly its wool smelled truly wonderful and glistened in the
light. Photograph by Paul Jeremias. Model: Genevieve Yang. Photograph
by Helios Studio, Columbia, Missouri.
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Elegantly
Attired |
by
Carl Little |
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Victorian
Fashion in Coastal Maine
Drawing for the most part from its permanent collection, the Farnsworth
Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, has organized a gem of a show devoted
to an endlessly fascinating subject: the fashion ways of the age of
Queen Victoria. Elegantly Attired: Victorian Apparel and Accessories
in Coastal Maine (November 7, 2009 – April 25, 2010) offers an
array of dresses, fans, hats, and jewelry, as well as paintings, photographs
and vintage advertisements, all dating from the second half of the nineteenth
century.
From 1850 to 1900
the coastal towns of Maine reached new levels of prosperity, a result
of a boom in ship building, lime production in Rockport and Rockland,
and a flourishing lumber industry centered in Bangor. At the same time,
ship captains, often accompanied by their wives, were traveling the
world and bringing back the latest in couture from foreign and domestic
ports of call. The well-to-do citizens of Rockland, Camden and Thomaston
eagerly embraced the latest styles and accoutrements of the Gilded Age. Photographs by Lorraine DeLaney.
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The
Ghysels Treasures |
by
Robert K. Liu |
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A
World-Class Ethnographic Jewelry Collection
How does an assemblage of objects, like those obtained by Colette and
Jean-Pierre Ghysels, become a world-class collection? The simple answer
is dedication, a large investment in time, effort and passion, but many
other factors are at play, some intergenerational. If one of the principals
in initiating this collection of ethnographic ornaments had not been
influenced early in life to love ethnic art, textiles and ornaments
by her parents (for example, Colette was given an Algerian fibula as
a fourteenth birthday present), or Jean-Pierre had not studied goldsmithing
while young and had a very successful career as a sculptor in metal,
nor had children who were not only both interested and involved in their
parental passions, the Ghysels Collection might not have attained this
superlative level, nor probably contribute even more in the future.
Photograph by Dr. Marc Ghysels. Photographs by Mauro Magliani.
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Smithsonian
Craft Show 2010 |
by
Patrick R. Benesh-Liu |
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Smithsonian
Craft Show 2010
Ambience is an essential
component to a craft show. As much as the quality of the work presented,
the atmosphere engendered by the show’s physical environment is
of tangible importance. When both of these elements are successfully
achieved, the harmonious result can be labeled “great.”
The Smithsonian Craft Show, situated as it is in the historic National
Building Museum, succeeds on both levels. Although populated by the
distinct smell of age, the Smithsonian’s venue is a distinguished
setting. Primarily influenced by classical architecture but with an
eye towards economy and functionality, the result is a structure both
venerable and inviting. Terra cotta, brick and plaster, used as imitations
for marble and granite, and wooden accents create contrasting sensations
of warmth and cold. The central grounds are spacious, giving one a leisurely
experience walking the floor. Finally, the catering service on the opening
night is regularly excellent—an additional good reason to attend
this year’s benefit on April 21.
Shown is Alison Sigethy, Joe Graham, and Jane Herzenberg
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Trudee
Hill |
by
Robin Updike |
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Unambiguously
Communicative
In 2005 Trudee Hill was finishing her degree in jewelry and metals at
The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, when a professor encouraged
her to apply for a Fulbright Fellowship. Hill, a native of Washington
state with a taste for adventure, had already traveled in Spain and
backpacked through Central America, where she had collected the jewelry
and textiles she could afford on her student budget. But as she worked
her way through the Fulbright application, she decided to go for broke.
“I thought, what place in the world is so beyond my comfort zone,
so unusual, that if I was going to take a big leap funded by the U.S.
government, where would that place be?”
Having just learned
about the Seto, an indigenous people living in what is now Estonia,
and the highly-decorated, large silver breast plates traditionally worn
by Seto women, Hill set her sights on research and study in Estonia.
“The breast plates originally were smaller and were meant to hold
women’s blouses together,” says Hill. “But over the
centuries they’d evolved into silver domes about a foot across
and decorated with long chains of coins and symbols describing who the
women were, where they lived, all kinds of information.
I was fascinated.” Photographs by Doug Yaple.
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Valerie
Mitchell |
by
Jill A. DeDominicis |
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A
Natural Order
In one of her first exhibitions, City Limits, artist Valerie Mitchell
presented thirteen pieces of jewelry, each one representing an image
of the city of Hartford, Connecticut. A pin of silver and ebony interpreted
the steps at the city’s Civic Center. A neckpiece in silver, bronze,
copper, and ebony mimicked a topographical map of Bushnell Park. Mitchell’s
site-specific works were crafted in response and appreciation for her
urban environment, and were an attempt to translate these recognizable
architectural forms into a wearable scale.
The City Limits
show was over twenty years ago, but Mitchell continues to create jewelry
inspired by her environment. Working in various arts positions at the
time of her first exhibitions, and with an undergraduate arts education
degree under her belt, Mitchell decided to invest the energy spent supporting
the arts and “working for other people’s dreams” in
favor of her own. She enrolled at Rhode Island School of Design, with
an emphasis on light metals and jewelry, and honed her skills in metalsmithing.
Photograph by Mark Johann. Photograph by Ralph Gabriner. |
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