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Some 20 years ago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London sponsored "Towards a New Iron Age, "aninternational exhibition of contemporary wrought ironwork. The thesis of the exhibit was that while ornamental ironwork "had remained in the grip of the historical pastiche" for much of the twentieth century, it nonetheless was a discipline that offered enormous potential for modern design. The pieces shown - lighting, tools, and both interior and exterior architectural ornamentation - illustrated how this antique discipline could offer forms "appropriate to the tastes and attitudes of our own time." (2004) Complete Story
For nearly 30 years, Ambery-Smith has been using architecture as an inspiration for her work. Her name has become synonymous with finely wrought precious metal jewelry, boxes, and condiment sets whose inspiration lies in Renaissance, Palladian, and classical architectural precedents: a pendant based on the fifteenth-century Florentine architect Brunelleschis lantern, for example, or the Temple of Jupiter brooch, an exercise in pure classicism. Her work is represented in galleries, museums, and private collections in Europe, the United States, and around the world.... (2005) Complete Story
'The Art of Gold,' curated by Michael Monroe, is the first major survey of contemporary American goldsmithing. The traveling exhibition was organized by the Society of North American Goldsmiths and toured by Exhibits USA. Comprising 79 works from 76 artists, the exhibition bas a preponderance of jewelry over objects and hollowware. Bruce Metcalf's excellent essay in the exhibition catalogue locates the studio jewelry in the major design movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most notably the Arts and Craft. Movement, as well as assessing the current state of American goldsmithing.... (2003) Complete Story
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray occupies a well-recognized position in the field of metalwork. She produces both jewelry and holloware, the latter being the subject of this essay. As an artist she brings to the workbench a keen sense of history and the social contexts of metalwork, particularly such precious metals as silver and gold. Mimlitsch-Gray belongs to the breed of contemporary artist that revels in the blur zone existing between craft, art, and design.... (2005) Complete Story
Once upon a time, all art was about nature, the simplification or elaboration of natural forms. Egyptians assembled leaves of the thinnest gold and molded fruit in vividly colored glass into necklaces and diadems. Ancient Greeks fashioned ears of wheat from beaten and chased gold. Islamic prohibitions against showing the human face have led to highly developed and abstracted plant imagery, and in Japan Nature herself is sanctified.... (2001) Complete Story
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