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Twenty first-century artists consider how best to relate to our changing world in a meaningful way. Pittsburgh artist ROY has chosen just two formats to present her worldviews: the bracelet, an object of adornment that she has always explored, and the candlesnuffer, a domestic object little considered today. Recently her bracelets display a creative leap in response to 9/11, with such works as.... (2003) Complete Story
The work of Sofia Calderwood seems to be asking, Why do we wear jewelry? Is it to gain the attention of others? And if so, why not point directly to parts of the body widely thought of as physical hot spots of excitement? Certainly, many other artists have expressed sexuality in an overt way. What is interesting about Calderwoods work is that it requires a conscious commitment on the part of the wearer to "deal with the attention that wearing the pieces excites.".... (2001) Complete Story
Chang's work is intentionally anthropomorphic, disturbingly so. She likens her technique to that of a plastic surgeon, shaping and sculpting on and beneath the surface, using traditional fabrication methods like dieforming, chasing, and repousse.... (2003) Complete Story
Not so many years ago Thomas Mann figured that 2002 would be his year to retire. But the projected date has come and gone, and Mann is busier than ever with reinvention instead of retirement. The publication in 2001 of the monograph Thomas Mann: Metal Artist may have summarized his career as a jeweler, but it didn't bring down the curtain his performance. If anything, he's busily proving F. Scott Fitzgerald's assertion that American lives lack second acts..... (2003) Complete Story
Silver has been a part of American domestic ritual and tradition since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when bourgeois families used coffee and tea services, serving utensils, and other silver domestic objects in imitation of their English Counterparts. A robust American silver design and manufacturing industry gross a, people of means were no longer satisfied to live with homemade utensils and furnishings, and fine craftsmen became a part of the social-culturaleconomic nexus. The wealthy had sterling silver gravy hosts, porringers, and crumb trays, and the middle classes had silverplated items of similar design. Even the big silver designers such as Gorham and Tiffany created whimsical and ornate holloware and utensils according to the prevailing design motifs of the time. Commercially available modernist pitchers from the 1930s seem close cousins of Muir's vessels.... (2004) Complete Story
