Travel Bracelet

While my mother was away in England, I found myself wrist-deep in her jewelry box. On my quest for something to borrow, I came upon an old bracelet made out of coins from various countries. It must have been someone's souvenir travel bracelet.

This is'nt it... This is a picture of my own travel bracelet, which I recently put together from my old leftover coins. The coins are actually quite beautiful, my favorite is the British farthing with the little wren pictured on it. Also, the Mexican cincuenta centavos piece is from 1955 (I had picked it up at a mercado), and shows the legendary eagle with the snake in it's mouth atop a cactus.

I like the idea that this piece of jewelry has the ability to take me back to different places and times so easily. And, if I ever run out of cash I can just take the bracelet apart and spend the coins!

New Commission!

I was recently asked to create a set of 5 necklaces for a woman to give as gifts to the bridesmaids in her wedding.

I decided to abstract the couple's names and use that as the direct source for the designs of each necklace. Once the individual necklaces are put back together, the text becomes legible again... reading 'Jon and Alicia.'

I'm obscenely pleased with how the pieces came out, and might do this again someday. Here's hoping that the couple getting married actually like the idea as well!

The New Materiality at the Fuller Museum of Craft

A review in last Sunday's providence journal sparked my interest in the Fuller Museum of Crafts current exhibition, The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft. The show presents work that, although made by traditional craft artists, embraces technology as a emotive material. The combination of these two disparate methodologies creates an technology are getting more and more irrelevant.

I'm really interested to check out this show... especially because one of the artists included in New Materiality is the San Francisco based design duo, Mike & Maaike. Mike and Maaike will be showing pieces from their Stolen Jewels line of work... interesting platform to discuss the role that technology can play in today's contemporary craft world. Traditional boundaries between art, craft, and which is one of my favorites! They will also be participating in the show that I am co-curating this fall, Chromophilia... so, New Materiality will be a good chance to sneak-peek their work before Chromophilia opens.

New Materiality is up through February 6th, 2011 at the Fuller Museum of Craft... check out more info here.

Images: top: 3-D Chair, by Brian Boldon, digital glass decals, float glass, epoxy and aluminum. Bottom: Stolen Jewels #7, Mike and Maaike, leather.

Take my breath away...

I was in the middle of giving a soldering demo during tonight's CE class at RISD, when I was so distracted that I had to stop teaching all together. The culprit: this amazing Scottish stone necklace that one of my students was wearing.

It's just stunning, and the images really don't do the piece justice. The clasp is an amazing little box clasp, and each different piece of agate is separated by faceted citrine set in a decorative bezel. Really, the attention to detail is quite impressive.

Most of the stones found in Scottish stone jewelry were mined in the Cairngorm Mountains. Lots of smoky quartz, yellow quartz, and various warm, pale shades of quartz came from this range. The agates, carnelians, and other stones are mostly indigenous also.

Rena Abeles is the lucky owner of this beautiful piece of history. She is also the proud owner of Reliable Gold Ltd in Providence. Reliable Gold is an estate jewelry shop over in Wayland Square, which has been in her family since the 1930's. I can't wait to see what's in stock in the store, especially considering that Rena is always wearing the most exquisite pieces to class!

Bizarre review of Objectified

I read this Washington Post article, and I was confused. Then I was disappointed. Now I'm confused again. In any event, I'm not too proud to not share an unfavorable review for Objectified. It seems to me that the format of the review is terribly confusing, that paired with the authors neglect to accurately reflect the intentions of the artists kindof baffled me.

In any event, you can read the article here.

The Hope Diamond

Yeah, so I totally fell prey to all the hype surrounding the Hope Diamond, and I went to go see it on my whirwind tour of D.C. The 45 carat diamond is currently on display at the National Museum of Natural History. In my defense, I went to the museum with the intention of visiting their mineral display (which is phenomenal), and didn't even really know that the Hope Diamond was there.

There were a couple of things about the Hope Diamond that I found really interesting. First, this was the first time that it's been displayed unset. I felt that this was an honest way to show the diamond without the added distraction of the necklace. Also, the empty necklace without the diamond set in it was stunning on its own. It looked almost lonely in it's incompleteness, and I really liked the nostalgia and vulnerability of the separation.

The other thing that really threw me about the Diamond was the fact that the exhibit actually addressed the fact that the stone is thought to be cursed. There are stories, although inaccurate, that depict the Hope Diamond originally being stolen from a Hindu Temple or being initially set in a religious sculpture; with the curse resulting from the sacrilege of the stones removal. Although a lot of the stories surrounding the stone are embellished or fabricated entirely, some of the lore is true. Many people who have encountered the diamond have died untimely deaths, from owners to stone setters, to potential thieves. It's interesting how the history of the stone has been fabricated in such a way as to transform the diamond into an idol to be both feared and worshiped.

Images: original sketch of the Hope Diamond, uncut; Hope Diamond and empty setting at the Smithsonian.

Brian Jungen exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian

While I was in D.C. recently I spent a day touring the mall and the Smithsonian Museums. I'm pretty proud of myself for seeing four monuments, three museums, one gallery, and the White House (much less impressive that I'd imagined) all in one day... it was a serious Americana binge that I'm still recovering from!

One of the best exhibits that I saw was at the National Museum of the American Indian, Brian Jungen: Strange Comfort. The show was amazing, and Jungen's work was phenomenal. The installation of the show was really impressive, the gallery was dimly lit with spot lights only illuminating the works. It gave a very intimate/anthropological feel to the show. When you enter the gallery space, the first work that you see is a scale whale skeleton made entirely out of white plastic lawn chairs serenely suspended in the dark space. It was really awe inspiring, and considering that I had just come from the Natural History Museum, the dichotomy between form and material was even more conceptually exciting.

Jungen also had on display gas cans which had traditional Native American designs pierced into them. Monarch is pictured above. I really appreciate his honest use of consumer materials and how he blends them together with traditional symbols from his ancestry. He does a good job at transforming the original materials, and having the content become a little more subtle. Another example of this would be the traditional masks that he has stitched out of deconstructed Nike Airs.

The show was great, and I ended up buying the catalog for the show, which is a beautiful publication that has lots of interesting back story on the pieces. If you're in D.C. this is a show that you really shouldn't miss!

Alloy Gallery Showcard

Here is the show card from the opening at Alloy Gallery last week. If you couldn't make it to the opening, be sure to swing by this summer, Tamar has a great group of artists exhibiting there and my work will be up all summer.

Meta at the MFA Boston summer gala...

SNEAK PREVIEW! This is a picture I took at Alloy Gallery last night when Tamar and I were hanging my work for the opening on Thursday night. Tamar found some packaging tape with an ornate frame motif printed on it, so we used the tape to create a dedicated space on the wall for my necklaces. I love how bold the pieces look against the bright yellow wall!