NYC Jewelry Week Day 5

Hi,

The day started with a trip to the Museum of Arts and Design to look at a brooch they have by Fred Woell. He is a jeweler that we will be featuring in the book I am working on. For those of you who haven't heard... I am working on a book about American Jewelry in the 60s and 70s with Damian Skinner and Cindi Strauss. Damian suggested that I go to MAD and ask to see this brooch in person. So I did. It is made of wood with images of the cartoon characters Superman, Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie separated by some lines of staples with a red cross in the center and gold leaf on the wood. It is big - 4 1/2" in diameter. I wonder why Americans seem to be so enamored with Superheroes?

This was followed by a couple of lunch appointments and then back to MAD for a jewelry symposium. It was a good day to stay all day indoors because.... uh oh... snow.

There were several parts to the symposium. The first featured 4 young artists- Taisha Carrington, Ada Chen, Aaron Decker and Holland Houdek. They each gave sort presentations and unfortunately I missed Taisha but here are a few photos from the others.

Ada Chen Identifying as a Chinese woman

Aaron Decker using joyful themes from his childhood

Holland Houdek - These are modeled after knee and hip replacement parts and she compared them to tribal uses of bone.

Aaron, Ada, Taisha, and Holland

I went up stairs at a break to see the Robert Baines show called Fake News and True Love. He made up a bunch of stories based partly on fact and then created a piece of jewelry that fit into the story.

This crown included poison tablets and guns.

Then back to the symposium to hear Toni Greenbaum talk about Sam Kramer. She gave an entertaining lecture about him filled with stories and smart comparisons to other artwork.

Sam Kramer was from the 40s and 50s and he was looking at the art from the surrealism period for his inspiration. There is nothing else around that looks like his jewelry.

His shop was in Greenwich Village and he was a super showman. He sent young girls around the neighborhood on Vespas with green faces and outrageous outfits to give out brochures about his shop which is pictured above on the left.

Next was an annoying German and an interesting young American who studied with him. I will spare you their presentation.

Following them there was an interview of Eleanor Moty by Matthew Drutt. Eleanor is a well respected American jeweler who is in her 70s and was very active on the scene from the 60s on. She uses interestingly cut stones and she knows a lot about what has happened in this field because she went everywhere and did everything over the decades. In January I will go an interview her so it was nice to see a preview of her work.