Metalsmith Magazine. Vol 46 No 1

Any metalsmith will tell you that our materials seem to have their own ideas and personalities. Gold’s material agency shines through in works by the artists profiled by RoseMary Diaz. CRUCIBLE’s editorial residency evokes the agency of material and maker in a back-and-forth between Morvarid Alavifard and Fleuri La Belle, two artists whose works merge material and performance as reclamations of feminine agency. A different kind of reclamation can be found in Becca Cerra’s LOOK, where the artistry of extending and supporting the body bridges concept and function. Readers will notice echoes of these concepts in both Sasha Newkirk’s intriguing feature on the artistry of mount-making and the subtle, bodily invocation of Aminata Conteh’s woven vessels in Fresh Off the Bench.

For Sotiria Vasileiou what deepens the medium’s power are our brains’ preconscious, sensorial responses to the stimuli art jewelry offers. Chenoa Baker ponders the haptic preoccupations of three jewelers for whom the hand is a potent site of gestural and emotional explorations. And Fumiko Gotô invokes art’s power as a balm for grief.

This issue introduces a new column space for exploring collections and collecting. In this first foray, Alice Dickinson chronicles a commission for a silver trophy, made by Wendy Yothers, where past, present, and future come together “into the living moment,” as Yothers says. Helen Drutt’s library and archive is a testament to both the depth of her commitment to the field of craft and her gift to the field’s future. And Olivia Shih’s interview with Rebekah Frank sheds light on the paths she traveled to arrive at each of her now many, sometimes overlapping careers.

In an apt offering for the shifting seasons, Samantha De Tillio profiles La Luce, a collaboration between a jeweler who delights in nature’s cycles of growth and decay, and an engineer whose custom displays give the jewelry a life beyond the body. Over the few days I spent writing this note, a foot of snow piled up in the mid-Atlantic region of the US where I live—but it’s already diminishing with the fluctuating temperatures that signal spring is not far off. I hope that by the time this issue reaches you the forces that have darkened our doorsteps for months will have receded and that, wherever you might be, a new season is springing forth.

/ Adriane Dalton, Editor.


Features:
- 48 Book Smart The Extraordinary Library and Archives of Helen Drutt. One woman’s lifelong commitment to craft
knowledge By Jennifer Altmann.
- 58 Wired for Beauty. Neuroaesthetics and the Rise of Sensory Experience in Contemporary Jewelry. Contemporary jewelry’s unique potential to stimulate the brain By Sotiria Vasileiou.
- 68 Becoming Invisible Making Art That Holds Art. A peek behind the scenes with the talented mountmakers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art By Sasha Newkirk.


Departments:

• 6 FOREWORD.
• 8 CONTRIBUTORS.
• 14 VOICE & VISION: Fumiko Gotô.
• 16 FINDINGS: Between Hand and Metal By Chenoa Baker.
• 18 VIEW: Continuum of Indigenous Expression By RoseMary Diaz.
• 22 FRESH OFF THE BENCH: Aminata Conteh.
• 24 ASK ME ANYTHING: Rebekah Frank By Olivia Shih.
• 30 IN THE STUDIO: La Luce By Samantha De Tillio.
• 34 COLLECT: Wendy Yothers’s Invitational Cup By Alice Dickinson.
• 38 CRUCIBLE X METALSMITH: Embodiment as Practice By Fleuri La Belle and Morvarid Alavifard.
• 44 LOOK: Exquisite Abilities By Becca Cerra.
• 78 EVENTS CALENDAR: Happenings.

>> Purchase Past Issues Here