Keynote Speaker
Garth Clark
Art Dealer/Historian/Critic. Santa Fe, NM
“Who’s Your Daddy?”
What part of the visual arts world does metalsmithing and jewelry belong to: crafts, design, art? Garth Clark looks at the changing landscape with craft diminishing in importance, design in ascendency, and art remaining a tough sell. The lecture explores the marketplace for the field in the past and its challenges today.
Listen to Garth Clark’s keynote presentation at the SNAG 2012 Conference in Phoenix from May 24, 2012. Click here to listen to the MP3 recording.
Program Speakers
Megan Auman
Designer/Maker/Educator/Business Owner/Entrepreneur. Jonestown, PA
“Creating a Culture of Profit”
Talking about and pursuing profit is beneficial to both the creativity and longevity of our field. The current business landscape provides an opportunity to pursue profit while striving for creativity and innovation. Yet, this pursuit of profit is missing from many conversations in the metalsmithing community. This presentation will address the importance of pursuing profit, why conversations about profit are essential for our field, and for the new business landscape where someone can both fulfill their artistic vision and build a profitable business.
Kim Cridler
Metalsmith/Associate Professor of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Rockford, MI
“Models”
The influence of both craft and ornamentation in Kim’s work and practice as illustrated through the work of theorists, writers, artists, and that of her students. She will touch on issues of repetition, ideas about beauty and originality, the contemporary understanding of craft, and the essential struggle towards change. The talk will illustrate the development of her own work including a current exhibition at the Racine Art Museum and recent public art works.
Steve Midgett
Wedding Ring Designer/Innovator/President of Extrusion Patterned Metals Corporation. Franklin, NC
“Heat, Pressure, and Time: Essential Elements of a Life of Discovery with Patterned Metals”
Explore the relationship of heat, pressure, and time, and how they influence the successful solid state bonding of laminated metals such as Mokume Gane and Damascus Steel. Steve will trace the history of traditional patterned metals techniques, the problems associated with them, his interest in laminated metals, and how this all led him to develop extrusion patterned metals. The discussion of heat, pressure, and time will also be used as a launching point of Steve’s own journey and maturation as a metalsmith — the pressure of work and family obligations, the heat of empowering his competition, the crucial commitment of time to learn his craft, and ultimately the cultivation of trust in his work as a form of play and discovery.
Kevin O’Dwyer
Artist and Silversmith, Silver River Studios. Tullamore, Ireland
“Saint Manchan’s Shrine – The Work of Angels”
The great monastic settlement of Clonmacnoise produced some of the finest examples of Irish metalwork in the 11th and 12th centuries. During this golden age of Irish metalwork the cross cultural exchange of ideas, techniques and imagery between the Irish and the Viking communities led to the development of the unique Hiberno-Norse (Urnes) style featured on Ireland’s finest reliquary shrine – St. Manchan’s Shrine. This presentation will focus on the metalwork and Hiberno-Norse imagery of St. Manchan’s Shrine, commissioned by Turlough O’Connor, High King of Ireland and created in the workshops of Clonmacnoise. Archaeologist T.D. Kendrick described the shrine as “a rich and dazzling Celtic bewilderment, a perpetual challenge to the eyes”. O’Dwyer will take you on a journey through the evolution of the Hiberno Norse style, its imagery and sources, as well as the history and folklore attached to the Shrine over the past 900 years since its creation.
Bettina Speckner
Jeweler. Uebersee, Germany
“The Passion of Working”
“The Heat Is On:” Being under pressure can sometimes force a creative process, by forcing us to make a decision. On the other hand waiting for the right moment is an existential experience for a creative process. Bettina is working in the tension between those opposite poles. She will talk about that very moment when an idea, a notion and a material are coming together and through technique culminate into a piece. Only afterwards can she point out those moments consciously. The friction between Bettina’s personal background, the stories and histories that accompany her and finding creative expression in her work form her impression of the world and her expression in material.
Spotlight On Emerging Artists
Allyson Bone
Metalsmith/Jewelry Designer. Brooklyn, NY
“My Work, My Job”
Allyson Bone will explore her experiences transitioning from jewelry student to designer in the fashion industry in NYC. She delves deeper into considering how jewelry functions and what her personal priorities are as a maker. Like many others, Allyson has struggled to find a way to continue her own work, while so much of her time is devoted to making someone else’s.
Andrew Hayes
Metal worker/Sculptor. Asheville, NC
“Finding A Way”
Working through college, a Penland Core Fellowship, and now as an artist apprentice, Andrew is finding the path to sustain his work. He will relate how important it is to continue producing and how to motivate yourself though your own art. Through rejection and revelation, the path of a young artist is tough and rewarding at the same time.
Caitie Sellers
Jeweler/Metalsmith. Asheville, NC
“We All Have Pigeons in Common”
Caitie Sellers has spent the last four years packing up and moving, finding the comfort of home in her ever-changing studio. Her recent work is informed by time she spent living and volunteering in the Guatemalan highlands in 2008 and subsequent visits. Between trips to Central America and moves between Virginia, Montana, and North Carolina, Sellers has become fascinated with the things these important places in her life all have in common. Sellers will examine the evolution of her work as the physical necessities of her location dictated the details of its creation. She will discuss how the recent stability of her current situation is affecting her studio practice and ideation process.
Loring Taoka
Jeweler/Metalsmith. New York, NY
“Constructed Identities”
Growing up bi-racial in rural New Hampshire, Loring’s marginalized status was evident from an early age. Never completely meeting the social, cultural, and physical requirements of Japanese, American, or Japanese- American, his identities were in a state of constant flux. He was continually navigating the terrain between sets of labels and coming to terms with the understanding of those identities. Drawing from his personal histories, Loring’s work questions notions of ambiguity, readability, and the experience of the Other.
Amy Tavern
Metalsmith/Studio Jeweler. Penland, NC
“This is How I Remember It”
Amy Tavern recently completed a residency at the Penland School of Crafts, an experience that affected her work in countless ways. Through self-guided study and exploration, Amy discovered her process and honed her identity as a studio jeweler over the course of three years. For her last year, she created a substantial body of work based on her own history with jewelry. In her Spotlight talk, Amy will discuss how she examined her craft and will share the details behind the jewelry she created for her first solo exhibition, “This is How I Remember It”.
Panel Discussion
This is a panel of Metal Artists and Jewelers who will discuss how and why they started independent cooperative, private/non-profit instructional studios, and schools.
Michael Sturtz, The Crucible, Oakland, CA
Jay Whaley, Whaley Studios, San Diego, CA
Khobe Delucca, Studio Delucca, Long Beach, CA
Johanna Ingram, Harold Studio, Phoenix, AZ