Could is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the USA. We’re honoring this by spotlighting articles and movies we’ve beforehand printed about AAPI makers and by AAPI writers.
Curtis H. Arima
Arima is the chair of the Jewellery/Steel Arts Program at California School of the Arts, the place he’s additionally an affiliate professor. The maker is drawn to the transformative nature of supplies and the reminiscence, emotion, and historical past that objects can maintain. He earned a BFA from California School of Arts and Crafts and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy. Arima’s jewellery and sculpture has been exhibited/printed nationally and internationally. (Try his website.) He has lectured and taught workshops within the US, Japan, and China, and is a member of the Moral Metalsmiths Advisory Committee. Follow Arima on Instagram.
Ada Chen
The latest Pratt graduate has been getting observed for making jewellery that explores stereotypes about Asian People. These earrings got here out of conversations she had with males who sexually fetishized Asian girls and objectified them as sometimes submissive. Keep updated with Chen’s apply on Instagram, or go to her website.
Christine Clark
The previous head of the metals division at Oregon School of Artwork and Craft now focuses on set up artwork (learn AJF’s interview, by Olivia Shih) however continues to show jewelry-making workshops, in addition to courses on different matters. See course choices here, and sustain together with her work on Instagram.
April Higashi
The jewellery maker additionally owns Shibumi Gallery, which is positioned in Berkeley, CA. Higashi based the gallery in 2005, conceiving it as a dynamic area the place she couldn’t solely create and exhibit her personal work but in addition showcase the inspiring work of fellow artists. She sells manufacturing items and likewise creates customized work.
Learn an interview with Susan Cummins here. Former AJF editor Ben Lignel talked together with her on the event of an exhibition aimed toward a male clientele. Comply with Higashi on Instagram.
Ron Ho
Born in Hawai’i in 1936, he died in 2017 in his dwelling in Seattle. Whereas pursuing a Grasp’s of Artwork Training diploma on the College of Washington, “it so occurred that the final summer season quarter that I used to be ending up, Ramona Solberg got here to show jewellery,” he recalled. “And Ramona was an individual who actually modified my life. As a result of at that time I didn’t know I used to be going to be a jewellery artist.” Ho grew to become an artwork trainer and a part-time jeweler.
Ho used discovered objects—lots of them Chinese language—in his jewellery designs. Not many craft galleries existed within the 60s, however a couple of competitions offered alternatives, and Ho gained awards for his distinctive artwork jewellery. The Bellevue Arts Museum exhibited a retrospective of the maker in 2006—it was referred to as Dim Sum on the On-On Tea Room—and posthumously exhibited Ho’s writings, letters, photos, work, and objects in A Jeweler’s Tale. Northwest Designer Craftsmen produced a 30-minute documentary referred to as Residing Treasures: Ron Ho: Turning into Chinese language, A Jeweler’s Story, which you’ll be able to watch here on YouTube.
Jessica Hughes
Hughes is an artist, author, and jewellery fanatic. A graduate of Tyler Faculty of Artwork, Temple College, she’s the inventive director at a trend jewellery and equipment firm, the place she leads the design, advertising and marketing, development, and product merchandising groups.
Hughes has produced loads of interviews with artwork jewellery heavy hitters, together with
Reiko Ishiyama
“My work has an nearly fragile high quality, stressing lightness and mobility,” says the New York-based maker. “By shaping paper skinny sheets of silver, I can home area itself. When folks maintain my work in fingers, they’re usually shocked by its delicacy and lightness. There may be an evanescent, momentary high quality that I hope folks can actually savor after they put on my items.”
In a chat she gave to AJF members at SOFA, Ishiyama recounted tales from her youth, a couple of candy she would take pleasure in in a tea home and her go to to a neighboring silkworm farm. She described the straight strains of a kimono and the way it involves life on the physique. These tales reveal how floating is important to her aesthetic. “I’m attempting to let the layers of flatness breathe or to search out area. Then flatness can arise. It may transfer. I need to blow air between the sheets and elevate them up momentarily. It’s actually momentary.” Learn the talk on Ishiyama’s web site and go to her online shop.
Masumi Kataoka
We interviewed Kataoka here after she gained AJF’s Rising Artist Award in 2008. She later joined us on AJF Stay in 2020; watch a recording of that occasion here.
“I’m at present engaged on wearable artwork using insect buildings mixed with types impressed by human physique components. This course has developed from my curiosity in the way in which kids anthropomorphize stuffed animals for safety,” says the maker. These motifs “set up emotional distance, thereby eliciting a extra highly effective response. Most not too long ago I’ve been specializing in Japanese idioms about bugs believed to reside inside us and management our feelings. By means of my course of, bugs are remodeled into steel and glass, and once-living materials is put again into life, making them extra everlasting.” See extra work on Kataoka’s web site, here.
Hongsock Lee
Lee attended Kon-Kuk College, in Korea, then received his MFA at Rhode Island Faculty of Design. He has taught at Savannah School of Artwork and Design since 2011. He makes each jewellery and sculpture.
“My work begins with deciphering the which means of area,” he says. “This reinterpreted expanse is then stuffed with geometric shapes – strains – factors. The method focuses on empty area and the intervals between types. Repetitive makes an attempt at composition assemble the geometric shapes into their last type attaining the crucial aesthetic purpose. There’s a second of enlightenment from this recurrent course of and creative consciousness permits me to know the purpose at which I need to cease — to go away the area, the great thing about area. The great thing about area is crucial think about my works. These acutely aware voids enable the viewers’ creativeness at to enter and join.” See extra work on Lee’s website.
Jeong Ju Lee
“Woven wire mesh is a really enticing materials by which wires are woven collectively to create totally different patterns,” says the maker, who taught as an adjunct at Rochester Institute of Know-how a couple of years after getting an MFA there. “I found that when two sheets of wire mesh overlap with distance, they create lovely patterns and geometry, giving the phantasm that there is perhaps one thing else in between. In my work, greater than two layers of sheet mesh are stacked collectively and interlaced with the intention to invent a brand new type or sample.”
I’m impressed by geometric patterns in nature resembling dice –formed crystal locks, stair stepped crystal and tessellations. These are shaped by repeating patterns and organizing shapes over a flat floor. The dot, line, form and course which are represented by mesh in my work are all crucial, as they function a visible language for me to embody my inventive course of. I’m fascinated when patterns provide infinite chance with repetition and complexity.” See extra work here.
Cong Ma
Ma was a finalist for the 2022 Younger Artist Award. We interviewed her here. Go here on Ma’s Instagram feed to observe her organising her jewellery at Patina, through the hoopla of Munich 2023—it should allow you to perceive the optical play within the work.
emiko oye
The San Francisco artist creates daring, colourful jewellery with repurposed LEGO®, from ready-to-wear to one-of-a-kind conceptual work impressed by high fashion, artwork historical past, David Bowie, and nonviolent communication and group. The jewellery universally tugs on the nostalgic heartstrings, artfully interweaving reminiscences into conversation-sparking adornment. In “Back from the Dead: Decoration’s Return,” a 2009 article that targeted on how up to date jewelers have been participating with the development towards decoration that was sweeping the world of commercial design, you may see considered one of oye’s spectacular necklaces for a queen. Extra prefer it seem on her web site, here.
Artwork Jewellery Discussion board commissioned a limited-edition pin from oye in 2014 (right here’s the press release). Just a few of the pins are nonetheless obtainable. Get yours by becoming a member of AJF on the $150 degree or larger; it’s our manner of claiming “thanks”! (Click on here to hitch.)
oye got here on AJF Stay with Nikki Coupee on June 18, 2020, not lengthy after the beginning of pandemic lockdowns. Watch a recording of the occasion. AJF visited oye’s studio throughout its 2022 journey to San Francisco. Get a glimpse of it in this photograph essay. Keep updated on the whole lot the maker is doing by way of her Instagram feed.
Kristin Mitsu Shiga
Shiga operates ’Okina Jewelry on the Massive Island of Hawai’i. She’s deeply influenced by her biracial upbringing and by her participation in quite a few artist collaborations. Her work is within the Everlasting Assortment of the White Home. She maintains a detailed affiliation with MetalWerx and repeatedly teaches round the USA. Get the newest information on Instagram.
Olivia Shih
Shih is a recent jeweler, artist, and author based mostly in Oakland, CA. Born within the US and raised in Taiwan, she is within the cultural nuances that may be explored via wearable sculpture.
Shih holds a BA in Inventive Writing from Columbia College and a BFA in Jewellery and Steel Arts from the California School of the Arts. She’s an assistant editor at Metalsmith journal and has produced interviews for AJF since 2018, together with:
For a full checklist of her interviews, go here. See Shih’s jewellery for soft-spoken and considerate people here. And get the newest information on her profession on Instagram.
Jay Music
Music is a professor and chair of the jewellery program at Savannah College of Art and Design, which is an AJF member college. By exploring lanterns as a communicative type, her jewellery serves as solution to interpret and specific. The rings are extra intimate, in that the lanterns are supposed to hold under fingers that pray or meditate. The lanterns make use of each ceremonial and ornamental features. The rings aren’t meant to isolate particular meanings, however relatively to recommend a second of thought the place stillness, magnificence, and illumination can peacefully coexist. Comply with her on Instagram, and go to her website.
Myung Urso
Urso is an artist, curator, and artwork director identified for manipulating wire, fiber, ink, and stitching to create one-of-a-kind jewellery items. Urso is fascinated by the tactile. “I typically shouldn’t have a pre-set plan or sketch for my concepts,” she says. “I’m additionally an observer [of] how my work evolves. This manner is kind of dangerous, on the identical time adventurous. I consider ‘over-planning kills magic.’ I additionally admire Pablo Picasso’s quotes, ‘Once I haven’t blue I exploit crimson’ and “I start with an thought after which [it]turns into one thing else.’ That’s precisely how I work.” Learn her interview with Susan Cummins here. Go to her web site here.
Kimber Wiegand
Wiegand holds a BA in inventive writing from Johns Hopkins College and is at present coaching as a metalsmith on the Baltimore Jewellery Middle. She reviewed the Betty Cooke retrospective at Walters Artwork Museum, in Baltimore, MD, US, for AJF.
