Myra Mimlitsch-Gray will be offering an artist talk In The Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works on October 26 from 2-3pm. This talk is in conjunction with her solo exhibition Conduit, on view from September 21 - November 10, 2024 at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Mimlitsch-Gray will discuss the premise of Conduit and how it relates to her current creative practice, followed by a question and answer session. Open to all, this lecture is free with a suggested donation of $5 - $10.

Please join us in welcoming Sulo Bee on their solo exhibition, makeshift [gardenz], on view in the gallery from July 12, 2025  through August 25, 2025.

Sulo Bee will be offering an Artist talk in the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works on August 24, 2-3:30pm.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Brooklyn Metal Works invites the public to attend a closing lecture by Sulo Bee In the Gallery (640 Dean Street, Brooklyn) on Saturday August 24, at 2pm. Bee will discuss the premise of  makeshift gardens and their current creative practice, followed by a question and answer session. Open to the public, this lecture  is free with a suggested donation of $5 - $10, and will include a selection of tea and sweet treats along with a presentation of the works on view.

This event is free, open to the public, and will be held on the 4th floor of Brooklyn Metal Works.

640 Dean St, Brooklyn, NY 11238

On Saturday June, 15 at 5pm, in conjunction with our current group exhibition Spoons, join us for a special art activation.

Artists Brian Weissman, Hilla Shapira, and Naama Levit will bring their featured works to life in and around the Brooklyn Metal Works studio, showcasing the multifaceted nature of this quintessential utensil. 

This event is free, open to the public, and will be held on the 4th floor of Brooklyn Metal Works.

640 Dean St, Brooklyn, NY 11238

Brian Weissman is the Co-Founder of Brooklyn Metal Works and Specific Gravity, a jewelry and objects retail store that supports the artist community of Brooklyn Metal Work. Weissman received his MFA in Metal from SUNY New Paltz and his BA in Technical Theater and Art studio from SUNY Geneseo. In the past Brian has taught at the University of the Arts, the 92nd St. Y, SUNY New Paltz, The New England Craft Center and at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Brian’s artwork has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and his work can be seen in Silver Magazine, Metalsmith magazine, 500 Judaica and most recently the 16th Silver Triennial catalog.

Hilla Shapira is a wearable and textile artist. Originally from Tel-Aviv, Israel, and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work deals with the relationships between common design and body regimen. By making functional mundane objects she questions design norms and the political aspects of things. She has presented her work in Israel, Europe, and the USA including: Art Basel (Miami, FL), Jerusalem Design Week (Jerusalem, Israel), Depo2015 (Pilsen, Czech Republic), and the Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn, NY) amongst others. She was AIR in Carrizozo residency (Carrizozo, NM), Popps Packing (Hamtramck, MI), Makerspace (Brooklyn, NY) and Neve Schechter center (Tel-Aviv, Israel). Shapira's work had been featured in different publications including: Hyperallergic Magazine, NY Jewish Week, Metalsmith Magazine, Portfolio Magazine, Haaretz, and the Jerusalem Post.

Naama Levit is a jewelry artist, a material maker and an educator. She makes jewelry, objects, installations and performance.  Through her multidisciplinary and experimental approach Naama explores the intimate relation she has with objects, materials, landscape and memory. Born In Jerusalem, Israel, She received her BFA with honors from the department of jewelry and fashion at Bezalel Academy Of Art in Jerusalem, Israel (2013), and her M.F.A in Metals from Cranbrook Academy of Art, MI (2020). Levit has taught at Bezalel Academy, The Israel Museum, (Jerusalem, Israel) and Brooklyn Metal Works, (Brooklyn, NY). Her work in exhibitions in Israel, Europe, and the USA, including Philistine culture Museum (Ashdod, Israel), The Israeli Craft Biennale (Tel Aviv, Israel), Galerie Marzee (Nijmegen, Netherlands), Jewelry week (Schmuck, Munich, Germany), and NYC Jewelry week (Brooklyn, NY), amongst others. She received several awards including Designer in residence at Emma Kreativezentrum (Pforzheim, Germany), Mercedes Benz emerging artist award, Cranbrook Merit award and Haystack Mountain School of Craft AIDA award.

Please join us in welcoming Emily Culver on her solo exhibition, PRELUDES, opening March 16. 

Emily Culver will be  offering an Artist talk in the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal works on April 20, 2-4pm.

“Even when current conditions echo the past, or possibly because they do, the body defies all attempts to return to a former state. Our current selves perpetually mutate and are replaced by renewed identities, making the body completely incapable of U-turns.”

- Emily Culver

Please join us in welcoming Funlola Coker on her solo exhibition, The Texture of Place opening September 9th.

Funlola Coker will be offering an Artist talk in the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal works on November 4th, 3-4pm.

I am interested in what brings people together. Objects, offerings and acts of care towards one another. This shows up in my relationships with family - traditional and chosen. I examine how these gestures and phenomena live within our consciousness.

These sculptures are imbued with meaning through the history of their materials and representation of objects. Their careful arrangement alludes to a place just visited or forgotten, relics of lived experience and shared memories. Inspiration of form comes from sculptural braiding styles in Nigeria that I observed as a child, as well as calabashes and objects in my home.

My material choices are specific. Mounds are constructed from materials typically found in scene building. They allude to the dream-like quality of memories, and the half-remembered facsimile of what was once tangible. Alabaster - light and glowing, it grounds my objects, it is heavy, yet soft to the touch and delicate if scratched. Pewter can appear slippery, soft, and retains its liquid-like qualities when poured without too much restriction. The imperfect pours and fluidity glisten like half-remembered thoughts.

Through this body of work, curious objects are more than they appear to be. I am building a connection to home with tools of navigation. They are maps, memories, and relics from the slippery spaces and the mundane.

- Funlola Coker

Through my artistic practice I have been exploring fracturing movements in both artificial and natural materials. What specifically intrigues me is the tension between intentional acts, such as cutting into the material, and uncontrolled accidents, such as fractures. Through the will to control, the fractures develop and are liberated as the material inevitably cracks in release. The lines, fractures and cuts visible in my work are always the result of repetitive gestures performed on the material and its responsive language. They evoke a sort of geological archive, based on a succession of bodily actions or events. This perspective, that craft interplays with the wilderness found in materials, clashes with classic notions which consider it to be the exercise of masterly control over materials and techniques. Whilst the cut is a premeditated decision, the fracture is partially out of my control since I can never entirely control its shape and intensity within the material. From this non-anthropocentric view, skill is being reinterpreted as a way to relate to materials and landscapes. As I metabolise the crack in my practice, I sporadically feel in tune with it. Whilst creating stages for materials to perform on, establishing a relationship of authorship, I look at myself as an intermediator, as someone who initiates actions that end up having a will of their own.

-Patricia Domingues

Throughout history, people’s collecting of objects has served the same sentiment – an inherent and existential need to freeze time and authenticate experience.

However, the significance of the memento is rarely fixed as its meaning changes with the shifting recollection of its possessor. The souvenir’s value lies in sentimentality, not material worth, serving the impulse to recall, capture, and re-live.

In support of Hearts + Flowers, exhibiting artist Brice Garrett will be hosting ‘Workshop (2016–Ongoing)’ a participatory jewelry project made collectively with the public. Through the act of mold making, stamping, and plaster participants are invited to recreate pendants influenced by their own jewelry memories. Over the course of the exhibition, the installation of pendants grows with each participant’s contribution. Please join us.

Hearts + Flowers was recently reviewed by Steven KP for Art Jewelry Forum. Read the review here.

Hearts + Flowers Participating Artists:
Alejandra Carrillo-Estrada, Alison Layton, Amelia Toelke, Andy Lowrie, Beiya Yang, Brice Garrett, Caitlin Albritton, Charlotte Vanhoubroeck, Corrina Goutos, Danni Xu, Eighteen Yuan, Elliot Keeley, Emily Culver, Francine Grenci, Funlola Coker, Hannah Oatman, Iris Lo, Jennifer Moore, Jess Dare, Jolynn Marie Santiago, Kelly Ann Temple, Laila Marie Costa, Mallory Weston, Margo Csipo, Masumi Kataoka, Misaki Sano, MJ Tyson, Nana YaaSerwaah Akuou, Nancy Rodríguez Rojas, Nikki Couppee, Rachel M Ness, Rita Bamidele Hampton, Sharon Massey, Shaunia Grant, Tova Lund, Valerie James, Vershali Jain, and Violet Weiner.

This exhibition was brought to BKMW via our call for Guest Curators by Leslie Shershow and Jessica Andersen.

Leslie and Jessica are both artists and transplants living and working in San Diego, California. They met through the jewelry community, as they found themselves in the same social circles but at different times.

Leslie Shershow grew up in the state of Maine and has lived all over the country; participating in residencies, exhibitions, and working as an educator of art and jewelry. She received her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and has since been an active participant in many facets of the jewelry field – contributing to, and working in fine jewelry, production jewelry and contemporary jewelry. Within the past few years, she earned her MFA from San Diego State University, and acted as Visiting Assistant Professor at New Mexico State University. Her work was recently selected for the cancelled Schmuck 2021 Exhibition.

Jessica Andersen was born in the small farming community of Audubon, Iowa. She received a B.F.A. in Jewelry & Metal Arts in 2009 from the University of Iowa. In 2011, Jessica began graduate school at San Diego State University where she received her M.F.A. in Jewelry and Metalwork. Jessica has completed residencies at Craft Alliance in St. Louis, MO and at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft where she had time to experiment and develop her work as a studio artist.

Our love of gemstones continues to grow and we are so pleased to have lapidarist Loren Gurche visiting Brooklyn Metal Works on November 3rd at 11am to share his deep knowledge about opals.  

You may be familiar with Loren on Instagram as @ancients17 where he showcases his opal cutting practice and sells beautifully finished opals to some of the most noteworthy jewelry designers working today. During this special conversation Loren will take us through the process of receiving parcels of rough opals, what he looks for in the material to pull the best color and shape, and how he approaches cutting with a visual demonstration on our lapidary equipment. This is an artist talk and demo that you won’t want to miss. Examples of various types of opals and the stages of production from raw to finished will be on view. Loren will also have a selection of his inventory available for sale for those who would like to make a purchase.

• Please join us In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works at 11am Wednesday, November 3rd.

• The event is free and open to the public.

• All attendees must show proof of Covid-19 vaccination.

• Please RSVP to info@bkmetalworks.com

• Space is limited!

• This is an in-person event without a video component, no recordings will be available afterwards.

Learn more about opals here!

Loren Gurche, whose business name is Ancients Natural History, is a Paleontology and Geology student at the University of Kansas. “I developed my love for natural history at a very young age. While visiting my dad at his work at a natural history museum I would spend countless hours exploring the exhibits. My family nurtured my love for nature by taking me to look for fossils, minerals, insects or whatever I happened to be fascinated by at the time. This eventually led me pursuing a career in the natural sciences studying paleontology.” Says Gurche. Today, Gurche continues to go on digs at paleontological sites, something he’s been doing for almost 10 years. In 2013 Gurche started his own business cleaning and preserving minerals and fossils and working on replicas of dinosaur skulls. It was a barter offer to exchange minerals for raw opals that led Gurche to teach himself lapidary cutting and polishing techniques and he’s been creating unique opals ever since.

Please join us for Site Non- Specific, a special event this July by Artist in Residence Naama Levit. The exhibition will take place On the Rooftop at BKMW July 10 & 11 and 17 & 18. The opening reception is July 10 from 6 – 9pm in conjunction with a performance of the works from 7-8pm. This performance is an ongoing activation of works by both Naama Levit and Hilla Shapira, and performed by Æirrinn Ricks.

An artist talk will be In the Gallery at BKMW on July 18 at 2pm. This lecture will also be aired via Zoom and registration is required. Masks are required for all in-person events.

A closer look into techniques of historic and contemporary metalsmithing with Brooklyn Metal Works

Tue, July 13, 2021

6:00 PM – 7:15 PM EDT

Online via the American Folk Art Museum

Join us behind the scenes to discover techniques and traditions of historic and contemporary metalsmithing with Brooklyn Metal Works. Artists, metalsmiths, and studio co-founders Erin S. Daily and Brian Weissman will discuss metalworking methods, share demos, and reflect on historic vanes featured in the museum’s current exhibition American Weathervanes: The Art of the Winds.

Space is limited and advance registration is required. Please consider making a donation when you register to support ongoing virtual programming.

Instructions for joining with a Zoom link and password will be provided by email upon registration confirmation under “Additional Information.” Closed captioning will be provided in English. For questions or to request accessibility accommodations, please email publicprograms@folkartmuseum.org.

Click here to register!

The Artist Talk Was held on September 10th, 2020 at 6pm via Zoom.

Watch it here.

Please join us for an artist talk and opening reception In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works on January 18th. The artist talk will be from 6 – 7 pm followed by an opening reception from 7-9 pm.

Katja Prins will discuss her practice as a jewelry artist, which has evolved over the last 22 years. This lecture will focus in particular on her fascination with the relationship between technology and the human body. Specifically engaged with how technology functions as our support structure, she is both anxious and excited about the simultaneously healing-protective and toxic-destructive properties of technology. This ambivalent fascination provides her with imagery that is reflected through her work.

Join us for an artist talk with Rebekah Laskin. Laskin is a renowned enamelist, jeweler, educator, and New Yorker. She has been a popular instructor at Brooklyn Metal Works for many years. Laskin’s work is available through Aaron Faber and can be found in the collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Sunday, November 24 at 1pm
Brooklyn Metal Works
640 Dean Street
Brooklyn | NY

RSVP through NYCJW.

Join us for an artist talk with Kellie Riggs during NYCJW 2019. Riggs is a curator, writer, editor, and sometimes jeweler. Riggs’ recent curatorial projects include Non-Stick Nostalgia: Y2K Retrofuturism in Contemporary Jewelry at the Museum of Arts and Design and Fotocopy in Venice, NYC, and Munich. 

Saturday, November 23 at 4pm
Brooklyn Metal Works
640 Dean Street
Brooklyn | NY

RSVP through NYCJW.

Please join us for an artist talk by Valerie James in support of her show instants//intervals In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Valerie James’ work conveys her interest in movement, mapping, and mark making. James observes the patterns and pathways that a body takes in its everyday routines and finds parallels within her studio practice. Engraving a sheet of metal is a process of ritual much like the act of walking. By physically embedding her movements into the surfaces James evidences a tangible relationship to the ephemeral. Through jewelry James sees a connection to landscapes that are traversed by a body, conforming to existing pathways, and landscapes that are created by wearing, tracing the curves of our physical existence.

3pm Saturday, August 3, 2019
Brooklyn Metal Works
640 Dean Street | Brooklyn

We are delighted to welcome Reema Keswani of Golconda for a talk on the History of Diamonds.

Saturday, May 11, 1pm
Brooklyn Metal Works
640 Dean Street, Brooklyn

Join us for a foray into the world of antique diamonds. We will trace the history of diamonds through the evolution of the cut, and its impact on jewelry history. Keswani will share her current work on a series of rings inspired by the Renaissance. We will look at the use of antique diamonds in jewelry, and see how the diamond cut evolved in tandem with changing times. What was the Renaissance version of the classic four prong engagement ring? Attend this lecture and find out!

Reema Keswani is the founder of Golconda, a jewelry firm based in New York City. Golconda specializes in fine gems, diamonds and pearls to the trade. In addition to being a gemologist, Keswani designs a line of jewelry, and serves as a industry consultant. She is the author of Shinde Jewels(Assouline, 2004). Keswani is a graduate of the Gemological Institute of America(GIA) with certificates in both gemology and jewelry design. She began her career at Christie’s Auction House and is a past President of the American Society of Jewelry Historians(ASJH).

Please join us for an afternoon talk with visiting artists Georg Dobler and Margit Jäschke on Sunday, April 7, at 3 pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works. Dobler will speak in support of the exhibition Eye of the Beholder opening at Gallery Loupe on April 6. 

“Each artist utilizes structure, surface, texture, and color to create jewels of perfect proportion and gestural grace. They both derive inspiration from undulating natural forms, as well as linear geometric shapes. Dobler sometimes combines twigs, buds, leaves, or beetles cast from actual flora and fauna, while at other times, he utilizes strict rectangular or spherical elements. Jäschke, on the other hand, juxtaposes metal and minerals with inorganic substances like cardboard, epoxy, lead, and plastic, creating jewels that may be voluptuous or spare. Jäschke also makes larger works that display the same aesthetic integrity as her jewelry. Although both Dobler and Jäschke assemble their chosen materials, where Dobler’s compositions rely additionally upon negative space and/or saturated hues, Jäschke often opts for visual disparity within dense pictorial imagery. “

-Gallery Loupe

Please join us for an afternoon with visiting artist Jasmin Matzakow.

Sunday, March 24, at 3pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works. 

Matzakow will be discussing recent work, including her series Ecotechnomagic, which encourages a shift in perspective through the use of stinging nettles, “a material that exists outside of our financial system and still provides something to people.”

Jasmin Matzakow apprenticed to a goldsmith for one year before attending the jewelry program of Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle, where she received her Diploma of Arts in 2010. In 2008, Matzakow co-founded Schmuckkantine, a platform that organized workshops, exhibitions and catalogues. Matzakow received her MFA from Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design in 2015. 

Jasmin Matzakow’s most recent solo exhibition, DURCHBRENNEN, was at Gallery Maurer Zilioli Contemporary Arts during Munich Jewelry Week 2018. Her work can also be found at Gallery Ra and Gallery Platina. Matzakow lives and works in Germany and is assistant professor for jewelry and hollowware at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich for professor Karen Pontoppidan.

Please join us for a talk with visiting artist Timothy Veske-McMahon on Sunday December 2 at 3pm in the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works. 

We’re pleased to have Timothy Veske-McMahon return to BKMW to speak in support of his recent exhibition, Soft Spot, at Gallery Loupe in Montclair, NJ. Veske-McMahon is a good friend of Brooklyn Metal Works. He has been a popular instructor and last spoke here in 2015 when his exhibition mirror milk was In the Gallery.

American artist Timothy Veske-McMahon consistently challenges the body, the heart, and the mind with profound concepts, using jewelry as a vehicle. His newest series, Soft Spot, probes the human dilemma, still further, by addressing memory rather than presence. To Veske-McMahon a soft spot is “a fondness, predilection, and bias. The sore and tender weaknesses that define us. An obscuring blur in vision, memory, or ability.”

– Gallery Loupe

About the Artist

Timothy Veske-McMahon is an Assistant Professor at Rhode Island School of Design, where he is Graduate Program Director for Jewelry and Metalsmithing. He holds a MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2013) and BFA in Sculpture (with honors) from Pratt Institute (2004). In 2013 he was Artist-in-Residence at the Estonian Academy of Arts in the Jewelry and Blacksmithing Department. Veske-McMahon has had solo exhibitions at Brooklyn Metal Works in Brooklyn, New York; Beyond Fashion Gallery in Antwerp, Belgium; and Flat Gallery in Bratislava, Slovakia and participated in group shows in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Munich, Tbilisi, and Beijing in addition to Asheville, North Carolina and Boston, Massachusetts. He has won numerous awards and received several grants; his work is included in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery.

Please join us for a talk with visiting artist Tehri Tolvanen Saturday September 29 at 2pm in the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Known for her use of unusual materials in conjunction with refined technical abilities, Tolvanen’s work often explores the connection/conflict between humans and nature. These recreations of natural forms become jewelry that is familiar and foreign, recognizable landscapes that are wearable and intriguing.

Tolvanen is traveling to NY in support of her exhibition opening at Ornamentum Gallery in Hudson, NY on Sept. 22.

Originally from Finland, Tolvanen currently lives and works in France.

TERHI TOLVANEN & PHILIP SAJET
Not Everything Is Nice
September 22 – October 22, 2018 

Ornamentum Gallery
506 Warren St.    
Hudson, NY 12534  

Please join us for an artist talk with Kerianne Quick In the Gallery September 7 at 7pm.

On Transmutations:

When the Dutch VOC / WIC sailed up the Hudson River to trade with the colonists and native tribes of New Netherlands the ships often carried a ballast of brick. Those that were usable were traded, those that were not – were dumped on the riverbanks. Fast-forward two and a half centuries – the clay deposits of the Mid-Hudson Valley were dug and fired into the bricks that built much of Manhattan as we know it. The evidence of these now defunct brickyards dot the banks of the Hudson River from New Jersey to Albany – piles of bricks, industrial castoffs – native clay fired – but unsuitable for construction. These bricks, foraged out of the Hudson River, are a connection – to the post-industrial landscape and regional histories; but also a way to explore inheritance and transformation. 

The bricks used in the series Transmutations – dating from the early to mid 20th century – were foraged out of the river at Kingston Point and along the Rondout Creek. They were hand-cut and carved, and combined with heirloom pearls, shell, silk, silver, and gold. Through stringing and pearl-knotting techniques, the work draws from both the adornment ideals of the Dutch Golden Age and the ceremonial adornment of the native Lenape Tribes of the Hudson River Valley. Like the act of colonization – Transmutations, mashes together disparate cultures using native materials. Each piece references an uncomfortable combination of European and Native American adornments to create something unique to the Mid-Hudson River Valley. 

– Kerianne Quick

 Through her creative practice, Kerianne Quick aims to tell hidden stories through objects – by considering source, conveyance, and material specificity. Her research is rooted in exploring craft and materiality as cultural phenomena with an emphasis on jewelry and personal adornment. Kerianne has produced several bodies of material specific work considering subject matters that range from communal sheep farming practices in the Orkney Isles to the derelict brickyards of New York’s Hudson Valley. She is currently researching contemporary forms of portable wealth. Kerianne Quick is the Assistant Professor of Jewelry and Metalwork at San Diego State University. Current projects include Craft Desert, a handmade zine exploring the craft landscape co-produced with Adam John Manley.

Kerianne Quick’s work is exhibited widely, most recently at LA FRONTERA: Encounters Along the Border, Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY; Heavy Metal – Women to Watch 2018, National Museum of Women In The Arts, Washington D.C.; and  The Language of Things, Dowse Art Museum, Wellington, New Zealand.

Please join us for an evening with visiting artist Tina Rath. Friday July 13 at 7pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works. Rath will be discussing her creative practice and the development of her newest works The Order of Beauty opening at Sienna Patti. 

The collection, Order of Beauty, consists of nine drawings and nine pieces of jewelry that take inspiration from the Islamic usage of geometry and pattern to elevate the mind.  In the Islamic world, these visually rich forms, most often seen in mosques and spiritually important areas, are intended to remind us of the infinite beauty and expansion of the Universe. For Rath,  the pursuit of beauty feels like a necessary and radical act and the order and structure of the layers provide solace and hope in an increasingly chaotic and unstable world.

Tina Rath received her MFA from the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam and her BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her work has been exhibited internationally including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine and is included in the permanent collections of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC and the Museum of Art and Design in New York, NY as well as in many private collections. Her work can also be seen in numerous magazines and books. Rath’s work has been supported by grants from the Maine Arts Commission. From 2002-2010, Rath was an Associate Professor at Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine and was the Chair of the Department of Metalsmithing and Jewelry from 2006-2009. She has also held faculty appointments at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in 2011 and at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2013.

Please join us for an artist talk with Marina Elenskaya, founder and creative director of Current Obsession. 

In the past five years Current Obsession – Dutch jewellery magazine and platform – challenged and changed the way contemporary artistic jewellery is photographed, presented and experienced. By making connections with the neighbouring creative fields, like fashion, art, design, photography and fiction, CO places contemporary jewellery in the larger context of today’s visual culture. Appreciated for its experimental approach and unconventional style, CO earned a reputation of inspirators and influencers in the field of jewellery.

As Current Obsession’s founder and creative director, Marina Elenskaya will offer a lecture at Brooklyn Metal Works on June 16 at 2pm. This lecture is rooted in a creative rebellion against the age-old ways in which contemporary jewellery is seen, presented, perceived, and photographed.

Marina Elenskaya
Saturday June 16 @ 2pm
Suggest donation $5 students/members $10 general public

Please join us for an artist talk with MJ Tyson in support of her show, The Last Objects, June 10 at 2pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

MJ Tyson’s work is centered on the relationship between people and their possessions, and makes use of unconventional casting, re-use, and record keeping. The Last Objects features works from two main series:  boxes from Inheritance and Dust to Dust, and vessels from Homes. Each work is comprised of personal objects left behind by deceased residents, sited at specific locations, and named accordingly.  Looking into works like 102 Garden Hills Drive gives the viewer a glimpse of this past and offers the opportunity to reconstruct narratives with the remnants. 

Artist Statement

All material carries a past. Whether we acknowledge this lineage or not, it exists. It may be to our advantage — as a way of orienting ourselves in our world — to consider the cycles of creation and destruction intrinsic to the objects that surround us.

Our individual lives are fleeting. We use objects to extend ourselves beyond the boundaries of our bodies and lifespans. We ask these objects to lend us immortality, and we practice collection, conservation, and restoration to that end. In reality, nothing is immune to change. Objects also die.

Embracing the destructive side of creation, MJ Tyson practices the reincarnation of personal objects. The resulting jewelry and vessels hold evidence of their past lives within their new forms. These are messy situations in neat packages, ready to go back into circulation. The last objects will become the next.

MJ Tyson is an artist and jeweler from New Jersey. She received her BFA from the Jewelry + Metalsmithing Department at Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 and returned to earn her MFA in 2017.  Interests in value and material culture have led MJ to the worlds of art appraisal and museum conservation. Research in these outside disciplines informs her studio work.

Please join us for an artist talk with Kyle Patnaude in support of his show, Till the Night, April 22 at 1pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Kyle Patnaude’s work explores the emotive and humanistic coding of objects, specifically a certain “queerness” pertaining to the cultural guise of hypermasculinity. In Till The Night Patnaude works with queer narratives, from inherently counter-culture gay tropes to the Homoromanticism of masculine power within authoritarian regimes. Using historical figures as touch points Patnaude constructs representational characters to develop this dialog throughout the exhibition. 

Included in these investigations are themes of persecution. Says Patnaude “Where much of queer work celebrates the progressive gay narrative, I choose to cultivate from darker regions of my community and culture. For several years Russia and the southern Republic of Chechnya have committed hundreds of acts of abduction, torture, and murder of men suspected of being homosexual. The exhibition features nineteen aluminum photo prints of gay and trans men with their eyes pixelated. The audience determines their identities through implication as victim or criminal, their erasure, or preservation of anonymity—and themselves as either activist or bystander.”

The objects portrayed within Patnaude’s work often examine public elements such as city streets, restrooms, and parks, providing a subtext of “queerness” and double meaning. Till The Night includes three turned aluminum truncheons, the weapon of police and symbol of authority, as tokens of masculine prowess. These pieces are wearable as necklaces as is the rubber ‘sautoir’ made from a recurrent symbol in Patnaude’s work, a manhole cover pattern.  The latter is shown as a garland on Jacksie, a queer skinhead, the Alt-Right caricature of gay fascism in Patnaude’s narrative.

Kyle Patnaude is currently based in Portland, Maine as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Maine College of Art. He completed his BFA degree in Sculpture from Pratt Institute in 2006 and in 2012 received an MFA in Metalsmithing from the University of Wisconsin Madison. Embracing a hybrid practice as a sculptor rooted in the rich traditional methods of metalsmithing, the work unites contemporary sculptural forms with the skill and elegance of precious metalworking.