Product Release Party
Wednesday, December 6th, 6-8pm

Announcing the UrbanGlass Pinch. A handmade salt cellar made in collaboration between artist Anders Rydstedt and Brooklyn Metal Works on our newest piece for our store. Meet the artists behind the product and join us for a tasting event with Brooklyn-based, Hella Bitters!

Learn more about the The UrbanGlass Pinch.

UrbanGlass|ware is located at 647 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY 11217

Please join us for an artist talk with German goldsmith Peter Bauhuis Friday October 27 at 7pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Bauhuis will be speaking about his work in support of his current exhbition Chains and Flowers now on view at Gallery Loupe. Everyone is welcome to join us for this special presentation.

Casting is the method of choice for Bauhuis. The tactile surfaces of his jewelry and vessels are rough and uneven, revealing the ghosts of the molds that gave them life. Bauhuis utilizes silver, gold, copper, and zinc, oftentimes creating alloys, which produce uniquely colored shapes and sketches on the objects’ surface. His works are primal, sensual, and talismanic – inviting touch, fondling. The void is as imperative as the form; brooches and bowls sometimes have holes; the hollow backs of brooches may reveal an inner rhyzomatic web that symbolizes, for Bauhuis, the interconnectedness of ideas, making, and things. – Gallery Loupe

Chains and Flowers
Bauhuis’ playful, ironic take on semantics is evident when he speaks of Chains and Flowers, chained and unchained. Chains can be interpreted to mean fetters or jewelry. When chains and flowers are mentioned in the same breath, the semantic pendulum swings towards fetters for the former, while the latter conjures notions of peace and freedom. The antithetical word pair chained and unchained also suggests moments of bondage and freedom. The title Chains and Flowers, chained and unchained, alludes to a transformational process by which a necklace is born of a plant-like gold structure. To make jewelry of chained oval links, Bauhuis crafted molds whose individual parts resemble orbital trajectories that, taken as a whole, suggest trees and flowers. The unchaining liberates this chain from its existence as a cast orbital plant, transforming it into a necklace. Even so, the chained state is by no means preferable to the unchained condition. As long as the intricate chain forms an orbital sculpture that has the potential of becoming a necklace, it is both a tree and, conceptually, a chain — Heinz Schütz

Read entire text by Munich Art Critic Heinz Schutz, You Are Here: Peter Bauhuis’ Tangible Transformation Lab

Chains and Flowers: Peter Bauhuis
Exhibition on view Oct. 21 – Nov. 18
Gallery Loupe 
50 Church Street
Montclair, NJ 07042

Please join us In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works for an artist talk with Caroline Gore Friday Oct. 20, at 7pm. Gore will be speaking in support of her current exhibition Dual/Duel now on view at The Gallery at Reinstein Ross.

This exhibition will mark the debut of Gore’s new series of wearable objects. This collection of new work will be accompanied by drawings and “collide” a sculptural installation from the acclaimed exhibition, …mercurial silence…

Strong, seductive, and feminine, the jewelry in Dual/Duel is inspired by Gore’s newly adopted city of Philadelphia. “The jewelry presented in Dual/Duel is a visual manifestation of this relationship to site in energetic and physical ways. Temporary attachments to buildings under renovation or construction, clusters and piles of building materials, layers of decay and attempted repair, electrical wiring/conduit and signals such as cones and buoys littering the landscape have informed my drawing and form development.”

At the heart of Gore’s work exists a tension or a “tug of war”, between materials and forms. Her visual language oscillates between what has been exposed and what remains unsaid, the hardness of jet and hematite and the softness of leather and suede. Her jewelry, according to Gore, “elicits an obstructed, coordinated or reflective view, one that momentarily shifts with the movement of the body and ultimately reveals a glimmering spark or connection.”

–The Gallery at Reinstein/Ross

Caroline Gore’s studio practice is deeply rooted in jewelry and metalsmithing processes – her work varies in media, scale and implementation ranging from jewelry to sculptural installations, photography and large-scale drawing. She maintains a studio in northeast Philadelphia at the Crane Arts Building, and joined the faculty at The University of the Arts in 2014 as an Associate Professor of Craft & Material Studies. Gore holds a BFA in Crafts with a jewelry focus from Virginia Commonwealth University and her MFA in Metal Design from East Carolina University. Gore is currently represented by Gallery Loupe in Montclair, New Jersey. Her work can be found in the permanent collection of The Museum of Fine Arts – Houston, Racine Art Museum, and numerous private collections.

Dual/Duel: Caroline Gore
On view September 7- November 19, 2017 
The Gallery at Reinstein/Ross
30 Gansevoort Street New York, NY, 10014

Please join us for the Icons at Play Artist Talk with Leslie Boyd followed by a discussion with Co-curators Kendra Pariseault and Manuela Jimenez on October 8, 1pm.

This show, curated by Manuela Jimenez and Kendra Pariseault, reinterprets cultural symbols and icons through the use of material, scale, wearability, and interaction. These pieces challenge and “play” with the viewer’s understanding of what symbols have come to represent in our everyday lives. Interpreted from a different viewpoint and providing the viewer/wearer a new lens to experience emblems, these works challenge our preconditioned definition of what an icon can represent. 

Icons at Play, featuring work by artists Jisoo Lee, Emiko Oye, Ho’o Hee, Leslie Boyd, Edgar Mosa, Emily Cobb, Philipp Spillmann, Lauren Kalman, Tessa Kennedy, Natasha Morris, Akiko Kurihara, Alexandra Darby, Virginia Jakim, Sharon Massey, and Mallory Weston. 

Pop-up shop featuring Ruta Reifen, Alex Ju, Sasha Nixon and more!

Join us for a talk by Doris Betz in the gallery at BKMW, Sunday Sept. 17, 3 pm.

Betz is traveling to the US from Germany for her solo exhibition A Fine Line, comprised of  jewelry and drawings, at Gallery Loupe.

Betz’s organic oeuvre is informed by vegetation – flowers, fruits, plants, and pods. Clusters of tiny blackened silver, quartz or ceramic beads recall seeds in several of her elongated pendants; small buds festoon a necklace of tombac, silver, and gold. Moths and butterflies appear to have flown onto stick pins, their wings formed from cast off bits of silver that Betz had formerly rejected but infused with new life by squeezing them through a press.

Billowing lines underpin all of Betz’s work. Whether derived from hanging tendrils, interlacing foliage or undulating scrolls, the graceful rhythm of the arabesque permeates all she makes. Her jewelry may, in fact, be viewed as drawings rendered in three dimensions – lines forged from thin wire or narrow ribbons of silver – often chemically patinated or colored with lacquer. Minute metal spirals form loops, nests, and knots that result in curvilinear bracelets and necklaces; calligraphic twists of silver form rings. Though they possess a strong theoretical foundation, Betz’s jewels, nonetheless, adorn the body with élan.

– Gallery Loupe

 A FINE LINE: Doris Betz can be viewed at Gallery Loupe, 50 Church Street, Montclair, New Jersey from September 16 – October 14, 2017. An Artist’s reception will be held on Sat. Sept. 16, 6-8pm.

Please join us for Artist Lectures with Annika Pettersson and Adam Grinovich July 27 at 7pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Both Annika and Adam will be giving independent lectures on their own artistic practices, and discussing their collaborative projects as a segue from one lecture to another.  During their visit Adam and Annika will also be teaching the workshop BLING?RING at Brooklyn Metal Works July 29 & 30. Both artists currently live and work in Stockholm, Sweden.

Annika Pettersson was born in Karlskrona, Sweden in 1981. She works predominantly in the field of contemporary jewelry.

Through her work Pettersson explores traditional jewelry though a reinterpretation of classical shapes. Her work is distorted and developed though intimate material knowledge. Pettersson’s work embodies a sublime touch and the transcendent nature of jewelry.

Annika Pettersson is a founding member of the group A5, an artistic collaborative focused on adornment, the body, and jewelry in cultural contexts. She completed her MFA with distinction at Konstfack University in Stockholm, Sweden 2009. Pettersson has participated in numerous group exhibitions on an international scale.

Adam Grinovich was born in Boston Massachusetts USA and received his BFA from Massachusetts College of Art in the Jewelry and Metalsmithing program. After working in the CAD/CAM industry for 2 years he continued his studies, receiving an MFA in jewelry from Konstfack University in Stockholm Sweden.

Grinovich’s career in jewelry is punctuated by travel and exchange. He has assisted in the studios of prominent artists and designers in Switzerland, and Holland. He has an extensive list of international exhibitions, most recently in the Schmuck 2017 international jewelry exhibition in Munich, Germany.

The work of Adam Grinovich deals with the themes of glamour, perceived value, technology, and adornment. His work crystallizes moments into microcosms, investigates the sublime qualities of craft, and collects simple gestures into complex expressions.

Please join us In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works for a lecture with visiting artist Carina Shoshtary July 7 at 7pm.

Shoshtary is traveling in support of her solo exhibition “In The Beginning There Was Red” opening at Sienna Gallery on July 1st.

One of contemporary jewelry’s rising stars, Carina Shoshtary‘s jewelry can be characterized as emotional, imaginative and innovative. Shoshtary describes herself as a kind of modern hunter-gatherer as she finds the materials for her artworks in her immediate surroundings. Her choice of materials is often unusual—colorful graffiti from heavily sprayed walls,driftwood from a river, and almond shells from the breakfast table. All her materials have had a previous life, a former use and meaning. With scientific curiosity and sensitive intuition, Shoshtary reveals the potential of these materials.

This curiosity extends to her ongoing interest in color and its psychological and emotional effects. This is exemplified in her most recent body of work, In The Beginning There Was Red. In this series she uses our instinctual understanding of color as a device to communicate an archetypal fable of strength, power and primal desire. In a recent Vogue Italia, Paola Aurucci responds to Shoshtary’s propensity for narrative ‘They are alien jewels in a world that is somewhere between the real and the imaginary, able to make us reflect on the strange journey objects take, inanimate objects with a lot of sentimental value, able to tell us a story, bring up emotions and especially able to unlock memories.‘

Carina Shoshtary was born in 1979 in Augsburg, Germany, and is of German and Iranian descent. She trained as a goldsmith in Neugablonz, Germany, from 2001 to 2004 and studied jewelry under Professor Otto Künzli at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, from 2006 to 2012. Shoshtary has exhibited internationally in galleries and museums including the Museum of Applied Arts, Frankfurt, Germany, the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany, Cheongju International Craft Biennale 2013, Cheongju, Republic of Korea and the Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin, England. Her work is in the public collections of the Röhsska Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden, and the International Design Museum, Munich, Germany. In 2012 she was awarded the Bavarian State Prize for Emerging Designers and the Upper Bavarian Prize for Applied Arts. She was a finalist for the sponsorship award of the city of Munich in 2013 and the Art Jewelry Forum Artist Award in 2016. Shoshtary has also lectured internationally about her work and her online project, Karma Chroma. This is Carina’s second solo exhibition at Sienna Patti.

– Sienna Patti Contemporary

Artist Reception  July 1 4-6 pm at Sienna Patti Contemporary
Exhibition on view through July 24, 2017 
Lecture   Friday, July 7 at 7pm at Brooklyn Metal Works

AJF recently posted an interview with Carina Shoshtary in honor of being chosen as a 2017 Susan Beech Mid-Career Artist Grant Finalist.

Please join us for a lecture and book signing with author Anna Tabakhova on June 5 at 7 pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works. Anna will be discussing the work that went into her recently published book Clasps | 4,000 Years of Fasteners in Jewellery. Signed copies will be available for purchase at the event.

At the crossroads of art book, historical research and technical manual, a book designed as a jewellery walk through time and space. From the Early Bronze Age to Fine Jewellery, 4,700 years surveyed, 32 historians consulted, 22 museums involved; 76 contributors, jewellers, artists and designers from 30 countries. Four millennia of inventiveness in jewellery are unveiled and illustrated with unpublished photographs; the operation of an ancient Egyptian clasp and the origin of the box clasp are finally revealed.

A book of 288 pages, 356 color photos, completed with a glossary of 28 original illustrations.

Anna Tabakhova is a jeweller-designer, born and working in Paris. Her approach is both that of a jeweller at her bench and that of a collector who likes to share her discoveries. She carried out her research starting from her own jewel collection – focused on interchangeable clasps – and documented this history of clasps through museums and private collections, meeting jewellers and designers from all over the world to make this book possible. She has exhibited at the Grand Palais in Paris a clasp that she designed and developed, inspired by the jewellery worn by Egyptian Princess Sat-Hathor-Yunet nearly 4,000 years ago.

Clasps | 4,000 Years of Fasteners in Jewellery, by Anna Tabakhova

The National gallery of Art in Washington said :

It is truly spectacular: rigorously academic on the one hand, and stunningly beautiful and entertaining on the other. Very, very well done.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London said :

Beautifully produced, and very carefully structured. You have done both makers and historians a huge service. The glossary will be extraordinarily useful. It’s a triumph.

Brooklyn Metal Works is pleased to present lectures by David Hardcastle & Samuel Guillén in support of Ping-Pong In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works on Friday April 28 at 7 pm.

The public is invited to view this one-of-a-kind contemporary art jewelry exhibition. The works featured are the results of a jewelry dialogue and exchange between two artists. Utilizing the process of jewelry making to initiate a conversation, David Hardcastle and Samuel Guillén exchanged a piece of jewelry made by each and given to the other to spark a response that takes the form of another, new piece of jewelry. 

Beginning in 2015 the first two pieces, Ping #1, were exchanged, resulting in two new pieces, Pong #1. Continuing through 2017 this project consists of 5 iterations, or conversations, for a total of 20 pieces on view. Each Ping-Pong grouping is the exploration of process in terms of aesthetic achievements, discoveries, and technical specificity.

Statement from the artists:

Ping-Pong is a conversation, a jewelers’ interlocution. Each piece has a purpose within a dialogue in which each jeweler, while keeping his own investigations and obsessions, his own style and aesthetics, assimilates the other jeweler’s experience in a constantly growing and enriching process.
Ping-Pong is meant to result in a system of jewels, distinctively personal and at the same time grounded in a relational and generous creative exchange.

Both David Hardcastle & Samuel Guillén are resident artists at Brooklyn Metal Works and their creative process on this project exemplifies the community that can be fostered in collaborative work environments. Both artists were aware of, and impressed by, the other’s work before coming to BKMW. The idea for Ping-Pong grew out of their mutual interests and was facilitated by their close proximity in the studio and ongoing friendship. 

The opening reception for Ping-Pong is on Saturday April 8th from 7-9 pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works, and will be on view through May 21, 2017.

Please join us for an artist talk with Lynn Batchelder on Sunday April 23 at 3pm In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Batchelder will be giving a lecture about her work in support of her current solo exhibition “Nonlinear: New Work by Lynn Batchelder” featuring engraved prints, drawings, and jewelry at The Gallery at Reinstein|Ross.

The two-dimensional and the three-dimensional carry equal weight in artist Lynn Batchelder’s practice. Batchelder’s new work explores the processes and tools that are shared by printmakers and jewelers. Nonlinear will feature drawings, prints, and four mini-series of jewelry pieces each inspired by modes of drawing expressed through a wide range of techniques.

Batchelder says that her work is “rooted in the drawing process”, whether she is etching lines on steel or applying conductive paint with a brush onto wax prior to electroforming it. She sees similarities between the way a jeweler’s saw makes delicate incisions on a piece of steel and a burin, a small chisel-like tool, can be used to engrave the lines on a plate.

Batchelder explains that the term Nonlinear refers to her work, her thinking and her process. Her work “which is linear although not in the pure sense – as with everything made by hand, there are slight imperfections and lines are not always perfectly straight”, and her “nonlinear thinking – working more intuitively through a variety of processes and formats toward more complex discovery and possibility.”

The Gallery at Reinstein|Ross

Lynn Batchelder is a contemporary jeweler and educator residing in New York’s Hudson Valley where she is currently Assistant Professor of Art in the Metal Program at SUNY New Paltz. She is the recipient of the 2016 Art Jewelry Forum Artist Award and has exhibited her work in the prestigious Talente design exhibition at the International Trades Fair in Munich, and at SOFA Chicago. She has recently completed residencies at Women’s Studio Workshop, Penland School of Crafts (winter residency), and a year-long residency at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts.

Nonlinear is currently on view at The Gallery at Reinstein|Ross through April 28th.

Please join us for an artist talk with Steven Gordon Holman and Zachery Lechtenberg In the Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works on April 2 at 3pm.  

This talk is in support of the upcoming exhibition “The Body Electric”  at Gallery Loupe featuring the work of Matt Lambert, Steven Gordon Holman, and Zachery Lechtenberg, opening on April 1.  Holman and Lechtenberg will be speaking about their work in conversation with studio jeweler and writer Bruce Metcalf.

Holman utilizes both actual animal skulls and antlers, as well as carved potatoes and woven synthetic tape, to fabricate trophy-like fetish necklaces and brooches triggered by childhood memories of his upbringing in Utah’s Western Desert, specifically the creation myths of the region’s indigenous peoples and legends passed down from Norse settlers, mixed with personal family lore and markers from urban culture. Holman’s iconography rests in contemporary hunting culture, talismans, amulets, and objects of remembrance.

Popular culture is the backbone of Lechtenberg’s narrative, based in contemporary cartoon imagery and realized through the exacting technique of champlevé. His colorfully eccentric cast of characters populate pendants, brooches, necklaces, and laser-engraved enamel plates, with each jewel sporting an incised message on the reverse and housed in a dedicated box topped by a hand painted illustration. Lechtenberg channels animator Matt Groening’s The Simpsons, pop imagery by artist/designer KAWS, and painter Takashi Murakami’s figurative synthesis of “high” and “low” art, along with visual imagery in the music videos of hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan.

– Gallery Loupe

Lechtenberg received a BFA from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville and MFA from East Carolina University. Holman received a MFA from SUNY New Paltz and BA in Architectural Studies and Visual Arts (with honors) from Brown University.

The Body Electric will run from April 1-22 at Gallery Loupe, 50 Church Street, Montclair, NJ 07042. An opening reception will be held Saturday April 1, 6-8pm.

Please join us for a talk with visiting artist Aurélie Guillaume on Friday evening March 31st at 7 pm In The Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.

Aurélie Guillaume is a French-Canadian jeweller, enamellist and illustrator from Montréal. Most recently Aurélie’s work was exhibited at The Gallery at Reinstein|Ross in the solo show “Mauricette, The Giants, and Other Frivolous Tales: The Jewelry of Mlle Guillaume” this past February. Aurélie will be returning to New York this spring to take part in the annual Museum of Arts and Design’s jewelry exhibition and sale  LOOT 2017. Aurélie was also recently featured in “Tooning into Enamel | Zachery Lectenberg and Aurélie Guillaume” an article by Toni Greenbaum for Metalsmith magazine.

My work celebrates the history of enamelling and its longstanding tradition of storytelling dating back most notably to the Byzantine era, where enamelling was used to depict religious icons.  Using these traditional techniques, my work revives the medium through a contemporary context fuelled by street art, comics, pop art and counter culture. Employing a combination of jewellery techniques and illustration, my work mixes high and low art, while transporting viewers into a world more colourful and dreamlike than our own. Through the process of enamelling, my illustrations transcend the two-dimensional realm of paper and are given new life in the physical world as wearable objects. With this work, I am reviving the traditions of enamelling, as well as bringing sculpture and illustration into the context of contemporary jewellery.

Aurélie Guillaume

After completing her diploma at École de Joaillerie de Montréal, Aurélie went on to pursue her BFA at NSCAD University where she majored in jewellery design and metalsmithing. Upon graduating, her work was selected as the winner of L.A. Pai Gallery’s 12th National student jewellery competition in Canada and was shortlisted for the BKV Prize in Germany. Aurélie’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally throughout North America and Europe and has recently been acquired by the Enamel Arts Foundation in Los Angeles, California, as part of their permanent collection. She is now residing and working in Chicago at the Lillstreet Art Center as the artist in residence until the end of the summer 2017.

Findings | Artist Talk with Manon van Kouswijk | January 8, 2017 @ 4 pm

The word ‘findings’ has multiple meanings. It is commonly used to describe the outcome of research, investigation or a discovery however it also refers to the small tools and various materials used by an artisan: a jeweller’s findings.

Manon van Kouswijk is a Dutch artist and contemporary jeweller who lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. She studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where she held the position of Head of the Jewellery Department before relocating to Australia in 2010. Her working methodology is based on exploring and translating archetypal jewellery forms and motifs through a range of materials and processes. An integral aspect of her practice is the framing and contextualising of her work through the making of exhibitions and artist publications often in collaboration with other practitioners. Her most recent publication is “Findings’, published in Melbourne in 2015.

Her work is exhibited in galleries and museums and is part of private and public collections worldwide including: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; ABN-AMRO Art Collection, The Netherlands; Røsska Museet, Gøteborg, Sweden; FNAC, Paris, France; NGV, Melbourne, Australia; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia; Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Marseille, France; NGA, Canberra, Australia; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK.

In this lecture she will present an overview of her practice, exhibitions and publications and talk about the ideas that underpin her work. Follow this link to read a recent AJF interview with Manon van Kouswijk.

Please join us for our first artist lecture of the New Year! January 8 at 4 pm In The Gallery at Brooklyn Metal Works.