Makers 2017 & BKMW Trunk Show

Kate Taylor Design
Lucia Pearl
Dan-yell
Vershali Jain Jewelry
Samuel Guillén
Kristi Sword Jewelry
designs by ABREU
Beloved Little Lamb
Eve Singer
Daniell Hudson
FLRNZ
David Hardcastle
Rebecca Pinto
Wyna Liu
KK Wearable Sculpture
Meiyi Yang
Sena Huh

Our annual winter event is our biggest celebration of the year! Come out and enjoy an evening filled with friends, food, and art. Meet the artists that make BKMW the exciting community it is and peruse the jewelry and artwork that gets made here. The trunk show will have jewelry perfect for gift giving this holiday season, or a well deserved gift for yourself. 

We are looking forward to celebrating with you!

Icons at Play

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
Mallory Weston

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

Curated by Manuela Jimenez and Kendra Pariseault. 

This show 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.

Honeycrisp | Amelia Toelke

Honeycrisp is a collection of works by Amelia Toelke that continues to explore the various paths of human communication. This show is comprised of several of Toelke’s larger wall works and installation pieces that examines the iconography of signage. Pow Kapow, Compass, and Sparkle utilize similar formal qualities in surface and material while stylistically shifting in context. These pieces resonate with Toleke’s newer works on paper as another way to articulate her conceptual investigations.

In two of her most recent series Gem Face and High Five, Toelke playfully examines the succinctness of emojis and their ability to perform more accurately than language.  Gem Face is a series of gouache paintings on paper depicting images of jewelry. These paintings continue Toelke’s exploration of jewelry and its deep connection with people. By using a traditional gouache painting technique, a common  approach for jewelry designer’s renderings, she sheds light on the strong connection between people and their jewelry, the jewelry wearer and their admirers, and even the designer and the maker.

High Five is a series of  works using faux gold leaf on paper, that is cut and paste into a common symbol of communication—the high-five emoji —to build captivating mosaics that play with negative space. These abstractions of the original symbol draw you in with their familiar forms and tease your mind with their intricate overlaps, intersections, and connections.

“Emojis are wonderful things. Sitting quietly at our fingertips, they express that which cannot be said in words alone. They add emotion, humor, and sometimes-cryptic meaning to our flat, digital words. Through visually representing an action or physical expression, they capture something incommunicable no matter how many words, exclamations, question marks, or dot, dot, dots we type.”

- Amelia Toelke

Born in Chatham New York in 1983, Amelia Toelke’s work is a combination of sculpture and installation touching on the intersection of the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional.Toelke’s interest in collaboration and public art guides much of her practice, with recent projects for the Wisconsin Percent for Art Program, the city of Evansville, Indiana and a 2016 site specific work in The Republic of Georgia’s Artisterium project. During the summer of 2015 Toelke was selected as an artist in residence at Lanzhou City University in Lanzhou, China, and in 2016 she was an artist in residence at the Brush Creek Center for the Arts in Saratoga, Wyoming. With a BFA in metals from the State University of New York at New Paltz and an MFA in visual art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Toelke has exhibited nationally and internationally.

TAKEN | RISD Jewelry + Metalsmithing Graduates

The ring is taken. She is taken with the ring. The ring is her. 
The process is taken. She is taken with the process. The process is her. 
The lesson is taken. She is taken with the lesson. The lesson is her. 
The object is taken. She is taken with the object. The object is her. 
The world is taken. She is taken with the world. The world is her. 
The nature is taken. She is taken with the nature. The nature is her. 
The material is taken. She is taken with the material. The material is her. 
The journey is taken. She is taken with the journey. The journey is her. 
The love is taken. She is taken with the love. The love is her. 
The hate is taken. She is taken with the hate. The hate is her. 
The machine is taken. She is taken with the machine. The machine is her. 
The self is taken. She is taken with the self. The self is her. 
The value is taken. She is taken with the value. The value is her. 
The influence is taken. She is taken with the influence. The influence is her. 
The gem is taken. She is taken with the gem. The gem is her. 
The work is taken. She is taken with the work. The work is her.   

TAKEN, which highlights the immersive processes that are the origins of this jewelry work. Featuring the work of 7 artists from the RISD Jewelry + Metalsmithing graduate department.

Iris Han has taken traditional stone setting in a revolutionary direction. She introduces an unconventional system of value that considers vulnerability, color diversity, and openness.

Heesu Kim considers how love and hate are unconsciously taken. In nature Heesu finds examples of resilience, and learns lessons about slowing down and connecting with her surroundings. Her work pays tribute to this force.

Chubai Liu is (re)defining and questioning the existence of the self through physical works made by the self. She considers ways the human and mechanical have taken over each and become hybridized.

Molly Palecek brings together methods and motifs taken from different fields. In her work, sacred architecture, algorithms from digital fabrication, and jewelry forms and techniques intermingle, growing into and out of each other.

Neta Ron makes as a process of healing and recharging. When Neta is taken with her process, when she stops monitoring her making through the exterior world, she is freed from worry; the work comes through her fingers and is resolved.

Yue Tan is taken with the texture and quality of the woods, where the scene varies from each difference angle. She builds connections between yarn and wood, using contrasting materials to share the atmosphere of the forest.

MJ Tyson works with objects taken from their roles in the world. She destroys and reworks the captured objects into transmissions that tell of multiple generations.

Ping-Pong | David Hardcastle & Samuel Guillén

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.

“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.”

- David Hardcastle & Samuel Guillén

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. 

Highlights | Edgar Mosa

Brooklyn Metal Works is please to present an exhibition of works by artist Edgar Mosa. Highlights will bring together pieces from the past 10 years that represent milestones in the making. Some pieces have been previously exhibited, others have never been seen.

Edgar Mosa is an artist born in Lisbon, Portugal where he was trained as a goldsmith at the age of 14.
His work is grounded in material and method while exploring temporal symbolism, his environment, and fashion. His studio in New York City has become a secret hideout for underground stars, designers and artists of all types. All the works are handmade and produced by Edgar Mosa himself. He holds a Bachelor of Design from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in The Netherlands and a Master of Fine Art from Cranbrook Academy of Art in the United States.

Makers 2016

Alyn Evans
Andrea Shiman
Brian Weissman
Cara Silverman
Daniell Hudson
Danyell Rascoe
David Hardcastle
Eve Singer
Fannie Ip
Karen Hancock
Kristi Sword
Meiyi Yang
Michal Lando
Samuel Guillen
Alessandro Morosani
Sena Huh
Viv Ellis
William Yang
Wyna Liu

This yearly event is our way to show off the work of the talented artists who work here at BKMW and the opening party is our way to celebrate this fantastic community in a fun, festive way. We are pleased to have the work of over 17 BKMW members on view. These pieces range from one-of-a-kind art jewelry, objects, watches, and drawings to smartly designed fine jewelry and multiples.

Forget Them

Work from 33 artists and collectives on view for BKMW’s 4th annual juried exhibition.

Ancient Truth Investigators
Andy Lowrie
Åsa Elmstam
Black Adept
Carina Shoshtary
Danielle Embry
Elisabeth Scheller
Emily Blodgett-Panos
Emily Culver
Emily Grego
Erica Bello
Holland Houdek
Jaesung Lee
Julia Walter
Karen Vanmol
Lauren Kalman
Lissy Selvius
Maggie Willsey
Marion Delarue
Matt Lambert
Maureen Duffy
Melissa Cameron & Jill Hermans
Mi-Sook Hur
Nadine Simone Kuffner
Nicole Polentas
Rhea Vedro
Rob McKirdie
RIMA
Sharon Massey
Sin-Titulo
Sofia Bjorkman
Vivienne Varay
WALKA Studio

Juried by Steven Gordon Holman, Brian Weissman, Erin S. Daily

Talismans, amulets, shrines, and charms that have been created to wear, carry, or look upon. These objects convey a specific power, intend to protect against superstition, or commemorate.

This exhibition is inspired by a quote from the only surviving poem by Lucretius (c. 99 – c. 55 BCE) – On the Nature of Things.

“There are no angels, demons, or ghosts. Immaterial spirits of any kind do not exist….Forget them.”

Yet it seems that despite our best efforts, we can’t. This show examines humankind’s perennial struggle between personal autonomy and spiritual guidance, and how these ideas manifest and inspire the fabrication of physical objects.

All cultures throughout the ages have taken abstract concepts like gods, demons, imps, and spirits and translated them into material items that are often housed in esteemed spaces. Shrines that celebrate, amulets that protect, and totems that commemorate these enduring theologies and phenomenons. Perhaps the most resilient form of piety, the belief that objects imbued with spiritual reverence might protect or reward the owner withstands the test of time, often despite our better judgment.

“There are no angels, demons, or ghosts. Immaterial spirits of any kind do not exist. The creatures with which the Greek and Roman imagination populated the world—Fates, harpies, demons, genii, nymphs, satyrs, dryads, celestial messengers, and the spirits of the dead—are entirely unreal. Forget them.”

– Lucretius