Metalsmith | Sculptor | Jeweler
I have great news! This year I have been accepted into the annual SNAG Juried Student Exhibition!!!
I was fortunate enough to get two of my pieces accepted this year! Normally this show would be taking place during the yearly SNAG Conference, but due to Covid-19 the conference was canceled and the show was moved to an online platform.
And y’all, this show is amazing! Check out the entire show filled with amazing talent HERE. Seriously, do it now.
Y’all! This is my first time being accepted into an enameling exhibition! My brooch Puffer was selected to be included in this year’s 2019 Online Student Exhibition. I really love this piece, and the Enamelist Society is such an amazing group of extremely talented people.
This exhibition was curated by Arthur Hash and Judy Stone. Check out the whole show HERE.
Bathymetry in Bone, 2020, Cuttlefish bone, copper, acrylic, 4” x 2” x 1”
This is a traveling intercollegiate jewelry + metals exhibition highlighting student and faculty work from ten academic institutions in and around the Midwest.
“A year in the making, this exhibition started by developing the prompt of “micro/MACRO.” Indiana University faculty and students then reached out to various other Metalsmithing + Jewelry Design programs in and around the Midwest and asked if they would like to participate in an intercollegiate show exploring these themes”. - @iumetal
Each school internally juries and selects only five students micro/Macro submissions, and sends them along with the faculty pieces to be exhibited nationally at five various galleries and institutions during the 2020 academic year.
I thought for a long while about what I wanted to make to enter into this show. At the time I had just started working with carving cuttlefish bone in the Fall of 2019 and I was loving the complexity and depth of the material. It was such a soft and brittle material, and yet the intricate lines and pristine white of the bone gave it a topographical look. I also thought about my time on ocean boats while fishing and how we would use radar to find the large schools of fish… which led to the idea of bathymetry (or a map of the ocean floor, similar to topography). This is the ‘official’ artist statement I submitted for this piece:
“This brooch uses cuttlefish bone to build a visual link between microscopic and macroscopic imagery within the same habitat. Specifically, I am fascinated with the cuttlefish anatomy in relationship to its environment. When carved, the unique layers of the soft cuttlefish bone closely resemble contour line maps of the ocean floor. In essence, the structural formation of the bone is mirroring the larger oceanic environment it lives in.” - me
In the end, I was SUPER excited about the outcome of this fun experiment because it combined so many interests of mine: the ocean, cuttlebone, carving, etc. Plus, it was the inspiration for a whole new series of pieces (check out my cuttlebone series page)!
Exhibiting institutions include:
Ball State University, Bowling Green State University, Earlham College, Iniana University, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Kent State University, Missouri State University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee + the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
Exhibition locations and dates:
January 31-February 22 2020, John Waldron Arts Center, Bloomington, IN
April 3 - 22 2020, Exhibition Center, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO
August 26 - September 18, 2020, Ned and Gloria Griner Art Gallery, Ball State University, Muncie, IN
September 28 - October 23, 2020, Leeds Gallery, Earlham College, Richmond, IN
November 2 -December 19, 2020, Furlong Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI
I am so honored to have two pieces accepted into this year's NSAL visual arts Exhibition! Both Punalu’u and Empty Nest were selected, and I found out Empty Nest won the Alma Eikerman Memorial Award during the opening ceremony!
The exhibition will be displayed at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center in downtown Bloomington, IN from January until April 2020. This show features emerging artists from around the country. Go check it out if you are in town!
Human Barnacle, 2019, Copper, wool, magnets
Photo taken by Indiana University of Bloomington Photography department.
I am so excited to be a part of this amazing exhibition put together and created by the MFA and BFAs of Indiana University of Bloomington!
Barnacles in the ocean are typically filter feeders that can be parasitic when attached to a living, moving host. For this piece, I wanted to build whimsical, land-locked barnacles that live by attaching to human hosts. Each barnacle brooch is magnetically attached to the host’s clothes and placed in various areas on the body.
The show will be open Friday, Nov. 1st from 5-8 pm at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center in downtown Bloomington, IN. Below is an excerpt about the exhibition from the IU Metals Instagram page:
Curated by BFA student Jordan Porter, “this collection of ‘brooches,’ created by the Metalsmithing + Jewelry Design students of Indiana University, attempts to alter and further define what falls within the category of ‘brooch’ by utilizing atypical connection points and placements on the body.”
“The brooch is an object with thousands of years of history—its oldest know incarnations dating back to the Bronze Age—and over the centuries its format has remained relatively consistent. The prototypical image of this form of body adornment is that of an ornament affixed to the wearer’s clothing via a pin mechanism somewhere near the breast or shoulder. But how limiting is this archetype? Can these traditional aspects be changed while still ending up with an object of the same name?” —@jjporter96