Just in time for Mother’s Day shopping, the Walker Art Center presents another installment of its popular
Local Artist Jewelry Mart
from 11 am–5 pm Saturday, May 8, in Cargill Lounge. This special event, featuring jewelry artists and designers from the Twin Cities area, showcases original works in a variety of materials from Heinz Brummel, Yen Chee, Gia Gifford, Karin Jacobson, Britta Kauppila, Tia Keobounpheng, Ann Lambrecht, Marisa Martinez, Ruth Mikos, Amy Mueller, Lauren Nicole, Danny Saathoff, Jill Smith, Molly Spilane, and Helen Wang, and introduces Kristin Berwald and Martine Lizama.
Chocolate Tasting
Enjoy chocolate tastings with a personal appearance by Minneapolis’ B. T. McElrath from 11 am to 3 pm, and visit the Walker Shop for gifts for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduations, weddings, and more.
Walker members save 10 percent on their purchases. All proceeds support the Walker’s artistic and educational programs.
FEATURED ARTISTS
Introducing Kristin Berwald, Minneapolis
Materials: found objects, watch gears, and recycled components
Kristin Berwald has a formal art background, but jewelry has become her most satisfying art form because it is immediate, expressive, and tangible. She describes the style of her Bionic Unicorn jewelry line as Steampunk. Her landscapes of watch gears, flowers, and magical creatures are statements of bio-mechanic harmony, of plants and nature wound with machines. Her environmentally friendly one-of-a-kind pieces incorporate found objects and recycled components.
Heinz Brummel, Minneapolis
Materials: sterling silver, enameled glass, carnelian, jade, onyx and other semi-precious stones
Without formal training, Heinz Brummel chose self-expression and livelihood as a metal smith and enamelist. Dismissing the sometimes implied barrier between artist and craftsman, he seeks artistic synthesis by blending fine craftsmanship with the formal requirements of fine art. Brummel’s metalwork serves as the framework upon which enamel, stones, and found objects find their place in compositions of validity, integrity, and beauty. His kindred spirits are Paul Klee, Alexander Calder, and the Bauhaus.
Yen-Ying Chee (Yen Chee Design), Minneapolis
Materials: sterling silver, quartz
Yen-Ying Chee has been immersed in art her entire life. As the daughter of a world-renowned watercolor artist, she traveled to many art galleries as a young girl, always drawn to the work of jewelry designers. Her work as an interior designer for nearly a decade at local architecture firms has been a major influence on the “miniature sculptures” she creates. Each clean, yet elegant design has a unique story and source of inspiration ranging from the hand-carved moldings of Italy’s Uffizi Museum to her grandmother’s exotic gardens in Malaysia. Most recently, she has been working with the play of positive and negative space in carving her designs, which have been influenced by the shadows of natural light that flood her studio each morning.
Gia Gifford, Minneapolis
Materials: sterling silver, vintage and found objects
Gia Gifford creates jewelry inspired by modern art and design, elements found in nature, and architecture. Creating jewelry that simple in design and free of complication is one of the most rewarding, yet challenging aspects of making jewelry for the artist. Her loves of both natural and urban landscapes also compel her to create much of her work. She hopes to create jewelry that is unique, unconventional, and playful.
Gifford earned degrees in fine art and art history at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. College studies brought her to Florence, Italy, where she lived and studied art and art history in 2000. She earned her Master’s degree in art education in 2005. She began working with metal as a full time pursuit in 2008.
Karin Jacobson, Minneapolis
Materials: sterling silver, topaz, white quartz, and other lab-grown gems
Play is a central theme in Karin Jacobson’s futuristic and fun work, which is inspired by science fiction, comic books, mechanical toys, and Japanese animation. She likes pieces that make a bold statement so she uses big shapes, clean lines, and bright colors. Jacobson’s ultimate goal is to create jewelry that is sculptural as well as functional. Using materials such as sterling and lab-grown or less expensive gems, she focuses on form and affordable, innovative designs.
Britta Kauppila, Minneapolis
Materials: sterling silver, stones, gold, and pearls
Britta Kauppila hand forms each piece of jewelry she makes, manipulating and shaping metal into pieces that are extremely soft and delicate, but substantial. Often inspired by nature, she combines form, line, and texture to produce movement, rhythm, and harmony and is drawn to the contradiction of the hard immovable structure that metal offers to create her unique jewelry line.
Tia Keobounpheng (Silver Cocoon), Minneapolis
Materials: wood, acrylic, sterling silver
Fascinated with “things” and how they are made, Tia Keobounpheng incorporates architectural design to create pieces made from wood, acrylic, and metal. Color, texture, repetition, and light are important considerations in her work whose forms and compositions respond to the natural and man-made world around her. Practicality and simplicity transcend her work in any medium or scale.
Ann Lambrecht, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Materials: precious metals, gemstones, beads, found objects
Intricately blending precious metals, gemstones, and talismans, Lambrecht’s jewelry designs are inspired by her travels to ancient civilizations and exotic cultures. This international search takes her to giant markets, antique shops, archaeologists, small local markets, the house belonging to the uncle of the taxi driver, big gem dealers in high-rise towers, and even old men selling their wares on a sidewalk. Buying these things takes her to parts of towns neither she nor other travelers would ever have explored. It grants her the pleasure to meet the most incredible people, like her poker-playing friend from Afghanistan who sells the most wonderful pieces of old jewelry or the Balinese woman who runs her silver-smith business like she runs her family. She brings these magical little treasures back home and turns them into jewelry.
Introducing Martine Lizama, Minneapolis
Materials: natural stones, bone, brass, wood, and mica
Martine Lizama is an up and coming jewelry designer by day and local DJ by night. Her pieces challenge the notion of accessories as details to an outfit. She believes that jewelry should be a reflection of the inner strength that one possesses. Lizama’s choice of materials that carry weight result in extra-large statement pieces that are extremely playful.
Marisa Martinez (Meztiza Designs), St. Paul
Materials: handmade glass beads, sterling and fine silver, semi-precious stones, ancient findings
Marisa Martinez works with a wide variety of materials to create collages of wearable art. To create beads from Moretti glass, she uses a mini cc torch followed by a kiln to anneal and fuse the glass. She also makes and forges many of her silver pieces, pendants, and rings. She believes, as her ancestors did, that many stones have healing and protective qualities. Designing unique pieces of jewelry allows her to combine her love for color, cultural history, and artmaking.
Ruth Mikos, St. Paul
Materials: resin, photos, fabric, paper, sterling silver
Mikos began experimenting with her Charms jewelry line in 2003 as a way to combine her love of photography and fine art with something fun and funky that she could wear—something that would do more than simply hang on a wall waiting for an audience. “What I want for each wearer or admirer is to crack a smile when they see a piece. When I see that look on their face, it tells me that they have been transported somewhere else to a simpler time. That’s when I know I’ve made a difference. That’s why I do this.” Each charm is hand-cast resin, encasing Mikos’ original photographs, fabric, phrase, and/or news headlines.
Amy Mueller, Minneapolis
Materials: faux moss, concrete, sterling silver plating
Amy Mueller has an obsession with old photographs and a love for creating wearables. After training in jewelry production more than 10 years ago, she soon ventured into creating her own designs. Recently relocating from the Pacific Northwest, Mueller finds inspiration from nature for her Adorn jewelry line, which incorporates the primordial mossy fauna she brought with her. Her mossy rings and necklaces are inspired by the landscape of the grass circles that dot the Walker’s Hennepin Plaza.
Lauren Nicole, Minneapolis
Materials: sterling silver, gemstones, acrylic, stainless steel, and organic elements
Lauren Nicole is a graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. A graphic designer, she has been making jewelry for the past five years. Her current collection embraces an old world meets new flavor by combining a unique media mix with a touch of modernism and new technology. Nicole’s collection of laser-cut jewelry features designs inspired by her love of art history, typography, nature, and urban street culture. Handcrafted with stainless steel, acrylic, and fine gemstones, her work conveys the juxtaposition of her fine arts education and urban aesthetic. Many of her pieces are limited editions and appeal to women of all ages who are looking for something that’s both edgy and elegant.
Danny Saathoff, Robbinsdale
Materials: found objects, wood, a variety of metals
Danny Saathoff spends hours going through discarded bits of junk to figure out what it has to say or communicate. He is inspired by the process of organizing and building individual elements not originally intended to work together. He thrives on the idea that he can tell a story by combining these disparate components. While the basic concepts that he works with may be simple, the histories of each individual artifact create a richness and depth that he has never been able to achieve through traditional artmaking techniques. Saathoff finds beauty in aged patinas and rusted metal, most of which were destined for the scrap heap.
Jill Smith, Minneapolis
Materials: fine and sterling silver, semi-precious stones, leather
Jill spent the first 18 years of her career working in interior design and architecture before turning to jewelry design full-time in 2003. Much of her work is influenced by her experiences in the architectural field evidenced by her use of neutral color palettes, geometric shapes, and natural stones. Some of her work also possesses an industrial quality with the use of darkened silver, rigid lines, and details reminiscent of metal fasteners. This juxtaposition between refined lines (the silver) and the rough, imperfect qualities of nature (natural stones, leather) gives Smith’s work a unique, yet timeless quality.
Molly Spilane (Unique Art Pendants), Minneapolis
Materials: acrylic, industrial supplies, recycled materials
Proprietor of Unique Art Pendants, Molly Spilane is well-known for her use of vintage anatomy, illustrations, and fauna to create eye-catching, quirky, and unique wearable art. Stepping outside the box, she uses items such as recycled material and industrial supplies as well as heat-treated and molded acrylic to create intriguing fashion jewelry. Spilane attended the College of Visual Arts in Saint Paul, is the recipient of the Powderhorn Art Fair’s Invitational Artist Award, and has been a featured guest artist and speaker for the Edina Art Fair committee.
Helen Wang, Minneapolis
Materials: semi-precious stones, mixed precious metals
For Helen Wang, the process of combining selected materials with the synergy that results from her careful take on light, color, and texture honors individuality and tradition as old as humankind. Wang believes that jewelry magically speaks to our emotions and convictions as symbol, amulet, beauty, and art, and that it not only facilitates our understanding of one another and our respect for the earth, but it has the power to enhance the way we feel.
WALKER SHOP HOURS
Tuesday–Sunday, 11 am–6 pm
Open late Thursday, 11 am–9 pm
Closed Monday
612.375.7633
shop.walkerart.org
