October 17, 2011—The Walker Art Center kicks off the gift-giving season with an opportunity to shop the latest styles by local jewelry designers at a Jewelry Artist Mart on Saturday, November 5, 11am–5pm in the Skyline Room. Featured merchandise includes one-of-a-kind pieces.
Walker members save 10 percent on their purchases. All proceeds support the Walker’s artistic and educational programs.
Featured Artists
Erin Bowe, Barneveld, WI
Materials: reclaimed sterling silver, copper and natural stones
Bowe personally designs and fabricates each piece of her jewelry from scratch using raw metals and traditional tools, paying careful attention to every detail to ensure a beautiful piece that lasts a lifetime.
Heather Buscho, Owatonna, MN
Materials: felt plushies, shrink plastic-film, moss, knitted plastic thread, paper and tape
From graphic design and advertising logos to jewelry and t-shirts Buscho does it all. She is a designer, art director and crafter from Southern Minnesota. She received a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2008. She uses clean lines, fun colors and humorous concepts in her designs. Heather pulls inspiration from fashion, nature, friends and contemporary graphic design.
Yen Chee, Minneapolis, MN
Materials: sterling silver, quartz, and onyx
As the daughter of a world-renowned watercolor artist Chee traveled to many art galleries as a young girl and was always drawn to the work of jewelry designers. 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.
Bridget Clark, Minneapolis, MN
Materials: sterling silver, gold, pearls, and gemstones
Clark has been designing and creating jewelry since 1986. She hand crafts each piece of her jewelry line using traditional jewelry techniques including fabrication, casting, forging, stone setting, and soldering. Her works are both fine jewelry as well as being contemporary at the same time.
Susan Crow, Northfield, MN
Materials: recycled gold and silver, lab created or reclaimed diamonds and gemstones
Crow is the founder of East Fourth Street Jewelry where she creates a new perspective on fashion by combining low impact metalsmithing practices with recycled materials to assure that the jewelry is sustainable and original. Crow holds a BS in Design and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Design.
Félixe Carole Dicaire, Montreal, Quebec
Materials: steel wire and feathers
Formally trained in fashion design in Montreal, Dicaire discovered a passion for jewelry and accessories in 1999. Both her clientele and the fashion community immediately began to qualify her bold, sculptural pieces as “wearable art.” Her creations are inspired by the organic forms of the plant and insect world.
Dicaire sculpts with steel wires and feathers directly on the mannequin where she transforms them not only into unique jewelry pieces, but also sculptural body art. Taking each and every line into account, she highlights the perfect harmony between living and inanimate matter to create jewelry that is at once refined, ethereal, and alive with an unexpected touch of sensuality.
Gia Gifford, Minneapolis, MN
Materials: sterling silver, vintage and found objects
Gifford creates jewelry inspired by modern art and design, elements found in nature, and architecture. Creating jewelry that is simple in design and free of complication is one of the most rewarding, yet challenging aspects of making jewelry for Gifford. 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.
Carrie Hoffnagle, Minneapolis, MN
Materials: sterling silver, Formica, and lab-grown gems
Hoffnagle has been busy diligently designing jewelry and establishing herself as a jewelry artist since she graduated in 2006 with a BFA from Iowa State University. Her jewelry explores many organic forms and shapes and her influences lie within the context of modern contemporary minimalism. She creates contrasting jewelry that is sleek, has refined shapes, and warm playful colors that rebel against the status quo of today’s contemporary jewelry design.
Grace Hogan, Bayfield, WI
Materials: sterling silver, hand-picked rocks, and beach glass
Inspired by the things “we stomp over in our everyday lives,” Hogan creates wearable objects that combine sheet metal with elements and ideas from nature such as hand-picked rocks and beach glass.
Annika Kaplan, Minneapolis
Materials: sterling silver and semi-precious gemstones
After studying jewelry design and fabrication at the Savannah College of Art and Design and the Minneapolis Community and Technical College, Kaplan set up shop in a small south Minneapolis studio. Influenced by nature and folk traditions, she produces jewelry made mostly from blackened sterling silver and semi-precious gems. She strives to create pieces which are both highly wearable and highly unique, in hopes of offering wearers a new way to adorn themselves.
Britta Kauppila, St. Paul
Materials: sterling silver, stone, gold and pearls
Kauppila hand forms each piece of jewelry she makes by 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, Minneapolis
Materials: wood, acrylic, various metals
Keobounpheng has always been fascinated with “things” and how they are made. Making things with her hands and designing jewelry contrasts the time and scale involved in working through the architectural design process, adding considerable balance to her own creative process and drive. Color, texture, repetition, variation, light, and tactile quality are important considerations in her work.
Moira K. Lime, Chicago, IL
Materials: sterling silver
Lime is the owner, designer, and maker of Moira K. Lime Jewelry. She works out of her small studio space in Chicago, IL, which she enjoys sharing with her two lovable dogs. Lime attended Indiana University and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a focus in metalsmithing and jewelry design. Moira K. Lime Jewelry is inspired by the natural and botanical world that so many pass by without notice. Lime strives to bring attention the loveliness of all these small things in life and draw people to appreciate the natural beauty of the world.
Kristin Lora, Santé Fe, NM
Materials: gold, sterling silver, gemstones, found objects, glass and toys
Lora has been designing and making jewelry and art objects for over 30 years. Inspired by bold shapes and forms, objects, color and movement, Lora designs unique jewelry, small sculpture and objects to flatter and entertain. These items are created using precious and non-precious materials, such as gold, silver, gemstones, found objects, glass and many other items.
Jennifer Merchant, Eden Prairie, MN
Materials: corian, acrylic and gemstones
Merchant has been a creator since birth. She strives to blur the line between art and fashion with her unique designs. She has been making jewelry for over 11 years, and studied metalsmithing at the Savannah College of Art and Design, receiving a BFA in metals and jewelry in 2005.
Upon graduating from college, Merchant moved back to the Twin Cities and set out to create jewelry in her modest home studio. Lacking many of the tools and equipment needed to work in metals as per her training, she started working with corian and acrylic. Her work is handcrafted using techniques that she has developed after many years of experimenting with these materials.
Lauren Nicole, Minneapolis, MN
Materials: sterling silver, gemstones, acrylic, stainless steel, and organic elements
Nicole is a graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. Over the last ten years she has been working professionally as a graphic designer and making jewelry on the side 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.
Beth Novak, St. Louis Park, MN
Materials: sterling silver, copper & enamel
Novak grew up in an extremely artistic home believing you could look at just about anything as inspiration. She is originally from Wisconsin, where she attended the U-W Stout and got a degree in studio art, with a concentration in art metals. Novak has since lived in St. Louis Park for the last 17 years, and after experimenting with many different mediums, she has returned to her first love, metals. Her works include enamel on copper and sterling silver. She loves to explore texture and color and finds that both silver and copper allow her to do so. Novak often manipulates the copper before enameling it, to accentuate the layers and texture under the enamel. The patina she finishes her pieces off with is durable and has a wonderful depth of color.
Tina Rice, Ames, IA
Materials: silver, copper, glass, and enamel
Rice resides in the Midwest and is the designer and creator of a bold and fun collection of charming enamel jewelry. Her work incorporates bright colors of enamel and a variety of copper shapes, which allows the jewelry, takes on a life of its own.
Karen Searle, St. Paul, MN
Materials: fiber and mixed media
Searle creates sculptures and jewelry in fiber and mixed media. She employs the tools and processes of domestic textile-making-knitting, crochet, and stitching-to create contemporary jewelry with a ‘retro’ sensibility.
Casey Sheppard, Lincoln, NE
Materials: metal and pvc
Sheppard constantly challenges not only her skills as a metalsmith but her theories on art with functionality. She tries to take alternative way to come up with her designs, such as using books on barbed wire to inspire forms for chains or looking at machines for mechanical connections.
David Spencer, Minneapolis, MN
Materials: stainless steel and leather
After 18 years of being a world renowned eyeglass designer, local resident Spencer has ventured into watch design with Taki Watches. With an eye towards color and clean Scandinavian design inherit to his Minnesota surroundings, his watches are a natural accessory for any modern, artsy consumer. “Wristwatches has been a fun new way of expressing my creativity, that I’m reminded of every time I check the time,” he comments.
Using only the finest Japanese movements, stainless steel electroplated bezels, and 100% leather straps, his watches remain an excellent, well-crafted timepiece at a price that will allow you to buy one or more to match a variety of outfits.
Molly Spilane, Richfield
Materials: acrylic, industrial supplies, and recycled materials
Spilane is well known for her use of vintage anatomy, illustrations, and fauna to create eye-catching, quirky, and unique wearable art. Spilane uses heat-treated and molded acrylic to create intriguing fashion jewelry.
Andrea Renee Terhaar, Cold Spring, MN
Materials: leather
Terhaar is a self-taught jewelry artist with a background in art and a degree in art history from the College of St. Benedict. Her passion for designing leather jewelry stems from her interest in fashion and unique wearable items. Her pieces add an edgy touch to both elegant and casual wear.
Amy Torello, Mexico City, Mexico
Materials: sterling silver, glass enamel, resin
Torello has studied at the Castillo workshops in southern Mexico where she apprenticed with several master Mexican silversmiths. Inspired by such elements as architecture, geometry, minimalism, and mechanics, she sees an interaction between the basics of color and form, movement and space.
Helen Wang, Edina, MN
Materials: semi-precious stones and mixed precious metals
Wang creates each deftly designed one-of-a kind or limited edition piece with the person who will eventually wear it in mind. Whether it’s a druzy quartz marquis earring or the vintage luxury feel of a genuine Swarovski crystal bridal choker, Wang’s hands create the jewelry to reflect her vision of you.
WALKER SHOP HOURS
Tuesday–Sunday, 11 am–6 pm
Open late Thursday, 11 am–9 pm
Closed Monday
612.375.7633
shop.walkerart.org