Kelsey Simmen: Insulin Needles, Installation
© Kelsey Simmen, San Francisco, CA

Send paypal payments to crafthaus@live.com Additional information: FAQ section.

The International Polymer Clay Association will host the second Synergy Conference, Synergy2: Exploring Connections in Baltimore on February 24-27, 2010. The conference will include 3 days of seminars covering topics such as:

creativity * new techniques in polymer clay * teaching * professional development * inspiration * mixing media * collaboration

Wednesday's opening reception will feature a presentation by acclaimed artists Steven Ford and David Forlano who will be discussing their 22-year collaboration. Other conference speakers will be Elise Winters and Bruce Pepich on “Collecting Polymer”, Robert Dancik on “Connecting to Your Self Expression”, and keynote speaker, Alison Lee host of the Craftcast podcast and website.

Synergy2 will also include an invitational exhibit, an attendee sales gallery, panel discussions, and a vendor fair, as well as a clay manufacturer’s forum. The conference will conclude with a banquet and auction.

Building on the success of the first Synergy conference in 2008, Synergy2 is sure to be another fantastic experience. The Crafthaus Synergy2 Group will feature daily reports from bloggers Libby Mills and Cynthia Tinapple, providing an inside view of the conference. Check back often for updates.

Click here: CYNTHIA TINAPPLE and LIBBY MILLS blog for crafthaus !
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About our bloggers:

When Cynthia Tinapple backs away from her computer, she heads toward her polymer clay studio. "Writing about fine polymer clay art on my blog, PolymerClayDaily.com, and helping to grow the community of artists is nearly as important to me as working with clay," she admits. "This year I'm trying to bring the computer closer to the clay, transferring digitized images to polymer. This cherry vase with polymer inlay is one of my first efforts." The vase will be on display in the Synergy2 Collaborations exhibit in Baltimore.

Libby Mills is a Connecticut mixed-media jewelry artist working primarily in polymer clay and sterling silver. She writes a regular blog about the ups and downs of her creative journey. Her "Studio Snapshot" feature provides a peek into other artists' studios.

Website & Blog: Libzoid

Jeff Schwarz, Pittsburgh, PA

Karen Bartlett, Birmingham, UK

John B. Gilliam, Greenville, SC

Angela Gerhard, Easthampton, MA

John Harris, Buffalo, NY

Linnie Mclarty, London, UK

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500 Felt Objects
Juror: Susan Brown
Entry deadline: February 13, 2010

Lark Books seeks images from artists/designers across the globe for publication in a juried collection showcasing felt objects. Categories in the book will include Garments, Jewelry, Furniture, Bags, Art Pieces, Headwear, Functional Items/Home Décor, Floor and Wall Coverings, and more. Felt must be the focus of all work, but other materials are allowed. While Lark usually features hand-made work, for this book, innovative designs in industrial felt are acceptable

http://www.larkbooks.com/submissions/artist-submissions

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"URBANIA"
Luke & Eloy Gallery, Pittsburgh PA

URBANIA looks to provide insight into a range of issues related to the urban environment. We are interested to explore how artists view the change that has occured in metropolitan areas over time, how they see cities and towns functioning today, and how artists would like to see challenges of the future addressed.

We are interested in commentary on economic and social issues, political realities and how U.S. cities and suburbs function in the 21st century.

All media are welcome, including all craft media, as well as video, audio, and photography.

Opening: Saturday April 10, 2010 11-5
Exhibition Dates: April 10 - May 22, 2010
Deadline for Submissions: February 20, 2010
Delivery of Artwork to the gallery: by March 20, 2010
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Craft Alliance in St. Louis, Missouri presents

Setting the Mood: The Artful Table
A National Juried Exhibition, May 21 – July 11, 2010
Craft Alliance’s Delmar Loop Gallery, 6640 Delmar Blvd.
Bruce Hoffman, Juror

This juried exhibition will feature the best of functional and non-functional works created for the dinner table in all craft media. Juror, Bruce Hoffman, Director of Snyderman -Works Gallery in Philadelphia, will select work from both emerging and established artists from across the country. These artists celebrate the hand made in dinner ware, glass ware, textiles, serving pieces and more that “set the mood” of the artful table.

CALENDAR
Entry Deadline March 1, 2010

CRITERIA
All work, whether functional or non-functional, must be designed to fit the concept of the dining table. We are accepting work made from clay, fiber, metal, glass or wood and created within the last 3 years.

ELIGIBILITY
Artists must be 21 years of age and reside in the United States.

Visit www.craftalliance.org to download prospectus and entry form.
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Lark Jewelry Challenge: 30-Minute Rings

Jewelry Design Challenge: 30-Minute Rings
Editor: Marthe Le Van
Entry Deadline: March 19, 2010

Are you a skilled and imaginative jewelry designer who is up for a challenge? Great! Your mission is to design a ring that can be made…start to finish…in 30 minutes flat. Sound fun? We think so.

30-Minute Rings will showcase more than 50 incredibly stylish step-by-step projects that can be created without investing too much of a valuable commodity—time! The selected ring designs will be modern and sophisticated and encompass many different styles and techniques. The common denominator will be fast projects that look terrific!

PS: In 30-Minute Rings, we won’t be teaching fundamental jewelry making techniques. Designers can assume that their readers are already proficient (and quick!) at skills such as sawing, soldering, and finishing.

Accept the challenge!
http://www.larkbooks.com/submissions/artist-submissions

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I Care A Lot - a portable discussion on the Middle East present a collection of Jewelry artworks in a group exhibition dealing with a verity of complicated themes associated with the Middle East.

Why jewelry?
Jewelry is an intimate art medium within the private and the public space which offers a personal relationship and an encounter between the wearer ,the viewer audience and the actual jewelry. It is an invitation to start a conversation and it can make a meeting possible. The body is a portable show case and the wearer chooses what and how to exhibit on him/her. Jewelry express the wearer character and sense of humor, it acts as an extension to the wearer personality, indicating his/her group of belonging, it is asking questions or claiming its opinion about the reality in which we live in, about our society, our surrounding and ourselves. By wearing jewelries we attain communication.

Cause we care.
The region’s history and present are seeded with continuous violent national, ethnic and other conflicts. In many aspects the Middle East is considered to be one of the most sensitive and unstable regions in the world; strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously. It is located in the center of the international politics agenda. Its historical role, its huge reserves of crud oil and its significance for the three largest monotheist religions are usually taken as reasons for the world’s ardent interest in the region. But the attitude towards the Middle East has pasted the point of a keen interest in world affairs.

By now it seems clear that the Middle East is perceived, especially by consumers of Western media, as the place where world dramas converge, or - more accurately - collide. It is almost the opposite of the Bermuda Triangle: everything that happens there pops up on our radars.
What is the Middle East? What is the source of our attraction to it? Is it just that it happens to be the most eventful place on earth? What is the nature of our commitment to effecting the future of the region? Do we really care about what goes on there? Do we really care about what goes on anywhere that is elsewhere? Do we care about the Middle East in a way similar to the way we care about how people look at us? Do we care about it the way we care about what people see in us?

What are we looking for?
The work should have an unexpected creative concept. The jewelry pieces can express a belief, a wish, it can be a trigger to start a discussion, raising questions, showing your opinions, a teaser, a protest or what ever you find relevant to the topic.

Where to begin?
Suggested topics for studying and reflecting on the Middle East theme:
- Human rights: civil rights, political rights, social rights
- Economy, society, culture
- Religion, minority, nationality
- U.S and the west
- Conflicts: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel-Palestine etc.
- Coexistence & peace

DATES & JURY
I Care A Lot is online and open for entries from the 5th of September 2009. Entries will be accepted until 15th March 2010. The nominees will be chosen by an international jury, and their art works will be exhibited online from the 15th of May, 2010.

A limited addition color printed catalog will be published on June 15th, 2010. The project will then be offered to galleries and museums for a future exhibition.

The International jury members will be announced soon.

Additional information

ABOUT US
I Care A Lot is a not-for-profit, non-governmental group which aim is to facilitate the dialogue between the diverse cultures.
I Care A Lot is a platform for contemporary jewelry art whose aim is also to promote and raise its legibility as an art form by dealing with current issues.
I Care A Lot was founded in Stockholm, Sweden 2009 by Dana Hakim a jewelry artist and Yosef Bercovich a graphic designer.

Contacts
For further information and guide lines for submission, please visit our website at www.icarealot.me

Press Coordinator and References: Dana Hakim
Project Director: Yosef Bercovich
icarealot.me@gmail.com

Please visit us at www.icarealot.me or search for icarealot on Facebook or Twitter.

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New Traditional Jewellery, Biennial
Theme international design contest and exhibition in 2010: True Colours

Starting with the fourth edition, New Traditional Jewellery (NTJ) will become a biennial event.
The three preceding editions of this international design contest and the ensuing travelling exhibitions have been proof of the success of this project and its right to exist. The quality requirements as to the nature and scope of and entries for the event are becoming increasingly strict. In order to meet these requirements in a professional manner NTJ will become a biennial design contest.
The next edition will be in 2010. For the design contest and exhibition 2010 the technical jury of New Traditional Jewellery (NTJ) has chosen the theme ‘True Colours’ because literally as well as figuratively this theme offers considerable scope for inspiration.

The 2010 theme:
Showing your true colours means that you show what your real attitudes and qualities are. You can approach True Colours from a social perspective; society is full of topical colour coding. Other examples may be found in heraldry, folklore and science.
True Colours refers to colours and pigments. Over the centuries the palette of art history has been determined by precious mineralogical and biological pigments that were obtained from ground semi-precious stones, processed metals, and earth, seeds and plants – materials that did not always bear the test of time; in the course of time white lead e.g. turned black.
The link between the theme ‘True Colours’ and contemporary jewellery design is obvious. From time immemorial the significance and appreciation of jewellery have pre-eminently been determined by colour.
From the use of gold or silver to enamels and mineralogical and biological stones: colour is a language. In the seventies and eighties it became manifest how rich this language is. The application of textiles and Perspex in jewellery led to a new form language and use of colour – an important stage in the emancipation of contemporary jewellery design.
True Colours is about the history, meaning, value, magic and power of the language of colour.

The importance of NTJ:
For every edition of New Traditional Jewellery an inspiring theme is chosen.
Participants are challenged to reshape historical or traditional jewellery. They do not submit just their design - they must also submit pictures and information about the historical or traditional ornament on which their concept is based. This is the characteristic added value of NTJ: past and present are bridged by artists in a very personal way. A technical jury selects fifty to seventy designs which are on show in an exhibition during the SIERAAD fair, where the winners of NTJ are also officially announced.

When taking part in this contest, jewellery designers from all over the world make use of a new platform where they give shape to their vision of a tradition and a theme. This design contest and the ensuing travelling, international exhibition have become a showcase for developments in contemporary jewellery in the new millennium.
General conditions:

- Entries for ‘True Colours’, New Traditional Jewellery 2010 must be wearable. Installations and objects that do not logically tie in with the body are outside the scope of this contest.
- Entries must be inspired by a historical or traditional piece of jewellery.
The source of inspiration should be made known and illustrated by means of a photo, and the translation into a new ornament be explained.
- Entries should add a new chapter to an old story. The conditions for this design contest (new shapes evolving out of existing, threatened and/or lost traditions) do not imply a figuration. On the contrary. The jury wants to emphasize that the inspiration, and not the design per se, should be based on a past.
- Entries should meet all criteria.

Delve into the past and come up with something new!

Check the attachments for conditions and criteria.
On behalf of the technical jury the executive committee of the jury and NTJ wishes all participants much inspiration and success!
Astrid Berens, director SIERAAD & Isabella van den Bos, chair Foundation Art in Business

SIERAAD Award NEW TRADITIONAL JEWELLERY®
Inspired by old traditions. The International contest for gold, silver and jewellery designers

Theme: True Colours

Objective:
The preservation of worldwide cultural heritage, the reassessment of symbol bearers, the creation of new traditions,
the revival of old traditions in a new form. These last two years inspiration was to be found in jewellery from traditional costume traditions (2006) and symbols of faith (2007) 2008 symbols of Intimacy

This year (2010) participants are invited to design a piece of jewellery based on a new theme: True Colours

Terms and conditions new taditional jewellery 2010:
The group of potential contestants is distinguished into two categories:

Category A : established jewellery artists and silverdesigners

Category B : final-year and advanced students of all art academies and fourth-level students of the gold
and/or silversmith disciplines of training colleges, or comparable levels of part time education
or evening classes

- Each participant may submit only one finished piece of jewellery
- The ornament should be wearable
- The designs may not have been exhibited before nor seen/sold by third parties. Only ornaments made specifically for this contest will be eligible for nomination.
- Apart from the design the participant is also expected to supply an explanation of the underlying idea, an inspirational text (no more than 15 lines) and a photograph of the source of inspiration.
- All nominated designs will remain in the possession of the organization during all exhibitions and will not be returned for the duration (2.5 years at the most)

Application
Submitting the design:
- Fully completed registration form by email before 1 June 2010
- Payment of registration fee; before 1 June 2010
- Fully completed design form by email before 1 June 2010
- By handing in the design form the contestant assures the organization of having designed and made the design himself/herself and that he/she has not submitted the designs to other design contests or offered them for sale.
- Fully completed design + registration form by regular mail together with the design to be in our possession between: Monday June 28. – Saturday July 17. 2010

Registration fee €35.00 per person payable to
Rabobank 32 85 05 420 | IBAN: NL31RABO 03285054 20 - BIC CODE RABO NL2U

Forwarding address:
EMB&B Art Events, NEW TRADITIONAL JEWELLERY 2010, Leersumseberg 28, 3825 EC Amersfoort The Netherlands

Info:
www.newtraditionaljewellery.com

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In an effort to remember the children who died during the Holocaust, the Holocaust Museum Houston is collecting 1.5 million handmade butterflies.

The butterflies will eventually comprise a breath-taking exhibition, currently scheduled for Spring 2012, for all to remember. “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” activity and create as many handmade arts-and-crafts butterflies as possible. This project may be completed by all ages as individuals or groups. • Butterflies should be no larger than 8 inches by 10 inches. • Butterflies may be of any medium the artist chooses, but two-dimensional submissions are preferred. • Glitter should not be used. • Food products (cereal, macaroni, candy, marshmallows or other perishables) also should not be used. If possible, e-mail a photograph of your butterflies, to butterflyproject@hmh.org.

Please send or bring your butterflies to the Museum by June 30, 2011, with the following information included: • Your name, • Your organization or school, • Your address, • Your e-mail address, and • The total number of butterflies sent.

Mail or bring your butterflies to: Holocaust Museum Houston <<a href="http://www.hmh.org/minisites/minisite/butterfly/index.html">http://www.hmh.org/minisites/minisite/butterfly/index.html

crafthaus.ning.com is a membership based (fee based) site showcasing personal opinions as well as publicly available content. Opinions expressed may occasionally be directly or indirectly slightly critical in content or tone, though the main intent of the site is to educate, inform, and connect artists in a positive and friendly manner, not to criticise or slander.

crafthaus takes great care in assessing content, and assures its members that all images and messages posted will be reviewed. If we find images or comments to violate the generous community spirit of the site in any way, these images or comments will be removed, and the member will be warned once. There will be no second warning. Member created images or comments of a sexually suggestive or pornographic nature, as well as racially and religiously insensitive, discriminatory material in general, and political ideology are not acceptable on the site, will be deleted immediately, and the member who posted these comments and images will be banned from the site without further notice.

All images sent to the website will be reviewed to assure some measure of overall quality control. Crafthaus is not a "free-for-all". Members present their work in front of an educated and critical audience (their peers,) so the images have to be GREAT. From the many images received daily, we try to post as many as possible.

Crafthaus does not support any kind of commercial solicitation of our membership. Anyone sending out communication of that kind will be suspended from the site.

Crafthaus would like to remind readers and members that the site will be host to a lot of diverse opinions, and not everyone will be able to agree on every topic. However, last time we checked, free speech was still the law of the land.