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Comment by Mike Holmes on May 3, 2012 at 4:16pm

Tom Hill: Salt Cellars
May 9 through June 17, 2012
Artist's reception Friday, May 11 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Exhibition catalog available
 
Velvet da Vinci is pleased to present Salt Cellars by British artist Tom Hill. This playful flock of birds is Hill's interpretation of the traditional "salt" common to many British dining tables. The carved and painted wooden birds all open to access a pinch of salt. The bird's head will lift or hinge, and you can pluck the salt spoon incorporated into the bird's plummage and season your food. 
 
As Tom says:  "[their] eyes look up at you from the table , a lively interaction between user and object."
 
Salt and Salt Cellars, a potted history...
 
It is perhaps hard for us to imagine the importance of salt in the past. What seems to us an everyday item was, before modern refrigeration, a vital ingredient in the preservation of food. Roman soldiers were paid in salt ration, hence the words "salary" and "soldier", vegetables were seasoned to improve flavor, giving us "salad" and, perhaps most deliciously of all, pork is combined with salt to create "salami."
 
Salt was a rare and expensive commodity. Salt cellars were lockable to prevent theft and the condiment was presented on ever more elaborate vessels to emphasize the prestige of the grandest tables.
 
Kings and aristocrats commissioned extravagant salt cellars, known as "nefs" or "Great Salts." Notable Salts include the amazing example by Benvenuto Cellini depicting Ceres and Neptune and the Exeter Salt owned by Queen Elizabeth the Second, given to King Charles the Second by the City of Exeter in the hope that he would forgive the city's part in the overthrow and execution of his father (it did the trick). Nefs in the form of golden galleons and silver castles graced the richest tables, creating animated sculptural landscapes to feed both the eye and the stomach.
 
We still throw spilt salt over our shoulder to blind the devil, give salt cellars as good luck housewarming gifts and describe the most trustworthy people as "the salt of the earth."

Tom Hill, Flamingo-ish Bird

Tom Hill, Hinged Black Bird with Pink Interior

 

Tom Hill, White Pigeonish Bird

Tom Hill, Wader

Comment by Mike Holmes on May 3, 2012 at 4:09pm

WOOD

May 9 through June 17, 2012

Artist’s reception Friday, May 11 from 6 to 8 pm
Velvet da Vinci presents WOOD.  Jewelry by Twenty-Six International Artists.

 

Kenta Katakura, Ring

Katy Hackney, Brooch, Diamonds

Lina Peterson, Brooch, Bud

Julia Harrison, Brooch, Blue Belle

Thomas Gentille, Brooch

Daniel DiCaprio, Brooch, Vessel

Gustav Reyes, Bracelet, Organic Coil No. 86

Comment by Mike Holmes on May 3, 2012 at 4:06pm

WOOD

May 9 through June 17, 2012

Artist’s reception Friday, May 11 from 6 to 8 pm

Velvet da Vinci presents WOOD.  Jewelry by Twenty-Six International Artists.

WOOD seeks to explore the exciting new jewelry using wood as the primary material. Carved, polished, inlaid, pegged, painted and charred, WOOD features a variety of wood-working techniques to showcase the versatility of a material not normally considered worthy as jewelry. Ideas of sustainability, preciousness and the sensuality of this humble material are the focus of this new exhibition. The jewelry in the exhibition ranges from the virtuosic geometric work of Thomas Gentille, one of the best known artist jewelers in the world, to detailed hand-carved portraits of people’s eyes by young US based artist Julia Harrison. Bay Area artist Garry Knox Bennett, known as the Furniture World’s bad-boy is showing two large colorful neckpieces. Fliss Quick from the UK tells the story of a fictional teenage firebug with a series of talismans imagined to be found in a box under a bunk bed. A number of the artists speak of a spiritual aspect of using wood as a part of Nature and as a rejection of precious metals (and the environmental cost of their production).  Several of the artists use only reclaimed wood and have created objects of adornment instead of becoming landfill.  Wood carving is well represented in the exhibition with abstract forms from Manuel Vilhena (Portugal), Lina Peterson, (UK), Flóra Vági (Hungary) and Kenta Katakura, (Japan).  Tom Hill (UK/USA) carves haunting bird skulls in bleached and painted basswood. Yugoslav Djurdjica Kesic working in Australia whittles native oak stickpins showing that the simplest of techniques can create poetic and thoughtful jewelry. San Francisco artist Agelio Batle plays with preciousness even more by using particle board and covering it in gold leaf. The 26 artists in WOOD are just a few of the many artists working around the world who feel free from traditional ideas of adornment that dictate that jewelry must be made of gold and gems. They have found beauty in the trunk of a tree.

Participating artists:

Agelio Batle, USA • Garry Knox Bennett, USA • Daniel DiCaprio, USA • Thomas Gentille, USA • Katy Hackney, UK • Julia Harrison, USA • Sachiyo Higaki, Japan • Tom Hill, UK/USA • Leonor Hipólito, Portugal • Deukhee Ka, Korea • Kenta Katakura, Japan • Djurdjica Kesic, Yugoslavia/Australia • Beppe Kessler, Netherlands • Edgar Mosa, USA • Nick Mullins, USA • Jacob Nyberg, Sweden • Gitte Nygaard, Denmark • Lina Peterson, UK • Auba Pont, Spain • Fliss Quick, UK • Gustav Reyes, USA • Catherine Truman, Australia • Julia Turner USA • Flóra Vági, Hungary • Manuel Vilhena, Portugal • Luzia Vogt, Switzerland

Comment by Mike Holmes on January 14, 2012 at 8:15pm

The De Patta Project:

New jewelry from old stones acquired from the estate of Margaret De Patta (1903-1964)

In February, The Oakland Museum of California will open Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta, an exhibition of the jeweler’s pioneering modernist work.  This retrospective will travel to the Museum of Art and Design in New York City in June 2012.
 
Studio jeweler Margaret De Patta blended Constructivist principals with Bauhaus design to create miniature sculpture that moved with its wearer. Based in the Bay Area, De Patta, who studied with Bauahus sculptor Moholy-Nagy in Chicago is credited with starting the American studio jewelry movement on the West Coast. The Oakland Museum holds the largest collection of De Patta’s work, most of which was donated by her husband Eugene Bielawski after the artist’s untimely death in 1964. De Patta and experimental lapidary artist Francis J. Sperisen explored the optical effects of faceting and lenses on gemstones to create wearable sculpture unlike any jewelry of the time.

The De Patta Project was born when Velvet da Vinci purchased a group of unset stones from the estate of Margaret De Patta.  There are beautiful cut stones by Francis J. Sperisen, cabochon stones, and beach pebbles found by De Patta. De Patta’s non-tradtional use of gemstones and non-precious pebbles are the key to understanding the importance of her influence in the field of contemporary jewelry. 15 jewelers have now used these stones to create pieces for an exhibition opening at the same time as the Oakland Museum De Patta retrospective. The De Patta Project exhibition also includes De Patta’s original drawings of unrealized jewelry pieces and tools from her famed workshop. This exhibition will open on February 1, with an artists' reception on Friday, February 3, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Participating artists:

Maja Bennett, Deborah Boskin, Petra Class, Sandra Enterline, Geoffrey Giles, Joanna Gollberg, April Higashi, Tom Hill, Dave Jones, Terri Logan, Deb Lozier, Dawn Nakanishi, Brigid O’Hanrahan, Julia Turner, Andrea Williams

For more information on the exhibition Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta at the Oakland Museum of California, please visit this link:

http://museumca.org/exhibit/space-light-structure-the-jewelry-marga...

David Jones, Ring, 2011

Joanna Gollberg, Necklace, 2011

Deborah Boskin, Brooch, 2011

Petra Class, Brooch, 2011

Comment by Mike Holmes on January 14, 2012 at 8:11pm

Myung Urso: Signature

February 1 through 29, 2012

Artists’ reception Friday, February 3, 6 to 8 p.m.

Korean-born jewelry artist Myung Urso had a degree in biology, received her Master’s degree in fiber arts and then studied jewelry making before finally combining those varied interests into the wearable sculpture on view at San Francisco’s Velvet da Vinci. Assisting her elderly mother with hand sewing and the traditional ways for the preparation of food helped to shape her hand skills. The shaping of rice cake and arranging vegetables for winter storage enhanced her visual aesthetic. She makes silver cages that are enclosed in hand-stitched panels of painted silk. She forms clusters of dyed silk cocoons that reflect on nature without exactly mimicking it. This exhibition will open on February 1 with an artist’s reception on Friday, February 3, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Since I have begun to make jewelry as an art form people frequently ask what are my signature works. Signature defines a creative person’s identity. When originality is applied to art it expresses a personal visual statement.

My jewelry as an art expression transforms itself from my imagination and observations from life. It figuratively shapes itself from either abstraction or illusion through the use of black and white Asian calligraphy and hand stitching applications. Calligraphy in my South Korean culture is considered to be an art form rather than a skill. The brush stroke freely expresses its strength and the water-based ink reveals the depth of contextual images. Sewing is a technique regarded as a common daily life skill for women in the culture.

These two primal ancient fundamental techniques support the basis for my contemporary jewelry.  Each jewelry piece evolves in its own way through a creative process that is balanced between shapes and special influences.  My jewelry forms are often realized in the moment rather than manipulated in a controlled way.  

This organic experience might be referred to as a sign of nature – ‘Signature’.

Comment by Mike Holmes on October 22, 2011 at 5:42pm

AMY TAVERN:

This is How I Remember it

 

November 2 through November 30, 2011

Artist’s reception Friday, November 4 from 6 to 8 p.m.

 

In her first solo exhibition, Amy Tavern will recreate jewelry from her grandmother’s jewelry box, as she remembers it. Using a variety of materials to interpret and remember as many pieces as possible, she will revisit some of the pieces that shaped her personal history and relationship with jewelry. There are two collections within this show: "Fabricated Memory: Jewelry Box, 1980” and "Collected Memories: 1974 - Present”. This exhibition will be the culmination of Amy Tavern’s three-year residency at Penland School of Crafts in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. This exhibition will open on Wednesday, November 2 with an artist’s reception on Friday, November 4 from 6 to 8 p.m.

 

The jewelry that has come in and out of my life over the years has had a profound effect on me, and ultimately, fueled my desire to be a jeweler. These special pieces changed my perspective on jewelry and form part of my history. In "Fabricated Memory: Jewelry Box, 1980," I created new works based on recollections of the contents of an old jewelry box and re-imagined through my formal language of shape and line, layering and repetition. In addition, significance lies in how the work exists in reality--arranged in a specific manner and viewed as a group, not just as individual pieces. This aspect stems from how I played with the jewelry box as a child, carefully arranging its contents over and over.

 

In "Collected Memories: 1974-Present," I analyzed the jewelry I own to discover patterns and to gain further insight into my history with jewelry. The completed installation serves as a timeline of my life with jewelry and a vehicle for intertwining events and people. The works are made using materials I have collected and are assembled in such a way as to emphasize the impermanence and incompleteness of memory. "This is How I Remember It" chronicles my history and preserves my memories, as the individual pieces from my past act as primary inspiration.

 

Amy Tavern received a BFA in Metal Design from the University of Washington in 2002. She also holds a BA in Arts Administration from the State University of New York College at Fredonia. Amy has taught at the Penland School of Crafts and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Amy lectured about professional practices at the 2008 Society of North American Goldsmiths conference and has also spoken at the University of North Carolina Asheville, East Carolina University, and the University of Washington. She has exhibited at Sienna Gallery, Quirk Gallery, and Heidi Lowe Gallery, among others. In 2009 Amy received several emerging artist honors including the American Craft Council Searchlight Artist. Amy’s jewelry has been published in numerous books such as New Rings (Promopress) and was most recently featured on the cover of Metalsmith Magazine’s 2011 Exhibition in Print. Amy’s work can be found in

galleries around the U.S. and abroad. Originally from Upstate, NY, Amy has currently finished her three-year artist’s residency at the Penland School of Crafts. 

 

Brooch, Brooch with Teardrop, 2011

From the collection Fabricated Memory: Jewelry Box, 1980

Sterling silver, spray paint

Brooch, Maple Leaf Brooch, 2011

From the collection Fabricated Memory: Jewelry Box, 1980

Sterling silver, 18k vermeil

 

Necklace, Cleopatra Necklace, 2011

From the collection Fabricated Memory: Jewelry Box, 1980

Sterling silver, spray paint

 

Brooch, Bow Sweater Holder, 2011

From the collection Fabricated Memory: Jewelry Box, 1980

Sterling silver, 18k vermeil

 

Brooches, Crystal Brooches, 2011

From the collection Fabricated Memory: Jewelry Box, 1980

Sterling silver, spray paint

 

Brooch, Brooch 5, 2011

From the collection Collected Memories: 1974 - Present

Mixed media

 

Brooch, Brooch 6, 2011

From the collection Collected Memories: 1974 - Present

Mixed media

 

Necklace, Necklace 7, 2011

From the collection Collected Memories: 1974 - Present

Mixed media

 

 

Comment by Mike Holmes on September 15, 2011 at 3:32pm

SANDRA ENTERLINE: Pretty Crude 

 

September 14 through October 16, 2011 

Artists’ reception Friday, September 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. 

 

Sandra Enterline's work has been a part of Velvet da Vinci for many years. It is easily recognizable, perforated by mind-boggling numbers of meticulously drilled holes in the surface of otherwise clean, minimal pieces. Each piece creates complex shadows and silhouettes, working with and never against the light that pierces through it. In this new collection of work she goes beyond these windows of perforations to create space and capture light with diamonds. Using diamond slices, she suspends them in crude, industrial settings to allow the light to pass through each piece. Light and space are as much a material in this work as the gold, oxidized silver, and diamonds will be.

 

Sandra Enterline is a well-known jeweler living and working in San Francisco. Originally from Erie, Pennsylvania, she attended school at the Rhode Island School of Design and Rochester Institute of Technology. She has exhibited internationally and has received the Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts twice. She has graced the cover of Metalsmith and images of her work can be seen in numerous publications. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, American Craft Museum, New York, and the Renwick Museum in Washington, D.C.

 

I have created a series of pieces that are about preciousness.  The materials that I have chosen to incorporate into the work are precious: diamonds, petroleum and panned gold.  Each substance is appealing in its own way.  The diamond slices are organic in shape and flawed with inclusions and streaks of grey, black and yellow.  The petroleum is dark amber, gritty and rich in color and consistency.  The gold flakes are delicate -- floating in liquid like particles in a snow globe. These materials are from and embody the earth. They all share a precious existence.

 

The panned gold and the petroleum harkens back to a simpler time.  Explorers would spend their time in rivers in hopes of capturing the tiny flecks of treasure in their metal pans.  I siphoned the petroleum directly from Drake Well in Titusville Pennsylvania, a few miles from where I was born.  Discovered in 1859, it is the first oil well in North America.  This oil is sentimental to me, as well as a curiously beautiful substance.  At the time oil was discovered at Drake Well, there was an optimistic sentiment in the world.  However, today oil, diamonds and gold are synonymous with war, destruction of the natural environment, wealth, power, and fear.

 

I have chosen labware/ampules to house some of the materials, specifically the oil and the gold.  This is a reference to science. I want them to look like specimens that a researcher might analyze and ponder the specifics of quality and purity of the substance contained.   I am also revisiting my souvenir project from a decade ago.

Ultimately, I am searching for the materials in the jewelry to be harmonious together and perplexing at the same time.  They fit for right now, and they fit a distant past.  I wish for them to be simple and complex.  The story is to be put together by the wearer.

 

Earrings, Hammered Round Earrings, 2011
sterling silver, 18k palladium white gold, diamond slices (.715 carats)

 

Earrings, Diamond Paddle Earrings, 2011
Sterling silver, 18k palladium white gold, diamond slices

 

Necklace, Diamond Web Necklace, 2011
Sterling silver, 18k palladium white gold, 10k white gold, diamond slices

 

Necklace, Titusville Chandelier Pendant, 2011
sterling silver, petroleum, 10k white gold

 

Earrings, Diamond Drop Earrings, 2011
sterling silver, 18k palladium white gold, 10k white gold, diamond slices

 

Comment by Mike Holmes on September 8, 2011 at 3:06pm

NIKI ULEHLA: Toys + Jewelry

September 14 through October 16, 2011 

Artists’ reception Friday, September 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. 

 

Niki Ulehla is a young artist who brings a fresh perspective and interesting collection of work to the gallery. She is an artist who shows regularly with Velvet da Vinci, but her interests go far beyond jewelry. She is a true artist and a performer. She draws crowds with her hand-carved marionettes that she performs with to a live chamber ensemble. She collects unique objects, stones, and scraps that have been discarded and uses them as accents and focal points in her jewelry and toys. In this exhibition, she will combine her love of kinetic and wheeled toys with wearable jewelry on the scale that she loves: small.
 

This exhibition will open on Wednesday, September 14 with an artists' reception on Friday, September 16 from 6 to 8 p.m.

 
Niki Ulehla is an American artist who identifies with her Czech heritage. She resides in San Francisco after spending a nomadic childhood all over the world. She studied drawing and painting at Stanford University and then jewelry at the Revere Academy in San Francisco. Ulehla developed a love of all things mechanical and kinetic when she studied puppet-making with Miroslav Trejtnar in Prague. Niki was the recent Artist in Residence at Recology in San Francisco. Her work can be seen in galleries both locally and internationally.

My favorite toy is a wheeled horse from Czechoslovakia. It was my father's. The paint, once red, is now fading. It is simple and nearly without features. I attempted in this group of work to cross toys with jewelry for three reasons: because I want more wheeled toys to exist, because technically they have a lot to share with each other, and because I am sick of having to chose jewelry over puppets or vice versa.

I do believe that toys and jewelry are very similar. They are of a similar scale. This is my favorite scale. Even a little smaller is good. And since I don't wear jewelry very often, they are both objects to me. Toys and objects to populate a world: this is my goal and desire. But when the ladies and the men wear jewelry, they populate their world which is their body. To have an adornment on your form: this is why I love the apple trees in San Francisco. They have the most beautiful lichens. So what you do is this: you see an apple tree, you check if there are fruits or flowers. You can see this from a distance. Then, you have to get close. And there are beautiful orange lichens on the bark. And this is the tree's jewelry. This is what I like about when people wear jewelry, that you have to be close to a person to see what it is.

There are a few technical things that I want to describe. The joints on the ebony jewelry are the same as I use for jointing a marionette. I exchanged the materials that are traditional for each. The faces of the men are of mica. I believe them to be faces in profile, some are turned away more than others so you just see the shape of their hats. (The paint is china paint so have dry fingers when you hold the toys.) The wood that is not ebony is basswood. This is what I normally carve marionettes from and I like it very much.

 

18 square 
ebony, 18K gold
18.6 x 2.2 x 1 cm

bust with pearl necklace 
basswood, sterling silver, ebony, freshwater pearls, china and acrylic paint
5.8 x 3.3 x 3.2 cm

man
ebony, 18K gold, oxidized sterling silver
9 x 3.2 x 1.2 cm plus chain: 43.5 cm / 17”

ebony man 
ebony, sterling silver
36.5 x 5.2 x 7.5 cm

short legs 
ebony, 18K gold
2.4 x 1.9 x 1.6 cm

reclining nude 
coral, ebony, acrylic paint 22K gold leaf, sterling silver
3.2 x 5.2 x 2.5 cm

twin / off-center double white sapphire wheels
mica, basswood, sterling silver, china paint, round cut white sapphires
10 x 2.9 x 1.4 cm

 

bust with pearl necklace
basswood, sterling silver, ebony, freshwater pearls, china and acrylic paint
5.8 x 3.3 x 3.2 cm

narwhal 
basswood, ebony, china paint, sterling silver
3.5 x 17.6  x 3.5 cm

 

Comment by Mike Holmes on July 29, 2011 at 8:14pm

Also showing in the month of August: 

 

New Work by Orfeo Quagliata

August 3 through  August 28, 2011 

Artists’ reception Friday, August 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. 

Orfeo has been working with glass since he was 12 years old, when he began apprenticing with his father, acclaimed artist Narcissus Quagliata and his Grandmother, Herta Jalkotzy, an award-winning jewelry designer in the Wiener Werkstätte. He learned cold-working techniques at age 17 from Catalonian glass artist José Fernandez Castrillo. He later began experimenting with other techniques, such as lamp-wroking and fusing, after earning a BFA in Industrial and Furniture Design from the California College of Arts (CCA). Orfeo has worked in collaboration with famed Swarovski Elements crystal to produce his jewelry and unique cups of facetted borosilicate.

 

Orfeo Quagliata

Necklace: Green Chain Locked

Blown pyrex, Swarovski crystal

 

Orfeo Quagliata

Object: Puas Morningstar

Colored and facetted Swarovski crystal, lead-free crystal

 

Orfeo Quagliata

Ring: Swar Pico

Lead-free crystal, colored and facetted Swarovski crystal

 

Orfeo Quagliata

Ring: Swar Gray

Lead-free crystal, colored and facetted Swarovski crystal

 

Orfeo Quagliata

Ring: Rokki Mushroom

Lead-free crystal, colored and facetted Swarovski crystal

 

Comment by Mike Holmes on July 29, 2011 at 5:34pm

Velvet da Vinci in San Francisco presents as part of its 20th Anniversary Series of Exhibitions:

 

unnatural Acts: a contemporary jewelry project from Australia  

August 3 through  August 28, 2011 

Artists’ reception Friday, August 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. 

Exhibition catalogue of unnatural Acts will be available for purchase

 

unnatural Acts: a contemporary jewelry project from Australia, featuring 10 contemporary Australian jewelers working to create natural forms from unnatural sources for this unique collection. The exhibition was curated by Lauren Simeoni and Melanie Young. unnatural Acts began as a small project that has since traveled from Australia to New Zealand and now arrives in San Francisco as a group exhibition of ten artists. This exhibition will open on Wednesday, August 3 with an artists’ reception on Friday, August 5 from 6 to 8 p.m.

 

Participating Artists:

Anna Davern, Caz Guiney, Kath Inglis, Bridget Kennedy, Peta Kruger, Sim Luttin, Natalia Milosz-Piekarska, Lauren Simeoni, Mark Vaarwerk, Melinda Young

 

Unnatural Jewelry

To coincide with the exhibition unnatural Acts, Lauren Simeoni and Melanie Young are presenting a  jewelry workshop focusing on the theme unnatural jewelry. Participants will be encouraged to experiment with and deconstruct a variety of found materials whilst developing and working to a theme. This workshop will be hosted by MAG and held at Velvet da Vinci. Workshop will be held from 10 to 4 on August 6th.Reservation required; space is limited.

 

Caz Guiney

Brooch: No. 2 Breakfast… Lunch… Dinner, 2011

Plastic, sterling silver

 

Kath Inglis

Brooch: Blue Pollinator, 2011

PVC

 

Melinda Young

Necklace: Coraline, 2011

Coral, freshwater pearls, peridot, aventurine, nephrite, tourmaline, glass beads, artificial plant foliage, sterling silver, 22k gold

 

Peta Kruger

Brooches: 6 Onion Ring Brooches, 2011

Epoxy resin, glass stones, silver, stainless steel

 

Mark Vaarwerk

Brooch: Orange/Blue, 2011

Expanded polystyrene food box, acrylic car indicator covers, plastic foliage, sterling silver, stainless steel

 

Natalia Milosz-Piekarska

Necklace: Onion and Lemon Garland, 2011

Timber, glass, plastic beads

 

Anna Davern

Brooch: Large David Onion Head, 2011

Sublimate printed steel, copper

 

Bridget Kennedy

Necklace: Phos-Fate Series: Cherry (Crop Giant), 2011

Fake cherries, cherry scented, dyed beeswax, sterling silver

 

Sim Lutton

Brooch: Somewhere There Exists, 2011

Fine silver, sterling silver, plastic paint

 

Lauren Simeoni

Brooch: Bulbil Brooch, 2011

Artificial plant material, sterling silver, 9k gold, brass, stainless wire

 

 

 

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