Comment

Comment by Mike Holmes on February 19, 2011 at 6:56pm

David Gates is a London-based furniture maker and designer. He is currently working on a PhD at King’s College, London. Gates’s focus is “Voices from the workshop: Theories and practices of communication amongst contemporary crafts practitioners,” and  is often involved in collaborations with other craftsmen, emphasizing communication and the ideas behind the process. He is a Senior Lecturer at London Metropolitan University and won the Jerwood Award for Contemporary Making in 2010. 

 
Helen Carnac is a metalsmith and academic based in London. As a maker, Carnac is interested in her work being centered self-consciously on the explicit connection between material, process and maker, with an emphasis on deliberation and reflection. Her exploration of industrial vitreous enamel and processes on copper and steel plates is concerned with sustainability, ethics and values within the arena of metals in the global context. She was awarded with the Craft Council’s Setting up Grant in 1995 and currently teaches at London Metropolitan University. 
 
David Clarke is often cited as one of Britain’s most highly innovative silversmiths. Clarke has a well-earned reputation for producing engaging, intelligent and challenging domestic objects. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1997. Clarke has been associate lecturer at Konstfack, Sweden, Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Norway, Pforzheim School of Design, Germany, The Royal College of Art, London, Birmingham School of Jewellery, UK and Rhode Island School of Design, USA. Clarke was awarded the Diploma of Excellence during Schmuck Germany 1998. His work is included in the permanent collections of  The Marzee Collection in the Netherlands,The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, London, Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery UK, Victoria & Albert Museum London, The British Council Collection UK and The Crafts Council Collection. 
 
Robert Ebendorf is a jeweler, metalsmith and educator in Greenville, North Carolina. He received his BFA and MFA from the University of Kansas. He has taught at the University of Georgia, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Penland School of Crafts and the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is the Belk Distinguished Professor at the East Carolina University School of Art in Greenville, North Carolina. He is a co-founder of the Society of North American Goldsmiths. His work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Renwick Gallery Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, the Mint Museum, and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
 
Katy Hackney, originally from Dundee, Scotland is now a Londoner. She trained at Edinburgh College of Art, First Class BA Honors in 1989. She then graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1991, MA, RCA. She combines a wide variety of materials in her jewellery, mixing traditional silver, gold, enamel and wood with the more unorthodox: Formica worktops, toys, chess pieces, spectacle frames, off cuts plywood and cutlery handles. Hackney has exhibited internationally, including at SOFA New York, COLLECT in London, Gallery CAJ in the Museum of Kyoto, Alternatives Gallery in Rome, Arai Gallery in Tokyo, 'Schmuck' in Munich, Velvet Da Vinci, San Francisco, and Gallery Loupe, New Jersey. She was commissioned by London Underground to design a medal for staff involved in the London Bombings of 7th July, 2005, and was commissioned to design memorial plaques at the bombing sites. Her work is in the collections of the Alice and Louis Koch Ring collection, Crafts Council, London, Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts, Aberdeen Art Gallery & M

Comment by Mike Holmes on February 19, 2011 at 6:55pm

 

 

David Gates, Helen Carnac, David Clark

 

Host Installation

 

David Gates, Helen Carnac

 

David Gates, Bob Ebendorf

 

Host Installation

 

David Gates, Katy Hackney, Helen Carnac

Host Installation

Comment by Mike Holmes on December 30, 2010 at 4:58pm

HELEN SHIRK: Traces + BROOKE BATTLES: Order/disOrder

January 5 to February 6, 2011

Opening reception Friday, January 7, from 6 to 8 p.m.

 

Velvet da Vinci in San Francisco presents: HELEN SHIRK: Traces + BROOKE BATTLES: Order/disOrder. This exhibition of new work by California-based jewelers will open on January 5 with an artists’ reception on Friday, January 7, from 6 to 8 p.m.

 

Known for her bold and unique use of color on metal, Helen Shirk’s work can often be recognized by her technique of employing colored pencil on the surface of large vessels. In this new body of work, she explores a smaller, wearable scale of jewelry that is colored with China paint rather than pencil. The result is a more severe burst of color that has been eroded and scratched away with a coarse file following the assembly of each piece.

 

Helen Shirk has been the recipient of National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships in 1978 and 1988 and was made a Fellow of the American Crafts Council in 1999. Her work has been exhibited in the U.S. and abroad and included in many public collections, among them the Schmuckmuseum (Pforzheim), National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto), Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Mint Museum of Craft and Design, American Craft Museum, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian, Carnegie Museum, and Oakland Museum.

 

Helen Shirk Artist’s Statement

My relationship with nature has strengthened over the years, becoming a spiritual resource for my life and art.  Currently I’m working on a body of jewelry for the first time since 1994, still using the natural world as my focus. I worry about the effects of global warming, man-made calamities, diminishing resources and species. I find myself wondering what the earth will look like for my son and grandchildren.  It has made me consider the vital role nature plays in my enjoyment of life everyday. This series is called Traces.  After years of making pieces that didn’t involve the body, I chose to use the smaller scale and traditional materials of jewelry to evoke a sense of intimacy and preciousness; that seemed appropriate for reflection on pleasure and loss. I’m still involved with color, but there is some violence in it.

 

 

Brooke Battles was born in Oklahoma but has lived in California since 1983. She is a second-career jeweler after years in the corporate world.  She has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally, including in Velvet da Vinci’s CHESS, which was shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and Anti-War Medals, a show that toured internationally from 2003 to 2007.

 

Brooke Battles Artist’s statement

Each of us is pulled by conflicting forces:  good and evil, sleeping and waking, vulnerability and strength, speed and accuracy, aging and youth.  For me, the pull of order against disorder, of organization against chaos, is the challenge.

 

I have trouble with concepts of Orderly and Disorderly. “Orderly” can seem demanding, claustrophobic, predictable.   But it also can be classic, comforting, mind-clearing.  With order, things can be laid to rest.  “Disorderly” can be unnerving, confusing, time-consuming., but in disorder is an honest beauty, a randomness that makes perfect sense .  A riot of disorder tells a story you may really want to hear.           

 

My subject matter has two focuses always:  the garden and the home.  Or the larger nature of the irreplaceable nature of the earth and community. But those subjects are always filtered through this struggle between the demand for control and order on one hand, and on the other, the search for discovery and serendipity that disorder allows.

 

And now, having discovered enamels, I am like a kid getting her first finger paints.  I am enthralled with the depth of meaning and nuance that are possible with the riotous colors of the tropics, the rich variety of urban gardens, and the chaos and order of communities.  They lend another layer to the organic feel my work has always had.

 

 

Helen Shirk

Brooch: Green Garnet Trace, 2010

Silver, china paint

15 x 7.5 x 1.3 cm

 

Helen Shirk

Brooch: Lapis Trace, 2010

Silver, china paint

11.5 x 11.5 x 1.3 cm

 

Helen Shirk

Necklace: Hematite Trace, 2010

Silver

2.5 x 24 x .25 cm

 

Helen Shirk

Brooch: Amber Trace, 2009

Silver, china paint

12.5 x 7.5 x 1.3 cm

 

Brooke Battles

Neckpiece: Urban Garden Vine, 2010

Silver, copper, enamel

16.5 x 5 x 1.3 cm drop

 

Brooke Battles

Neckpiece: Cityscape, 2010

Silver, copper, enamel

45 long x 10 x 2 cm

 

Brooke Battles

Brooch/Neckpiece: Florist’s Brooch, 2010

Silver, copper, enamel, gold, peridot

5 x 5 x 1.3 cm

 

Brooke Battles

Neckpiece: Urban Garden, 2010

silver, copper, enamel, gold paint

45 long x 7.5 x 1.3 cm

 

Comment by Mike Holmes on October 28, 2010 at 7:37pm

PIERCE HEALY: Memory Maps
And
Still Life (with birds and insects), an installation by TOM HILL

November 3 to November 30, 2010
Opening reception Friday, November 5, from 6 to 8 p.m.


Velvet da Vinci in San Francisco presents: PIERCE HEALY: Memory Maps and Still Life (with Birds and Insects), an installation by TOM HILL. A skilled engraver and draftsman, Dubliner Pierce Healy carves dramatically detailed and imaginative stories into metal. He allows the engraving on each of his one-of-a-kind pieces to take over the metal’s surface as if it were a canvas. A narrative develops during the slow engraving process. Each unique piece includes an intaglio printed image from the corresponding engraving. Originally from London, San Francisco artist Tom Hill works in wood, wire, and paper to create an environment within the gallery. Inspired by children’s book illustrations, Still Life is a world in which larger-than-life insects crawl along metal vines and birds perch on paper plants that creep along the gallery floor. This exhibition will open on November 2 with an artists’ reception on Friday, November 5 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Visit our website for more information on this exhibition and for images of past exhibitions, dating back over ten years!

Comment by Mike Holmes on October 28, 2010 at 7:35pm

TOM HILL: Still Life (with Birds and Insects)
Still Life began with a drawing. Tom Hill’s work is often inspired by two-dimensional drawings, which he brings into a third dimension with wire, carved wood, gold and silver leaf, and paper. Children’s book illustrations were what inspired the creatures in this elaborate installation, which is comprised of multiple smaller works to create an environment that invades and thrives along the gallery floors and walls.

Tom Hill graduated from Middlesex University, London in 1994 where he was trained as a jeweler. He currently lives and works in San Francisco. Hill has exhibited at SOFA and participated in COLLECT at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and has had a one-person show at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts.

Tom has been shown by Bluecoat Gallery at both COLLECT in London, and SOFA, Chicago and is represented in the collections of the Geffrye Museum, London, the Wakefield City Museum, U.K., Arthur Andersen PLC and Contemporary Arts Society, Scotland.

Tom Hill Artist’s Statement
Installation art suggests something to me which is in many ways the opposite of my own practice as an artist-craftsman. The words bring to my mind images of chilly white rooms with forbidding collections of found objects recreated into confrontational and unemotional pieces, requiring text and/or context in order that the viewer can understand the complexities and layers of meaning contained within the piece: a complex intellectual statement that is about effect rather than affect, the brain not the heart.

I wanted to create a piece that would above all create atmosphere. To bring together a series of craft objects (or perhaps, more appropriately, "crafted objects") which have an emotional reaction in the viewer, where the visual impact of the wthole is greater than the sum of the parts. I want to make the viewer feel as if he has been transported away from the streets of San Francisco and into the pages of a richly illustrated children's book.

I have something of a marriage of convenience with metal. I've always tended to use metal simply as a means to an end, mostly making pieces which resemble three dimensional drawing from steel wire. Steel wire is cheap, lightweight and (mostly) stays where you tell it to go. It has been an interesting departure for me to work so much with surface and colour for this exhibition, patinating sheet metal and creating rich surfaces with metal-rich paints, metal leaf and chemical patinas. Much of my practice as an artist has been the opposite of this; it has been to break down the rich colours and textures of nature into a rationalised steel line.

The pieces are made from a combination of metal, wood and paper. I've tended to use spray painted surfaces to give unity to the whole, masking and stencilling to create pattern rather than brush painting. This collection leads from a series of drawings I was making last year, similar in subject matter, where I used multi-part paper stencils and car spray paint, drawing back in at the end with pen and ink. It is also very important to me that I make all the pieces. Each scribed line and hammer mark, each shaped wooden element is made by me; this piece represents about 5 months’ full time work.

One of my tutors in college would ask, "Do you see your work as a world?" To a large extent this project has been entirely the creating of a world within the gallery, with all the individual elements uniting to form a single visual language, a child's miniature garden in a shoe-box writ large.

Sculpture: Birds
Wood, metal, paint

Sculpture: Birds
Wood, metal, paint

Sculpture: Green Bird
Wood, metal, paint

Sculpture: Red Gourd
Wood, metal, paint

Sculpture: Snail
Wood, metal, paint

Sculpture: Snail
Wood, metal, paint

Comment by Mike Holmes on October 28, 2010 at 6:25pm

PIERCE HEALY: Memory Maps
Each elaborate illustration in Memory Maps is a story that usually starts with a sketch of an eye. From this starting point, images explode with information and symbols emerge out of the descriptive detail, covering large-scale surfaces that accommodate up to six square inches of intricate engraving. Cityscapes, ships, plants, toys, and animals surround the characters that literally support the stories; the images and symbols explode out of the head of the character on each piece. Characters in these stories resemble hobos and clowns; they wear bandages and patched boxing gloves and hold empty cups. Within these meticulous illustrations of chaos are stories that can be interpreted as both humorous and melancholy.

Engraving is a traditional, labor-intensive process in which metal is carved by hand using an assortment of hardened steel tools, called gravers. Each graver has a sharp steel tip, which is pushed along the surface of the metal to carve away material. Although hand engraving was an ancient art form widely used in the European Middle Ages, today it is rapidly being replaced by milling machines and advanced technologies. As his field modernizes and skill is replaced by machine, Pierce Healy remains true to tradition and continues to engrave by hand.

A recent graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Pierce Healy has been studying jewelry design for fifteen years, most recently at Konstfack in Stockholm with Ruudt Peters. In 2010 he received the Future Maker Networking Grant from the Crafts Council of Ireland.

Pierce Healy Artist’s Statement
The starting point for this work is my fascination with the inherent chaos and calm of the tides; both literally and metaphorically as in the tidal grind of city life. After exploring and documenting the tides and their extended effects I distilled my research into a graphic vocabulary of images and textures.

This evolving narrative manifested itself in the form of hand engraved picture diaries and memory map brooches. The slow and deliberate process of hand engraving lends another dimension to the work. As there are no shortcuts while engraving, time is spent slowly watching a story come to life.

When worn close to the body these stories take on a life of their own and travel out into the world engaging with a widely diverse audience.

With this work I hope to invite the viewer to escape into another world for a moment in time.

Brooch: Memory Map 2
Sterling silver, wood
13.5 x 10.5 x .75 cm

Brooch: Memory Map 2
Sterling silver, wood
13.5 x 10.5 x .75 cm

Brooch: Memory Map 1
Sterling silver, wood
15 x 10.5 x .75 cm

Brooch: Memory Map 1
Sterling silver, wood
15 x 10.5 x .75 cm

Brooch: Memory Map 6
Sterling silver, wood
14 x 8.5 x .75 cm

Brooch: Memory Map 6
Sterling silver, wood
14 x 8.5 x .75 cm

Brooch: Memory Map 3
Sterling silver, wood

Comment by Mike Holmes on October 16, 2010 at 3:49pm

The October/November issue of American Craft features Velvet da Vinci artist Kay Sekimachi. The article "Weaving the Sea" is an exploration of Sekimachi's studio, home, and the execution of her first jewelry exhibition, Puako.

In 2009, Velvet da Vinci hosted the exhibition Puako: Jewelry by Kay Sekimachi and Kiff Slemmons. Once dubbed the "weaver's weaver", Kay Sekimachi has been a working artist for sixy years. The exhibition Puako was inspired by the beach combings of Sekimachi during her yearly visits to Puako Beach, on the Big Island of Hawaii.

American Craft
Weaving the Sea: Kay Sekimachi Conjures Art from Shells and Bones

Kay Sekimachi
Photographed by Leslie Williamson

Kay Sekimachi
Sculptures, Coral Creatures
From the exhibition Puako at Velvet da Vinci

Kay Sekimachi
From the exhibition Puako at Velvet da Vinci

Kay Sekimachi
Necklace 3
From the exhibition Puako at Velvet da Vinci

Kay Sekimachi
Bracelet 20
From the exhibition Puako at Velvet da Vinci

Kiff Slemmons
Starfish Memory Necklace
From the exhibition Puako at Velvet da Vinci

Comment by Mike Holmes on October 13, 2010 at 4:53pm

Scottish-born Londoner Katy Hackney has sent us new work! Here is a preview of what you will see in the gallery:

Katy Hackney
Neckpiece, 2010
English Box wood, paint, silver, 18k gold, hand dyed nylon cord

Katy Hackney
Neckpiece, 2010
English Box wood, paint, silver, 18k gold, nylon cord

Katy Hackney
Diagram Brooch, 2010
Plywood, colorcore, paint, graphite, silver, steel

Comment by Mike Holmes on October 7, 2010 at 6:54pm

Svenja John

October 1 - October 31, 2010


As part of The Plastic Show we are pleased to present a special showcase by German jeweler Svenja John.

Svenja John began making jewellery in 1994 in Berlin. For 15 years she has used makrolon, a polycarbonate processed as foil. And right from the start her jewelry has been pieced together. With ingenious techniques she invents form modules which she links up and suspends, one within the other, forms nestling within forms, aggregations of shapes. She creates semi-opaque clusters and structures evocative of scientific models, crystalline and organic structures. Perhaps the model of an atom? Or an attempt to represent the orbit of heavenly bodies? Stylized blossoms or allusions to polished precious stones?

All her work is plastic: highly complex plastic. Hand-colored, cut from the prime material, and fitted with stringently logical and equally perfect clips and attachment clasps. Nothing is left to chance. Each single joint betrays the lavish care and near-obsessive love of detail that goes into it. Unfathomably complex are the images that flash before John's inner eye. "Images I catch and copy" as she says. In this way entire collections are conceived.

John is an urban dweller. Romanticism isn't her thing. In the city value systems change from day to day. Jewelry is a response to reality that embodies attitudes to life. The stories people tell each other here have a different ring to them. Even though they may all spring from the same deep longing. For beauty, lightness, uniqueness. From a longing to be amazed, to wonder and marvel. John's jewelry is all of this.

Text: Gabi Dewald

Breath Brooch
Makrolon polycarbonate

Hama Brooch
Makrolon polycarbonate

Ifni Handbag
Makrolon polycarbonate

Kabake Brooch
Makrolon polycarbonate

Nebux Brooch
Makrolon polycarbonate

Rudny Bracelet
Makrolon polycarbonate

Tara Brooch
Makrolon polycarbonate

Comment by Mike Holmes on September 30, 2010 at 8:22pm

THE PLASTIC SHOW

October 1 through October 31, 2010
Opening reception Friday, October 1, from 6 to 8 p.m.


Velvet da Vinci in San Francisco presents: The Plastic Show, an exhibition featuring work from the recently published Lark Jewelry Book 500 Plastic Jewelry Designs. The Plastic Show features work by 75 artists from 13 countries employing a variety of plastic materials such as resin, latex, rubber, epoxy, and thermoplastics, many of which are reused or recycled. We live in a plastic age. Plastics make up our computers, cell phones, and clothing, and are a necessary material in contemporary life. It is infinitely formable and employs endless colors and textures but also has become a blight upon the earth; plastics degrade slowly and are often not recyclable. Having been embraced by artists and designers, these ubiquitous materials are being reused and refashioned and are firmly woven into the language of contemporary jewelry making. Used alone or in combination with traditional elements, these substances can, with certainty, be classified as precious. Thanks to the use of plastics, conventional components like silver, gold, platinum, and gemstones are now only part of the jewelry-making equation. The jewelry in this collection represents the best work being produced today by artists who use plastics as a foundational element in their pieces. This exhibition opens October 1, with an artists’ reception on Friday, October 1 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Participating Artists:
Shana Astrachan, Anastasia Azure, Ela Bauer, Lea Marie Becker, Iris Bodemer, Sofia Björkman, Sigurd Bronger, Burcu Büyükünal, Ana Margarida Carvalho, Peter Chang, Joe Churchman, Jens A. Clausen, Barbara Cohen, Lisa and Scott Cylinder, Peter Deckers, Coco Dunmire, Janine Eisenhauer, Beate Eismann, Ute Eitzenhofer, Diane Falkenhagen, Jantje Fleischhut, Javier Moreno Frias, Velina Glass, Robly A. Glover, Suzanne Golden, Rebecca Hannon, Tamara Grüner, Ellen Himic, Eero Hintsanen, Kath Inglis, Jiro Kamata, Masumi Kataoka, Sun Kyoung Kim, Sarah King, Susanne Klemm, Jocelyn Kolb, Katja Korsawe, Birgit Laken, Margaux Lange, Carla Pennie McBride, Edward Lane McCartney, Karen McCreary, Charlene Modena, Masako Onedera, Niala Orsmond, emiko oye, Seainin Passi, Mary Hallam Pearse, Ruudt Peters, Natalya Pinchuk, Katja Prins, Yuka Saito, Karin Seufert, Leslie Shershow, Susan Kasson Sloan, Anika Smulovitz, Lin Stanionis, Rebecca Strzelec, Donna Mason Sweigart, Anthony Tammaro, Billie Jean Theide, Carolyn Tillie, Cynthia Toops, Silke Trekel, Jacomijn van der Donk, Mona Wallstrom, Kathryn Wardill, Emily Watson, Karla Way, Josephine Winther, Sayumi Yokouchi, Lily Yung, Sandra Zilker

Susanne Klemm
Rings: Joy Rings
Epoxy, stainless steel

Yuka Saito
Brooch: Under the Sea
Polypropylene, nylon, acrylic, sterling silver

Iris Bodemer
Neckpiece
18k gold, plastic, quartz, pearls, tape

Sayumi Yokouchi
Brooch
Airline meal tray, silk thread

Ela Bauer
Ring
Epoxy, pebbles, yarn, onyx, silicone, silver

Karin Seufert
Brooch: Brooch 259
Pvc, reconstituted coral, elastic, steel

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