Humans like to flaunt, we use ornaments to attach certain symbols of achievement to our bodies. Symbols that depict our ideas of honor, power, affiliation, money, and education. Consider the spectacular decorations of the Sistine Chapel, symbolizing the sublimity of religion, or a coat of arms boasting the authority of an imperial family. Today, these symbols can be found on the buttons of clothes, the insignias of uniforms, or the patterns embossed on various types of certifications.

In Shell of Desire, Ye-jee Lee reprints these symbols using forgotten or discarded metal dies. Viewing the act of reprinting objects in a symbolic language as analogous to spreading metaphorical messages embedded in those objects. Her ornaments visually rearrange the symbols that represent objects of human envy and bind them together into a new bouquet of stories, for people to revisit and form fresh relationships with.

The Baltimore Jewelry Center is excited to present its inaugural Graduate Exhibition. The exhibition captures the work of emerging jewelers and metalsmiths who have recently completed their formal education. This new, annual exhibition highlights the depth and breadth of what is currently being created in the field by young graduating jewelers and metalsmiths.

The artists in this inaugural exhibition represent both national and international programs and were selected by the BJC’s 10-person exhibitions committee. Participating artists include Ashley Wingo, Chelsea Nanfelt Rowe, Dorota Wilde, Grace Wallstead, Hana Foo, Jeannette Knigge, John Gyimesi, Mackenzie Pearl Reid, Megan Kerr, Megan Obenaus, Meichan Yuan, Michael Bair, Michal Schwab, Seville Marina Meyn Partida, Vanessa Shum, and Yifei Kong.

Building on the success of the 2022 exhibition Transforming the Prototype, the Baltimore Jewelry Center, Montgomery College, and Towson University invited students, alumni, emerging and established artists to apply for the group exhibition Transforming the Prototype 2. Participants received a collection of traditional vintage wax patterns (rings, pendants, odds & ends) which they transformed through additive or subtractive processes. The objective was to radically reimagine the prototype wax pattern into a bespoke object(s) or jewelry. Transforming the Prototype 2 was juried by Mary Hallam Pearse, Associate Professor of Art in Metals & Jewelry at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. The juror selected four artists to receive best in show awards; these will be announced at the opening and via social media.

Re: Play is a solo exhibition of recent jewelry and sculpture by Katie Kameen. In this collection of colorful abstractions made entirely from secondhand and postconsumer plastics, Kameen focuses on the formal qualities of mass-produced items and how they can communicate intimate aspects of our lives. Through a playful process of cutting, deconstructing, and rearranging forms, Kameen discovers compositions inspired by personal memories and experiences. Unified by a deep interest in the formal language of color and shape, Kameen’s work touches on the challenges and conventions of social engagement. Works in the exhibition contrast two worlds of plastic: the technicolor space of children’s toys, and the neutral sophistication of functional household objects. Combined with a constant theme of playful reinvention, these spaces of childhood and adulthood reveal aspects of how our relationships evolve organically over time.

When my Gram died she left me her writing desk. I knew I’d be getting it because the day I was born she stuck a piece of masking tape under it with my name on it. That same day in 1977, Gram received a bracelet with a pendant containing the first photograph of me.

In 2003, while on a road trip, Gram gave me four shoeboxes filled with her jewelry. At the time the gift felt odd but Gram knew I would eventually make good use of her collection. Gram died in 2008. Several years later I opened the shoeboxes.

365 Grams is part documentation and part reclamation. Beginning on July 1, 2016, without fail, I wore one piece of Gram’s jewelry every single day for a year to give the jewels the respect and attention they deserved. After that, the jewelry became raw material and 365 Grams.

Motoko Furuhashi, Kerianne Quick, and Demitra Thomloudis

Location Services presents perspectives on place through the lens of contemporary jewelry and objects. Furuhashi, Quick, and Thomloudis share a common interest in site, place, and origin. Coming to these shared subjects from three distinct perspectives, the artists construct a holistic view through crafted responses which are unequivocally individual. The exhibition demonstrates an explicit view where the artists observe place/site within historical and contemporary contexts of craft and the inseparable bond place has to individuality, society, and culture. The crafting of jewelry and objects is a means to profoundly support and express our identity. It exists to contain our innermost thoughts, engaging intimately with the body, while communicating with and deepening our understanding of the world that surrounds us. 

Amelia Toelke works across mediums to explore the unique relationship between identity, culture, and ornament. Jewelry is a profound part of being human. As it slips on and off our fingers and passes from one generation to the next, it performs powerful and complex social functions, communicating who we are and who we want to be. In Grab Bag, Toelke presents wearable objects alongside works on paper. Viewed together, charms, chains, and gems are jewelry and symbol simultaneously. The compositions both substitute and transcend the form and function of language, leaving fleeting echoes of exuberance and sentimentality.

“Quilts represent comfort, female strength, family, community, history, pattern, craft, and love. The act of putting needle to cloth makes the fabric stronger with each subsequent stitch. I use this seemingly simple act as a metaphor and a source for inspiration. I imagine the women who made my family’s heirlooms. What were their thoughts, their dreams, and conversations? I contemplate this as I repeat the process.”

This body of work represents the strength and support women offer each other through their making. Utilizing familiar tools associated with traditional female crafts like reclaimed aprons and knitting needles, Angela Caldwell creates wearable and armor-like representations that embody the spirit of women and offer a perspective on the strength they provide. The repetitive use of the archetypal hexagon draws on the imagery and symbolism of a queen bee in her hive. The use of contemporary practices and materials, like powder coating and metallic thread, positions Caldwell’s modern voice within this rich history. By deconstructing and reinterpreting the quilt, she commemorates the women of her past, carrying their emotions and support with her as she faces each day. Blending her experiences with those imagined, she reveals the previous makers' central roles in shaping her female identity.  

Colorful Minds represents contemporary jewelry artists in the United States who use enameling as their primary medium. These artists explore enameling techniques by introducing contemporary interpretations to the historical medium. They express themselves using visual language, reflecting their narratives through  innovative techniques and materials, as well as new technology to experiment and challenge the traditional craft.   

Colorful Minds is an international curatorial project started in 2022 in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, the color of humanity seemed to turn dark and gray as we lost our daily human interactions and so many lives. This project is largely dedicated to contemporary enameling, jewelry, and objects; by featuring bold, whimsical, and colorful enamel, we hope to convey positive energy to those who endured all the difficulties and challenges of the pandemic.   

“I may have many stories to tell. I will choose only a few. You can make up the rest.”

Meet Me presents a new body of work by artist Katja Toporski, work that she has made over the pandemic years, in both her home studio and at residencies in Finland and Norway. This body of work is her most personal yet, a sort of self-portrait: inside, outside, idealized, fictionalized. Through her making, she looked for integration of self and others, the world around her, generations, and the past, with an aim to stay well in chaos and find focus where things fall apart. The artwork is at once an act of reflection and absorption and a portrait of the artist’s spirit.

Throughout history, jewelry has been utilized to visually indicate a wearer’s preferences, characteristics, attitudes, and beliefs. For this year’s community challenge, the BJC invited artists to create jewelry and wearables that implicitly or explicitly act as signifiers, symbols, or classifications. Jewelry might play an overt role as a signal or act as a coded symbol of inclusivity, exclusivity, or social status. The work featured in Signs, Signals, + Symbols references, among other things, political movements, gender and sexual identity, and cultural communication and practices.

Through their collective exhibition projects, the four-person Norwegian artist collective ARKIVET presents contemporary jewelry that reveals their material understanding, craftsmanship and artistic perception. ICE COLD can refer to many things, including temperature, weather, and food or drink. When ARKIVET’s members explore the expression in dialogue with each other, a number of specific interpretations and reflections emerge: tactile and emotional interactions with the cold, an exploration of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a singular experience with extreme cold, and poetic interpretations that address complex and contradictory interpersonal relationships. With the ICE COLD exhibition, ARKIVET presents a collective statement about our present-day and the complex period in which we live.

The ARKIVET Collective is: Putte H. Dal, Ella Heidi Sand, Hilde Dramstad, & Camilla Luihn

In our attempt to categorize, we rush to organize makers into those that make works of art and those that make production work, but rarely are the boundaries so distinct. The One and the Many illustrates the reciprocal relationship between singular works and the production practice of the Baltimore Jewelry Center’s Metal Shop artists. The exhibition asks the viewer to examine the cycles of making, as one type of work leads to another. Does the repetition of production lead to a blossoming of individual works, or is the autonomous artwork inspiration for a market friendly line of pieces? The One and the Many breaks down the hierarchy between these two categories and asks the audience to consider a making practice where production and art are facets of a larger whole.

Fulfillment is an exhibition of jewelry and speculative objects by the Baltimore Jewelry Center’s inaugural Teaching Fellow, Andy Lowrie. While completing his Fellowship at the BJC, Lowrie has been reflecting on his work life in the United States. While this has most recently been as a jewelry and metals instructor, it has also included labor and production roles unrelated to his training; day jobs he took on to support his work as an artist. The experience of teaching a craft and sharing a passion sits in stark contrast to the extreme physical output demanded of American manufacturing and logistics. Fulfillment weaves the influence of these experiences together in an attempt to exorcize the difficult and meditate on the meaningful. The exhibition includes surround sound designed by Baltimore-based composer, Jason Charney.

Transforming the Prototype is a collaborative project developed by the Baltimore Jewelry Center, Montgomery College, and Towson University. Participating artists selected a vintage ring design from a curated group chosen for the project and received a wax version of their selection. Artists then transformed the ring through additive or subtractive processes, either while it was still wax or once it was cast in metal. To transform the prototype into a bespoke object or piece of jewelry, artists integrated new wax components, soldered and sawed their cast pieces, added stones, and, in some cases, built larger-scale objects. The resulting work demonstrates the infinite possibilities of the lost wax casting process while making connections between fine jewelry and conceptual jewelry. Participants from the three educational institutions as well as independent artists submitted nearly 50 transformations that will be on view in this exhibition.

For six weeks, artists Jolynn Santiago and Andy Lowrie will use the BJC gallery as a temporary studio space to create an exhibition that will unfold like a conversation for viewers to witness. Jolynn and Andy share a love of dust and tape, and both utilize mark making, enameling and metalsmithing in their respective practices. They find common ground in drawing and are attracted to how materials break down and wear away. They prefer a methodology of reacting and responding rather than preemptive planning, driven by the process of making and the curiosity inherent in making. Unraveling will not be about a finished product but about challenging what a finished product can be and how an audience comes to see and understand the work of the artist, making visible the ways art and objects come into existence. The exhibition will show how we think through making, recording, reflecting and communicating, and how relationships influence the outcomes of collaborative work.

Language and the written word are integral to our ability to communicate with one another, to share our ideas, thoughts, and feelings, in both an informative and expressive way. We utilize language in very basic ways, but also manipulate it for creative purposes. In the Art Jewelry Forum article article “Tilling Time/Telling Time,” gallerist and writer Karen Lorene says, “Ideas appear, and then words, and then, strangely enough, a novel”; this progression is also mirrored in the work of visual artists. This exhibition showcases work by metalsmiths, jewelers, and artists who use text and language in their work, to visually and literally communicate their ideas, as a method of mark-making, or as an inspiration point. The body serves as a landscape and meeting ground, inviting intimate exchanges of words between the viewer and wearer.

Humanity has adorned itself with jewelry throughout the ages. The earliest acknowledged artifacts date from between 100,000 to 135,000 years ago and indicate that prehistoric humans were thinking symbolically about the objects around them. Historically, jewelry has been used to denote marital or class status, signify availability or fertility, act as protection against evil spirits, enhance beauty, mark grief, convey wealth, and more.

For this community challenge exhibition, we asked artists to make a piece of jewelry or a sculptural object influenced by a historical piece. Artists participating in the challenge drew inspiration from a pre-selected collection of historical jewelry objects from the Walters Art Museum. The items in the collection come from various cultures and time periods, illustrating spectacular craftsmanship and skill.

New Works by Mallory Weston

Chromoflage explores the familiar landscapes of a digital world superimposed on the foliage of rare tropical plant specimens. Coincidentally, these lush species also lead a double life as popular houseplants with a sometimes cult-like following and appeal. How did this happen? Well for one, these striking plants make excellent content, with their splotches of pastel pink or polka dotted patterning or otherworldly solid white leaves. But there’s also the darker and more recent phenomenon of the desire to latch onto any other life form available to tend and care for during the months of isolation that we’re still enduring. The excitement and anticipation of watching a new leaf slowly unfurl or fresh buds appear after a long period of dormancy, something to look forward to during quarantine.