J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 1 C M A G M e m b e r s : D o n n a Y u t z y , B r u c e M c K a y , C h r i s t i n a F o w l e r - T h i a s IMPORTANT DATES JANUARY PRESENTATION: 1/18 Virtual Spring Show Prep - GotG registration opens 1/19 Setting up your Etsy or Squarespace Shop January CMAG meeting (Zoom) January’s presentation is designed to help our members get ready for the 2/16 Virtual Spring Show! CMAG member Heather Munion will go through the February CMAG steps of setting up an Etsy store, while Kari Phillips will be talking about creating a selling page using Squarespace. If you’d like to start selling online meeting (Zoom) and don’t know how, this is for you. 3/16 March CMAG meeting (Zoom) 2021 Virtual Spring Show: Next Steps 4/1 GotG registration As a reminder, the Gathering of the Guilds is holding a virtual show in spring. deadline The main website will link to individual Guild sites which in turn will link to the 4/30 selling platforms of individual artists. GotG will use its mailing list to promote GotG Virtual Show the event. opens! The show application opens on 1/18. The application fee will be $25, and we will also request the following: four high-quality images of your work IN THIS ISSUE a headshot with a 4:5 aspect ratio a very short artist statement (250 characters max) 1 Setting up your website contact information including the url for your selling platform. (presentation) 1 Spring Show Registration The deadline to apply is April 1, and the show goes live April 30. 1 Member Opportunities 2 Book Review Upcoming Online Workshops with Rachel Morris 3 & 4 Tool Reviews 5 CMAG Info Bring on the Box Clasp! (1 day workshop) - Saturday, February 20, 2021 - registration via ZOOM LINKS Brookfield Craft Center Three Clasps (and Maybe More!) in Three Days Board meeting (3 day workshop) - Friday, March 5 - Sunday, March 7, 2021 "Do I Keep My Day Job?" Transitioning Art to Business (6:00 pm): (1 day workshop) - Sunday, March 14, 2021 - registration via Brookfield https://zoom.us/j/9268808345 Craft Center 4? pwd=M1BDb2k3MGV3ci8zVV B1WDk3cXhhZz09 Co-op Gallery Opportunity Members meeting (7:00 pm): Artistic Portland Gallery, a cooperative gallery on NE Fremont. From the Jury Chair: https://zoom.us/j/9866945738 "There are two openings for unique, quality jewelry artists who would like to 5? be part of a collective of 25 artists who support each other in what we love to pwd=TXNSd2hVVWpVZzJISk do. Each artist has two lighted glass cases on a base with a (removable) door, hOcURkdlcwUT09 four shelves per case. 75% of sales to artist." Direct questions to [email protected] -- Apply at https://www.artisticportlandgallery.com/join/ Book Review by Madeleine Moore Modern Design in Jewellery and Fans: Special Winter Number of ‘The Studio’ A.D. 1901 - 1902 by Holme, Charles (ed.) One of my Christmas gifts included the perfect book for the new year: the January 1902 issue of the influential art magazine The Studio with the theme Modern Design in Jewellery and Fans. Seeing objects now relegated to museums and antique shops described as “modern” always puts things in perspective – look on my works, ye Mighty, etc. – though the quality of design of many of the featured items makes their appeal timeless. The volume is divided into six sections – French, British, Austrian, German, Belgian, and Danish – and each section begins with an essay in which a native art critic shares his opinion on the state of the craft in his country and on individual practitioners. This is followed by pages of black and white photography, mostly of jewelry, supplemented by tipped-in color illustrations protected with tissue guards. Twenty-first century color photographs do a better job of showing Art Nouveau jewels in all their glory, but contemporary publications are invaluable in showing work that has since fallen from public sight. It’s interesting to see the attention paid to currently lesser-known designers compared with those who are household names. René Lalique seems to have been famous then as now, acknowledged as “the creator of the art as we know it nowadays” by French essayist Gabriel Mourey, but the jewelry of revered designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh is dismissed by the British critic as having “that quaint mannerism which one instinctively associates with the Glasgow school of decorators”. Henry van de Velde receives brief, though more positive, notice in the Belgian section: his jewels are “remarkable for their firm and consistent construction”. No images are included. Georg Jenson receives the barest mention in the Danish section; again, no images are included. The lengthier analyses of other artists are frank and sometimes entertaining. M. Mourey’s verdict on René Foy: M. René Foy is a strange artist, rather restless, never altogether satisfied with himself, and haunted by a perpetual desire for something novel. Is he completely himself, that which he wishes or strives to be? This is the question those who have closely watched his career are asking themselves. For my part, I know some delightful things of his, extraordinarily delicate and graceful; but I also remember some of his work in which his exaggerations are such that one despairs of understanding his meaning. Unless I greatly mistake him, he wants the jewel to express more than it is possible for the jewel to express, and is therefore continually restless in his attempts to achieve the unachievable. There are no pictures of Foy’s work in the book, so I looked for it online. There aren’t many examples, but I think I can see the desire for a jewel to express more than the medium allows in “The Vestal Virgins”, a circa 1900 brooch with a relief of three women dancing around an eternal flame. Even allowing that some of the paint must have worn off the ivory, the scene is something of a muddy confusion up close and would be incomprehensible at a distance. The scene is simply too complicated for a piece five and a half centimeters in length. Since The Studio was international in scope and frequently covered American artists, the exclusion of American art jewelry might well be because the magazine’s editors didn’t think it was worth talking about. The only reference to American jewelry is Austrian critic W. Fred sneering at Tiffany’s “masses of precious stones”. CMAG Newsletter January 2021 2 Book Review continued He declares that Austria leans more toward France than the United States, and consequently places greater value on beauty of color and line than on the intrinsic value of the materials. Those who are heirs to a strong art tradition, says Fred, “do not need, as do others less fortunate, to prove the wealth of their inheritance by the use of lavish ornament. Their inherent artistic culture is indeed evidenced by the fact that they expect their artists to exercise their skill on materials less costly than do those who, to a certain extent, have their reputations still to make. Benvenuto Cellini had to be content to work in silver, the Americans want to have every stick or umbrella-handle to be of gold”. There is more to America than Tiffany, but the Kalo Shop had only opened in September 1900, and perhaps hadn’t been around long enough to attract international attention. The countries featured display the usual national characteristics evident in Art Nouveau jewelry surveys: the French and Belgians produce the most sinuous and elaborate forms, the Germans are already starting to veer toward the planes and angles of Art Deco, and the British lie halfway between. The British also boast the highest number of female artists, though to be fair, there are a great number of British artists to begin with – there are many more pages devoted to France and Britain than to the other nations, unsurprisingly for a magazine published in London and Paris. The featured fan paintings serve as a sad reminder of a dead art form. They are quite lovely and required great skill – a design had to look good folded as well as stretched out. A fan museum exists in Greenwich, London, but most of the fragile creations are gone forever, as is the way of life that supported them. Tool Review: Micromotors by Kristin Fudalla In the world of micromotors, there are a variety of sources and prices. It gets pretty confusing when you are researching which one to purchase, so I thought I would share my experience. During a CMAG session with Charles Lewton-Brain, he recommended searching for a dental supply or a nail salon version to get started. Our fellow CMAG member Pat McCormick let me borrow his NATPLUS which he bought from Amazon under “nail filers”. It is portable and rechargeable. You turn it on and adjust the speed with a knob. It’s not for everyday use, but handy for a battery- operated, polish-on-the-fly system. Then there is the dental supply version - this is where you can get into many options, brands, vendors, and costs. I searched Rio, Otto Frei, Gesswein, as well as on the internet. It gets mind boggling, so I reached out to our friends at Jewellery Training Solutions and got a great tip. CMAG Newsletter January 2021 3 Tool Review: Micromotors continued They recommend the Saeshin Strong micromotor. Rio sells them, but they are pricey.