Abbreviation | MAG |
---|---|
Formation | 1951 |
Type | 501(c 3) non-profit arts organization |
Headquarters | San Francisco, California, U.S. |
Location |
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Website | www |
Formerly called | Metal Arts Guild of Northern California |
Metal Arts Guild of San Francisco (MAG), is an American non-profit, arts educational organization founded in 1951. [1] The organization has supported the creation of Modernist jewelry in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as contemporary, and sculptural works. [2]
The Metal Arts Guild of San Francisco was founded in July 1951 by a group of dedicated metal artists and jewelers led by Margaret De Patta, [3] and included Merry Renk, [4] Irena Brynner, Florence Resnikoff, Byron August Wilson, Peter Macchiarini, Virginia Macchiarini, Vera Allison, Francis Sperisen, and Bob Winston. [5] [6] [7] Margaret De Patta served as the MAG founding president in 1951; followed by Merry Renk serving as president in 1954. [8]
The organization has been run by a team of volunteers since the early times. [7] The members meet once a month for organizational meetings. [7] The organization host educational lectures, art exhibitions, and classes. [7] [9] Benefits for members of MAG include a mutual exchange of information on techniques and exhibition opportunities, and large cooperative purchases of materials in order to offer a lessened prices. [7] [10]
For many of the early years of the organization, an annual exhibition of the Metal Arts Guild was held at a San Francisco museum, often at the Legion of Honor, or the De Young Museum. [2] [7] In 2002, the exhibition Fifty Years in the Making: The Bay Area Metal Arts Guild 1951-2001, was held at Velvet Da Vinci gallery in San Francisco. [11]
Art jewelry is one of the names given to jewelry created by studio craftspeople. As the name suggests, art jewelry emphasizes creative expression and design, and is characterized by the use of a variety of materials, often commonplace or of low economic value. In this sense, it forms a counterbalance to the use of "precious materials" in conventional or fine jewelry, where the value of the object is tied to the value of the materials from which it is made. Art jewelry is related to studio craft in other media such as glass, wood, plastics and clay; it shares beliefs and values, education and training, circumstances of production, and networks of distribution and publicity with the wider field of studio craft. Art jewelry also has links to fine art and design.
Arline Fisch is an American artist and educator. She is known for her work as a metalsmith and jeweler, pioneering the use of textile processes from crochet, knitting, plaiting, and weaving in her work in metal. She developed groundbreaking techniques for incorporating metal wire and other materials into her jewelry.
Robert William Ebendorf is an American metalsmith and jeweler, known for craft, art and studio jewelry, often using found objects. In 2003–2004, the Smithsonian American Art Museum organized an exhibition of 95 pieces, titled The Jewelry of Robert Ebendorf: A Retrospective of Forty Years.
Peter Macchiarini was an American Modernist jeweler and sculptor, who was a pioneer in the field of avant-garde jewelry. He maintained an art studio and shop on Grant Avenue in San Francisco, California, for more than 50 years. He was instrumental in organizing the first San Francisco outdoor art festival in 1938 as well as founding the Upper Grant Avenue Street Fair in 1954, an event that spawned similar artist-run festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Fred Fenster is a metalsmith and professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison where he taught art and education. He is particularly known for his work in pewter, influencing generations of metalsmiths. Fenster was named a Fellow of the American Craft Council in 1995.
Donald Paul Tompkins (1933–1982) is an American jewelry artist known for his witty and satirical works based on objects, photo etchings, cast elements, and gemstones. He is most closely associated with the Pacific Northwest and the metalsmithing community that coalesced around Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington, where he taught for many years. His most famous series Commemorative Metals keenly reflected Pop Art and the artistic concerns of New York City-based artists in the 1950s and 60s.
Ross Palmer Beecher is a contemporary mixed media artist who creates "quilts, flags, portraits of famous film directors and American folk heroes, and other types of objects from aluminum cans and found objects". She lives and works in Seattle.
Florence Lisa Resnikoff was an American artist and educator in the fields of metals and jewelry.
Byron August Wilson (1918–1992) was an American mid-20th century artist and educator, known for his jewelry design.
Margaret De Patta was an American jewelry designer and educator, active in the mid-century jewelry movement.
Jan Yager is an American artist who makes mixed media jewelry. She draws inspiration from both the natural world and the lived-in human environment of her neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, emphasizing that art is a reflection of both time and place. She has incorporated rocks, bullet casings, and crack cocaine vials into her works, and finds beauty in the resilience of urban plants that some would consider weeds.
Richmond Art Center is a nonprofit arts organization based in Richmond, California, founded in 1936.
Adda "Andy" Thyra Elise Louise Husted-Andersen was a Danish-born American Modernist jeweler, silversmith, metalsmith, and educator. She was a co-founder and the president of the New York Society of Craftsmen from 1941 to 1944. She was a master of working with enamel, silver and gold. She was active in New York City and Copenhagen.
Merry Renk, also known as Merry Renk-Curtis, was an American jewelry designer, metalsmith, sculptor and painter. In 1951, she helped to found the Metal Arts Guild (MAG), and served as its president in 1954.
Irena F. Brynner, also known as Irene Bryner, was a Russian-born American sculptor, jewelry designer, mezzo-soprano singer, and author.
Marilyn da Silva is an American sculptor, metalsmith, jeweler, and educator. She teaches and serves as a department head at the California College of the Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Da Silva has won numerous awards including honorary fellow by the American Craft Council (2007).
Vera A. Allison (1902–1993) also known as Vera Gaethke, was an American Modernist jeweler, and abstract painter. She was a co-founder of the Metal Arts Guild of San Francisco, a non-profit, arts educational organization. Allison had lived in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Mill Valley in California; and in San Cristobal, New Mexico.
Charles Robert Winston (1915–2003) was an American jeweler, sculptor, and educator. He was known for his organic forms and sculptural jewelry in 1950s and 1960s. Winston was a co-founder of the Metal Arts Guild of San Francisco, a non-profit, arts educational organization. In 1997, he was honored as a Fellow of the American Craft Council.
Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) is an organization of jewelers and metal artists in North America. It is located in Eugene, Oregon.
Ursula Ilse-Neuman is an independent curator whose work has focused on the field of decorative arts and jewelry curation. With a career spanning over three decades and more than 40 exhibitions, many of Ilse-Neuman's notable contributions were made at the Museum of Arts & Design (MAD), formerly known as the American Craft Museum, in New York City, where she served as Curator of Jewelry before assuming the position of Curator Emerita.