Ornament Digital Volume 40.1

In our latest issue, Carl Little chronicles Keri Ataumbi who started as a painter, then went into jewelry in her late twenties. While of Kiowa heritage, her jewelry, often animal themed, does not announce as Native American, but they speak with loving concern and poignancy of her life, family and heritage. Her collaborations with other artists result in an exciting body of work that is diverse, intriguing and contemplative.

Ashley Callahan notes how the peripatetic life of Kat Cole has influenced her jewelry of steel and enamel. Each of the six places where she has lived has a distinct cityscape that she translates into her work, reflecting their industrial detritus. Using sheet steel and liquid enamel, often applied in an industrial context, her work is highly geometric, yet light, due to the strength of the material.

Carolyn L. E. Benesh paints us a picture of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show for 2017 in which each craftsperson is celebrated. In giving a careful look at ten artists and their work, the nature of this annual show, an institution that has given a platform and a marketplace for craft for now forty-one years, is brought into focus.

Robin Updike writes that hatmaker Wayne Wichern’s studios are peopled by hundreds of wooden hat blocks, that she likens to Brancusi sculptures without features. As a custom milliner, with studios in Seattle and Burlingame, California, Wichern has a thriving clientele with a sense of style and life experience. Formerly a ballet dancer, Wichern also teaches hatmaking at top craft institutions.