Ornament Digital Volume 40.4

In our newest issue, Diana F. Pardue describes the stunning lapidary designs of architecturally trained jeweler Richard Chavez, from San Felipe Pueblo. Minimalist yet monumental, Chavez’s jewelry utilizes bold and contrasting combinations of stones. He employs unusual specimens, such as black and green jade, to eloquently depict imagery both abstract and representational.

Jo Lauria interviews Melissa Leventon, co-curator of the exhibition, “Fit for a Queen,” currently showing at the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, on the collaboration between Queen Sirikit of Thailand and the Parisian couturier Pierre Balmain to assemble her wardrobe for state occasions. The Queen’s efforts to promote Thai textiles saw a subtle marriage between West and East.

Patrick R. Benesh-Liu invites readers to flip through time and space as he brings Ornament to the most extraordinary museum event of 2018, “Burning Man” at the Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C. This landmark exhibition introduces the greater public to the history of Burning Man, and the fantastical art projects, costumes, props, and decorations that transform the sands of the Nevada desert into a creative paradise.

And completing our fair selection, Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell takes us on a journey through the early twentieth-century effort to end the hunting of birds for fashion. As told by the New-York Historical Society’s recent exhibition, she details how the mass exploitation of wild birds for their plumage prompted an international movement to stop this practice. This coalition had many founders, among them the Audobon Society.