Ornament Print Edition Volume 44.4

Welcome to our newest edition of Ornament Magazine! Robert K. Liu takes us back through fifty years of Ornament Magazine and the Bead Journal, showing through photographs the magnificent journey that he and the late Coeditor Carolyn L.E. Benesh have undertaken, and the incredible people they have met along the way.

We revisit the mesmerizing jewelry of Mary Lee Hu by the late Carolyn L.E. Benesh. Carolyn had a personal appreciation of Hu’s meticulous work, and in this article, she offers a paean to beauty, accomplished and mighty, through Hu’s own journey of teaching and innovating.

Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell gives praise to Emile Pingat, a contemporary of Charles Frederick Worth who, whilst overshadowed, expressed his strength through his luxurious capes. Made to exacting standards, these highly niche garments were essential parts of women’s wardrobes in the eighteenth century.

Ashley Callahan takes a fun romp through a traveling exhibition on bolo ties, featuring contemporary jewelry artists, many of whom were making a bolo tie for the first time. The diverse range of voices within “Everybody’s Bolos: Inclusivity Through Craft” is an irreverent nod to today’s America and an atlas of its many distinct voices.

Patrick R. Benesh-Liu brings readers on a tour of the Smithsonian Craft Show, and delves into the people whose volunteered time makes the show possible. He makes the argument that we cannot take good things for granted, and that by investing our time and presence, we can preserve and grow those good things.