Poet of Papyrus: Francesca Vitali

Francesca Vitali
Specialty: Jewelry, exploring paper as a medium
Most Recent Craft Show: Washington Craft Show
Upcoming Craft Show: None Planned for 2013

Paper. It's usually something you write on, or put into your printer, or hold between your hands as a magazine or a book. Although the modern day has brought the material into use in the wearable art field, few have dealt with it so originally and spectacularly as Francesca Vitali, an Italian who immigrated to the United States. Although trained as a chemist, Vitali found inspiration in American propensity to shift careers within the course of one's life.

Satelliti (Satellites) brooch of repurposed paper, sterling silver; woven, 2010.

  
    Craft was not unfamiliar to her, however; indeed, as a young girl she was already making jewelry. Paper was quickly realized as a useful medium for her early experimentation; she recalls, “The first piece that I have ever made of paper was a very long necklace made of strung paper beads, and the paper was from a clothing line catalog. I’m amazed I still remember that!” It was the endless range of colors available from magazines and other publications that lit her imagination. Just by re-using old paper products, she had a limitless palette to choose from.

A Mano Libera Series, Aspide (Freehand Series, Asp) necklace of recycled paper, sterling silver, nylon coated steel cable; woven, 2011.

    Vitali’s self-taught techniques yield suprising results. Most of her pieces are composed of many tight composite folds, which then are wound around each other to produce organic and geometric shapes. Each fold exposes the color of the glossy paper, and Vitali makes sure to add in variation to make for spicy designs. A coiling spiral wave form made from gold and white paper, with a black border is threaded through with wire to make a necklace; the voluminous shape is as magnificent a pendant as any gemstone. The piece, Aspide, or Asp, is broad enough to almost be a pectoral. Vitali’s work uses weaving techniques to achieve this luminous final product. This series, A Mano Libera, takes a single long woven element which is then shaped in a manner similar to a freeform drawing.

Connessioni (Connections) necklace of recycled paper, magnet; woven, 2012.

    “I have mastered my weaving technique and my new challenges are striving to find new structures, new shapes and new ways of transforming paper,” she says. An example of these challenges is her new piece Connessioni. “The new necklace was inspired by one of my favorite color combination (red/black and white) and paper combination (repurposed paper/book pages). I wanted to connect all these elements into a necklace made only of paper,” Vitali explains. “And of course the name of the piece “Connessioni” means connections!”

    In contrast to A Mano Libre, in Connessioni the paper itself is the necklace, “wire”, clasp and all. The interwoven connection between red and white paper appears to be not only functional, providing some give to the necklace, but also a visual centerpoint. Abbraccio is another completely paper design which features a closure at the back, like a torque. Simply shaped, here it is Vitali’s use of color that commends the piece; the glossy purple, pink and deep red are a resonant combination.

Abbraccio (Embrace) necklace of repurposed paper; woven, 2012.

    Francesca’s description of the creative state pays homage to that same ineffable source of inspiration that many artists relate to. “Mostly I work at night in my studio, when the rest of the house is quite and asleep,” Vitali explains. “That is a magic time of my day, as a matter of fact my studio is a small sunroom with three walls made of windows, so I’m practically in the middle of the dark. On one side there is a hill and the rest is just neighbors backyards. Everything is still except my hands and my brain. I spend most of my time weaving while thinking of new pieces, just writing about it puts me in that happy state that I’m not sure I can really describe… I just want to make a new piece!”

Selection of Vitali's work at her booth in the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show 2012.

    As part of her picking up a new career in the United States, Vitali has taken many classes in order to learn metalsmithing techniques to incorporate into her work. Early admirers of her jewelry will remember her aluminum cuff "sheller" or "shelly" bracelets, where only a quarter of the diameter of the circular design contains woven paper. The paper provides the color, rendering the piece a picture of elegant simplicity. Vitali has worked metal into a number of her pieces, however has recently found herself trending back to using paper alone.

“For years, I have worked a lot on paper and metal, always trying to figure more ways to combine these two elements,” she describes, “but recently in the past year and half I found that I’m very attracted by paper only. In a way I’m going back where all started. The only difference now is that I’m doing it as a conscious choice over incorporating other material.”

Having come full circle, Vitali is juggling her jewelrymaking with her baby daughter, Penelope. Continuing to impress, her vibrant and unusual pieces stand out in both technical skill and aesthetic sense. Who knew paper could be so fashionable?

More of her work can be found here.

Illusione Ottica (Optical Illusion) bracelets of repurposed
paper; woven, 2012.

Jade Dragon Down the Rabbit Hole: A Visit to Furaffinity

Tang-Jun by Shalinka

Chris Goodwin

    While science, mathematics and other similar fields are always in demand, the arts are seen as offering less direct benefits, particularly for employment. Education in something as seemingly ethereal and frivolous as the arts is often deemed to be financial deadweight in curriculum, and thus is seen as open game for cuts. I’ve often heard lamentations from the older members of the craft community about the state of art education in the United States. I myself, from secondhand information, am aware of the deficit. However, from firsthand interaction, I am not nearly as demoralized as my good friends in the established craft community about art’s place in the consciousness of our generation. One reason for this is my participation in the furry community.

    Furries are a subculture that most people who are young and fairly involved in the online community are aware of, at least superficially. To those who didn’t grow up in the nineties and the first decade of the twenty-first century, they may be near invisible. At its most elemental, furries are people who are fans of anthropomorphized animals. The subculture has actually been extant for decades, its roots originating in the “funny animal” cartoons of Disney and the Looney Tunes. However, it took the advent of the internet for the culture to really become a connected community. As gallery websites allowed more and more people to become aware of the fandom, it gained a very eclectic following from all walks of life. As one artist says, to many furry is a lifestyle, to others it is exclusively about love of art, or comes of a passion for the natural world. Furry is as mixed a melting pot as there ever was.

SpottyJaguar

    Art has always been an integral part of the furry community. Most if not all furries have fursonas, a play on the word furry and persona. These can be avatars of themselves, or just characters of fictional people they’ve invented, but what’s fairly inevitable is that most furries will eventually draw or commission a drawing of their fursonas.
    A high percentage of the furry community are artists, and with a supportive membership for the arts, even the beginners will often find encouragement and tips that will help them grow to become capable illustrators. Those who don’t draw themselves can easily find hundreds of artists who will help their fursonas come to life. The main mechanism for this is Furaffinity.net, an online gallery/social media website where anyone can register, somewhat akin to Facebook, or, for those familiar with it, Deviantart.

Vallhund

    Furaffinity, or FA, has several basic features: a profile page with a comment section (known as shouts); journals, where one can make blog-like posts; a gallery where one can upload drawings, photographs, written stories, or even music; and a private message system called notes.

    While not extensive in resources, users have made FA a nexus for commissions. Many of the artists participating on FA have as part of their profile page or journals commission information, including samples of their work; prices for various levels of commissions; rules and guidelines for subject matter; and information on submitting a commission request.

    Moreover, the most important facet of FA is that its audience are also its customers. Because FA doubles as Facebook for the furry community, all the people who would want to purchase the services of its members are already there. From personal experience, this is most notable in the ads which the site runs. These four ads, two placed each on the top and bottom of every page, are almost all furry related. FA itself has its own ad program, which anyone can purchase. Most of these are site members who are selling commissions. As such, the customers and the artists always reach their target audience. And because most ads simply redirect to the artist’s profile page, it’s seamless to navigate from an ad to an advertiser. This makes for a very natural system for selling art.

Krat

    The work of the artists spans a vast range of styles. In general, one could say there are a number of general artistic styles, like branches of a family tree, which means for many artists one can see similarities between their work. This doesn’t include beginner artists, who might be drawing for the first time. Although these are often like the drawings of a child, I’ve personally seen friends whose work has progressed by leaps and bounds in the year or two they’ve maintained their artwork. With a generous amount of support from the community, many artists are encouraged enough to stick with their artmaking until they’ve achieved genuine skill.

    Besides the beginners and those who fit under stylistic branches, there are those whose work is genuinely unique. Whether by experimentation with methods, or their own artistic vision, these artists who create outstanding work, while somewhat rarer, can be found in droves; when the pool is hundreds to thousands of people, diamonds in the rough show up in their dozens.

    Prices can range from $10 to $20 for a colored line art or sketch from some artists, averaging around $50 to $60 for the more established ones. Art in that range usually includes backgrounds, shading, and other details. Popular artists can often claim higher, around $80 to $100 for a more complex piece. Those who are in high demand can charge even higher; some of these creators can sell their work for $500 to $600 or even more. Sometimes auctions are held for a particular commission bid, and I’ve seen these reach $1,000. However, from those artists I’ve spoken with, one has stated that even these can be on the low end of the spectrum with some auctions going from $2,500 to in one case $10,000. They also comment on how equivalent work is often more expensive through other venues, like comic conventions, where a simple pencil headshot could go for $60.

Wolf-Nymph

    What about the artwork itself? One feature of FA is a watch list, which is like a combination of friends on Facebook and bookmarking. I’ve made my own watch list from a combination of browsing through random work, finding people through ads, and seeing somebody’s work favorited by another artist I like. Very few of these artists I’ve met in person, or even spoken to. That’s no barrier to admiring their work, though!

    Chris Goodwin’s work not only spans a wide range of styles, but his vignettes from life, featuring furry stand-ins, are wonderful snapshots of the unusual in the everyday. Krat is also an experimenter, with his psychedelic piece “I blame this on the 60’s” a vibrant neon Day of the Dead-like tribute. He has a running comic series that has a wonderful grittiness to it.

    On the other end of the spectrum, artist Mitti is the queen of cute. She is highly capable of creating miniature characters that are both adorable and raucous. Not to be typecast, she is also capable of romantic Parisian scenes and painting as well. Wolf-Nymph’s style is colorful and full of motion. Her Mosaic Tiger is a piece-de-resistance, featuring a stone golem tiger composed of magic gemstones, resting on a Greco-Roman veranda in front of an evening sun.

Mitti

    I should say that many “Anthro Artists” don’t necessarily have fursonas; indeed, many of those I’ve mentioned don’t have a personal fursona, or even identify themselves as furries. Cardinal is not one of these; his personal identification is a Pug. With brilliant coloring and a bold cartoonish style, his pieces certainly stand out from the page. As with many of the artists I’ve mentioned, he is capable of more realistic figures, as his large series of “ferals” attests. Some furries have feral forms, which are essentially like a non-human animal, rather than an anthropomorphic one. However, human emotions are still often seen on a feral’s face, bridging the gap between supposedly non-sentient “beast” and the homo sapiens.

Horse Feather

    So, it's not only artists who identify themselves as furries who show and sell their work on FA. A lot of artists are professionals who use their furry work on the side to supplement their income. Some are older artists who come from a science fiction or fantasy art background, now also visiting furry conventions to sell their work. These artists often appreciate the enthusiasm for art within the FA community, which provides a rare environment where one is inundated in an interested audience.
    Vallhund’s work is testament to her interest in tackling a variety of subjects and characters. She will often do themed commission series on sale, for instance where someone can ask for their fursona to be portrayed as a video game character. She’s also capable of pieces with strong emotion; Cyrus and the Other Side presents a snow leopard fursona confronting his demonic other half in a mirror, a true portrait of resolve. Vallhund is very appreciative of the economic ecology of FA. “There is a guaranteed target market with a consistent flow of work to be had by artists through commissions, a decent system for advertisement that encourages in-community work, and overall the site is geared to provide a fandom based on artwork with the artwork it needs in an accessible way,” she explains. Vallhund joined the website in 2009, but at that time didn’t make a living from selling her work. She’d been drawing anthropomorphic figures for most of her life, but it wasn’t until joining FA that she became aware of the large community based around it. “I didn’t start doing commissions either,” Vallhund recalls, “most of my work I’d posted to FA were personal works the first few years. My local furries were purchasing basic pieces from me around the time I quit my job working in a restaurant as a cook (a job I’d had between companies since I was 17), and I suddenly had a lot more time to draw. So I took commissions for the first time ever and worked as hard as I could to get faster and more practiced at using a Tablet/digital medium.” Before this, Vallhund was most comfortable with traditional media.

Kray Tsao

    Racoonwolf, whose fursona switches between a timber wolf and a raccoon, is another artist whose style is both emotional and representative of the bold strokes of oil painting. In this Taiwanese artist’s work, one can see similarities to the art of Chris Goodwin, as both artists are some of those who utilize painting rather than solely digital art. Horsefeather is another artist with a fursona, a quite unique one at that! She is a hybrid of a horse, a kudu and a lunar moth, a quite graceful and diaphanous figure. Her piece featured here, In Pari Materia, presents her fursona in the Art Nouveau style.

    SpottyJaguar’s work is in the darker realm. With many representations of demons or sexuality, this artist’s work is very well-rendered, with strong lines and excellent shading. It should be noted that the furry community has an erotic component. While a guest without an account on the website cannot access any mature pieces, a registered user will find a high proportion of erotica. One should be forewarned, however avoiding the community based on this alone will blind you to the beautiful artwork present here. Try to avoid coming in with prejudice, and one will be rewarded. Many of the artists I’ve described previously have multiple erotic pieces, but as many or more that have no sexual content.

Balaa

    Kacey's work is characterized by pastel coloring and her detailed and gently drawn fur portrayal. Rounded edges in general give her art a soft and playful feel. Her picture here is a reference sheet, which is a visual reference for a character or fursona. Generally one character is depicted from two or three different angles, such as front, back and side. Basic or more extensive descriptions of the character are also included, as well as a color palette of the colors the fursona has. Kacey's depiction of Artistic Fox is an example of a basic reference sheet with creative poses.
    The work of Veramundis is fairly distinctive, because of his use of cel-shading and painting. The pastel coloring of many of his pieces produces a particular look which almost makes it look like computer animation. KrayTSAO is one of my favorites; with elements of Veramundis, Chris Goodwin and Racoonwolf, his dioramas are surreal and magnificent, and his characters have the haunting quality of old portraits.

    Thornwolf and Balaa are two California artists who I’ve met at conventions. Both are superlative creators. Balaa’s sketchwork of one of my favorite subjects, tigers, are masterful representations of these regal and ferocious animals. Bedecked in flowers or sea creatures, they are some of her trademark pieces which she sells at dealer’s rooms. Her colored work is equally remarkable, with many cosmic presentations that mimic sacred art. Like most of the skilled artists I’ve mentioned, she is capable of a diversity of styles. Her partner, Bagheera, is an equally powerful illustrator, Taiwanese with a fursona of a black leopard.

    Thornwolf’s art possesses a grand sense of humor, as seen in her pin-up of a female bear holding the California flag. Her work for the Werewolf calendars has produced many fierce canines, brightly colored. Her fur depictions are very textural, by representing each hair with a stroke. Some of her pieces are also very cartoonish; fans of Anime will recognize her ability to produce chibis, miniature exaggerated figures. Both her and Balaa’s characters tend to have more realistic, animal-like faces than some of the artists I’ve mentioned.

Thornwolf

    I’ve only had two commissions myself, with another currently in progress. My first commission was from French artist Shalinka, whose fursona is a panda bear. The results from her outstanding work are visible on this website's background.

    The commission process began by sending a note to the artist, Shalinka. I had previously researched her price list, as well as her guidelines, so I made sure to send her a description of my fursona, which is an Asian dragon combination of an Emerald Tree Boa and a Siberian Tiger. I included pictures of both animals, as well as several photos of myself for reference. Since I wanted my fursona wearing two of my favorite jackets, I included photos of those as well. Contact information and an overview of what I wanted in the picture concluded my first message.

Racoonwolf

    Shalinka is an excellent example of a professional artist. Standard practice for most artists is for the customer to pay up front, with organized and reliable artists possessing refund policies. She ironed out the details with me in a series of messages, then kept me informed on the progress of the picture with step-by-step updates of sketches, line art and then colored versions. At each point in the process, my feedback was sought, and I was able to make several changes that made sure I was satisfied with the picture. Finally, I was given the finished product in several sizes, at high resolution, as well as an icon for forums.

    By exploring the furry community, and Furaffinity, there is a wealth of creativity residing within. What makes FA inspiring is its existence as a community of artists who have created their own marketplace. A number of the artists who have accounts make their livelihood via the art they sell, by no means a small achievement. At the very least, for my older readers, even with a dearth of art education in American schools, art in the younger generation is still very much alive and the desire to express oneself strong and vibrant.

Kacey

Jade Dragon visits South Korea: Paju, Daegu and Seoul

As I was invited to help cover the Korea Bojagi Forum 2012, hosted by Chunghie Lee, I had my first opportunity to visit South Korea. I think I was fortunate to see some of the best and unusual parts, as the whole intense experience never failed to provide novel situations. From a small village museum for paper flowers, bedecked with banquet and featuring both traditional Korean performers and suavely dressed contemporary Korean singers which enticed both visitors and locals onto the dance floor, to a tripartite jewelry, gallery and design academy operation run with only a small crew by the jeweler and her husband, each encounter was full and beyond expectations.

Art Factory, a gallery located in Heyri Art Village

Six days of the trip were spent in Paju, near Seoul. Paju itself has its own interesting presence, an experimental district called Paju Book City. Founded to encourage print publication and publishing, this area has its own substantial guest house, which basically serves as its hotel, and a wide number of publishing houses alongside some natural marshland. With a few restaurants, it's a quiet retreat from the bustle of Seoul, and was relatively close to the Heyri Art Village, where the conference was held. Heyri is another interesting instance of Korean public development, where a number of galleries, cafés and a museum or two provides a substantial amount of space for art. Gallery MOA, which was doing a Forum exhibit on textile sculptures, was one visit, as well as Lee & Park Gallery. In total, about seven galleries presented work from the Bojagi Forum, and there are even more galleries in Heyri. As a concentrated area of craft, Heyri should be marked down as a possible place to interface with the Korean craft community.

Dongdaemun Fabric Market

South Korea, like several other East Asian countries, has its acknowledged culture centered on its largest city, Seoul. No where else in Korea is considered to be its equal in having the latest styles and the strongest artistic presence, not to mention the locus of luxury goods. This centralized society can also be seen in China. What this means is to get to the heart of Korean craft, one must visit Seoul. Insadong and the Dongdaemun fabric market are two places where one can purchase craft or materials. Insadong is a series of roads lined with stores, scattered with galleries and street market stalls. From kitsch to respectable jewelry or ceramics, Insadong is not a center of high quality handmade craft, but still offers a good place to make some nice finds. As for textiles, the Dongdaemun market is very extensive. If you've visited the leviathan wholesale markets of places of various Asian countries, you should have a good idea of what's in store.

Silver and jade necklace by
Soonyoung Moon

Mond Gallery, owned by Moon
and Jeong

Cheongdam-dong, one of the major thoroughfares through Seoul, is the city's hub for luxury brands. Most Koreans are, if they're interested in jewelry or clothing, concerning themselves with high cost name-brand items. This trend continues in other East Asian countries. Most luxury items are a symbol of status rather than aesthetics, and known brands carry more clout among the populace. However, beyond the immediate streetside stores of Prada and Tiffany, one can find small design firms and businesses set up by independent artists in the blocks nearby. Among these is Aetas, the brainchild of Soonyoung Moon and her husband, Hyukjin Jeong. A combination of gallery and design academy, Aetas is perhaps the only educational institution of its kind to teach students not only jewelry design, but also small business practices. While this may seem like an exaggeration, Korean culture, like many East Asian societies, does not promote individual success to the same degree that can be found in the United States. If one is to make jewelry, one is expected to work for a larger firm rather than be an independent studio artist. Soonyoung is one of the rare jewelers living in Korea who is the latter, and her gallery exhibits both her work, as well as student exhibitions. She also sells her work in one of the large department stores bordering Cheongdam-dong. Her small company has grappled with many of the issues of small businesses in any economy, but are particularly inspirational for those of us in the craft field.

Flower Museum of Yongchun

We also spent two days in Daegu, a textile production city many hours south of Seoul. In fairly stark contrast to Seoul's hive of apartment buildings, here one will simply see clusters of urban area interspersed with vast sections of farms and rolling green hills. The Flower Museum of Yongchun village, near Daegu, and the Museum of Natural Dye Arts in Daegu proper were the two notable visits. The Flower Museum exhibits exquisite handmade paper flowers in a small multi-spoked house. In this case, a thousand words could not substitute for a simple picture.

Museum of Natural Dye Arts

Of particular value to fiber artists is the Museum of Natural Dye Arts, which hosts a trove of information about traditional Korean clothmaking and dyemaking, with sculptural tableaus set up all over the museum showing the processes. Where possible, English translations are included in the captions. The incredible amount of materials used to make dye, shown in the bottom floor of the museum, is just part of the reason this museum is a hidden gem. The wife of the museum's director is also one of the few experts on traditional Korean dyemaking methods, such as the use of persimmons to make various bronzing browns. Some of her hand-dyed pieces were available for sale in the gift shop, which one must be warned cohabitates with the museum's collection. Don't assume everything you see is for sale; indeed, unless it has a price tag, it's probably not!

Those who have been paying attention at craft shows the last few years will have seen the successive arrival of Korean jewelers on the scene. Upon visiting South Korea, the role of art, aesthetics and craft in Korean life can be seen as almost everpresent. Architectural elements are constantly played with to create sculptural forms, so even in the cities proper one can see the influence of design and style. As both a caretaker of traditional arts and the source of a new generation of craftspeople, South Korea is certainly an artistic treasure.

New Developments: Gender 3.0 by Hsiang-Ting Yen

Hsiang-Ting Yen
Specialty: Jewelry, utilizing modern technology and traditional Chinese aesthetics
Most Recent Exhibition: Thesis Exhibition Gender 3.0 (March – April 2012)
Upcoming Craft Show: Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show 2012

   Hsiang-Ting Yen has recently graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Now stepping out into the wide outdoors of the craft world, Yen has pioneered from the groundwork laid out by her thesis exhibition a new series of jewelry that is sassy and sophisticated.

Gender 3.0: Portraits, Andrej Pejic and Marlon Brando
of enamels, carbon steel, copper, glass beads, freshwater
pearl, and copper foil, 7" x 5" x .5", 2012.

    Yen's Gender 3.0 Brooch series has its roots in the various pieces of body sculpture and installation she created for her thesis exhibit, particularly her Portrait piece. Within a traditional painting frame, Yen embroidered faces of celebrities onto translucent fabric, then lined up every portrait diagonally so the viewer could see through every frame collectively. The composite image reflects the many interpretations of the masculine and feminine presented by the mainstream and historical media. For her newest incarnation of the Gender series, enameled panels with faces of famous persons are similarly arranged, like venetian blinds, as the centerpiece of an array of steel wire frames sprouting from the back like a Broadway sign. Yen creates these enameled portraits by first etching the outline of the portrait into the copper, then using enamel paint within the lines for the facial details. This is why the faces look like a sketch. Although depicting contemporary figures, the style seems to harken back to an earlier age. Turn of the century art movements, such as Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau and Art Deco seem to contribute their design sensibilities to the piece. Because of this conjoining of past and present, the piece possesses a poignant nostalgia, almost a sense of deja vu. And that's besides challenging the viewer to re-examine stereotypes.

Gender 3.0: Portraits, Lady Gaga and Audrey Hepburn
of enamels, carbon steel, copper, glass beads, freshwater
pearl, and copper foil, 7" x 5" x .5", 2012.

    There's a sense of motion to the piece, evoking a look that the word glamorous could authentically be attributed to. One can imagine some sort of neo-Jazz Age flapper girl at leisure with one of these brooches. The piece seems to call up Tamara de Lempicka, from the abstraction of layered half faces, to the confluence of angularity and curvature of the brooches. These aspects resonate with the elements that makes Lempicka's work seem to sway through space. The variegation in the enameled portrait evokes the essence of the almost cubist folds in fabric that Lempicka lavishly draped her portrait subjects in. This gestalt is Yen's aesthetic in Gender 3.0.

Portrait sequence of fabric, thread, and acrylic, from thesis 
exhibition Gender 3.0, Savannah, Georgia.

    Soon showing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, where she has exhibited in years past as part of SCAD's student booth, Yen has successfully transformed her conceptual thesis exhibit into a beautiful and challenging style of jewelry. As a counterpoint to her In Bloom series, which will also be exhibiting at the show, Yen shows her strength in establishing unique branches of aesthetic, both bearing considerable merit. As Yen has shown in her past work, her exploration of these themes will surely yield diversity and success.

Studio Craft Brands: A Concept

  








   My thoughts about the modern craft economy center on making handmade craft as easily accessible as the big corporate brands, by strength in numbers and a common marketing strategy. One idea to this goal is organizing individual artists into a group of four or five, which forms a studio craft brand. The name is the common alias the artists go under, just as musicians use their band name. Like music bands, artists will sometimes leave their studio craft brands, and can go on to establish themselves under their own name. At other times, an individual artist who has been working on their own may join a joint project, and thus participate with a studio craft brand.

   My goal in expressing this idea is to explain the versatility of a modular system; we don't want artists to just get lost in larger and larger anonymous brands, so we need a way of focusing on specific people, as well as zoom out by establishing brands. We need to act at both the smallscale and largescale levels. Like a venn diagram, the goal is to make a structure where groups can join easily to cooperate on big projects, and then go back to being more individual after the project is done. The goal is a craft economy with flexibility, so it can accommodate change, expansion and contraction.
   Studio craft brands are similar to artist cooperatives, but the idea is to package complementary artists together to sell a look or a style that can be associated with the brand. Because of contemporary advertising, people associate an image with a big corporate brand, a lifestyle which is sold along with the jewelry or clothing. Studio craft brands are a way of both pooling resources and trying to establish handmade craft artists as alternative images to the big brands.

   Whether one is an individual studio artist or part of a group, creating a "look" that people can attach to is giving them something to imagine about. Social status is one reason why people purchase jewelry and clothing, like
designer shirts, dresses

and jackets. In this case, people are just buying what is most popularized in the media and seen as showing their wealth.

   However, there are also people who have some experience with art, and have their own aesthetics. These people aren't interested in a popular brand, but unique, interesting, or beautiful work. This demographic is the main market to start with for studio craft artists and brands.

   Also, just as the slow food and organic food movement have made people think about handmade food or cooking, an alternative craft movement, focusing on handmade products, could market itself as a brand identity in itself, with all studio craft artists falling under that umbrella.

Steel Corsage: Bongsang Cho

Bongsang Cho
Steel Corsage

Specialty: Jewelry, utilizing modern technology to surpass previous restrictions

Most Recent Craft Show: Smithsonian Craft Show 2012

Upcoming Craft Show: American Craft Exposition 2012


Bongsang Cho came to the United States from Seoul, South Korea, and brought with him a dedicated enthusiasm for metalsmithing, and an ethereal sense of grace and impermanency which gives a delicacy to his metalwork. He graduated from Hanyang University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Metals and Jewelry, and has recently graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a MFA, where he utilized several modern pieces of machinery in the college's jewelry department, such as the laser welder, to break new ground.

Cho's aesthetic is derived from the mysterious connections he senses between the organic, the artificial, and humanity. The flower is for him a metaphor which represents the essential nature of life, and extends beyond flora to embodying human existence, its connections and its transitoriness. The roots of the flowering plant are the same as the hidden relationships which support each individual life. It is for this reason that, abstractly and in literal interpretation, Cho uses the form of the flower in much of his jewelry and sculpture.

Night Blossom Brooch, of steel, sterling silver,
enamel, 24 karat keum boo, laser welding and
enameling, 7.5" x 3.5" x 2.5", Winter 2011

From the mammoth to the miniature, one can find this theme expressed, whether abstractly or literally, in his forms. A large copper sculpture of a flower, with spoon-like elements clustered together in the center for the plant's stamen, is like a prehistoric precursor to his delicate flower brooches of steel and silver, down to the hammered indentations on the protruding, arcing petals. The relation between the two is palpable, but for scale.  And yet Cho has many ways of exploring the flower form, which branch out themselves like pan-dimensional petals.

Tools, Enthusiasm, and Life #3, of copper,
enamel and 23 karat gold leaf, forging and
enameling, 48" x 16" x 12", Summer 2011

Stellar Brooch series, of copper and enamel, laser welding and enameling,
4" x 2.25" x 1.5", Spring 2012

For example, his more recent enameled and laser-welded Stellar Brooch series represent his underlying motif in abstract form. The highly geometric shapes of these brooches render them seemingly inorganic, but with splashes of color, and bearing out the vague outline of the form, Cho suggests the organic in the inorganic abstract. The folds of the piece become the petals of a Cubist flower. Cho is quite proud of this series, in part because the laser-welding process allowed him to bypass a previous restriction of enameling, that it can't be traditionally soldered after completion. Technology allows him to bypass this barrier to new artistic effect, and that is part of his pleasure in this series. The Night Blossom Brooch also exhibits use of the laser welder, Cho's favorite tool. The little sterling silver balls that dot the piece were attached using the machine.

Another brooch piece is literally a flower; the front stage actor which casts an elongated shadow across the backdrop, forming a waving crowd of hands. The flower represents a person or a life in many of Cho's pieces. Here, the flower takes the place of a human singer, actor or other performer, but also might represent many people, as the panoply of cast shadows imply. The feeling of a stage set and the evocative jubilance of people in the background conjure up the feeling of a rock concert that makes the Silhouette Brooch series exciting and emotive.

Silhouette Brooch series, of steel, aluminum, copper and pigment, laser
welding and enameling, 3.5" x 2.5" x 1", Fall 2011

Wild Life Brooch series, of copper and enamel, laser welding and
enameling, 3" x 2.5" x 1", 2" x 1.5" x 1", Spring 2012

Bongsang was born near Seoul, and thus grew up with the expansive urban environment of that city. From this, a more intimate association with construction must have led to his urban flower, composed of hard hats on enameled wire spirals, the black suggesting unpainted metal or industrial corrosion. The hard hats are the lives of the workers, who bloom from their own soil of a sorts, the asphalt and concrete of the city. The Wild Life Brooch series seems to suggest an admiration of this occupation by the artist, to typify it so as a flower. That which is deemed ordinary is also everpresent and essential to the tapestry of the living environment in which it resides.

Bongsang came to the United States after a meeting with Professor Komelia Okim in Korea. After attending a lecture by Okim, and having a conversation about American life, Cho traveled to the United States. He has been an assistant to veteran jeweler Namu Cho. He has now applied and been accepted to several craft shows, and will be attending more at the end of this year.

His work can be seen at www.bongsangcho.com.

Winter Night Brooch series, of fine silver and copper, laser

welding, 4.5" x 1.5" x 1", Spring 2012