Author: Melissa Cameron

Oh Pittsburgh

My Pittsburgh friends, my heart goes out to you. And to everyone in the USA who is continually subjected to these traumas.

Today I was just going to share the articles from Contemporary Craft’s (CC’s) latest email circular about the Transformations exhibition. But there’s another mass shooting to address first, in Squirrel Hill, just a few neighbourhoods across from The Strip District where CC is currently located. In the reporting I read, the shooter “used three Glock 357 handguns and an AR-15 assault rifle” to murder 11 people and injure four police officers.

The victims are:

“Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65, Rose Mallinger, 97; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Cecil Rosenthal, 59, and his brother David Rosenthal, 54; married couple Bernice Simon, 84, and Sylvan Simon, 86; Daniel Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 88; and Irving Younger, 69.”

America, I know you know this, but your right to bear arms comes with the implicit flip-side; an expectation that you, your friend, your lover, your child….

Deep breath in.

Sigh.

…

 

The articles that talk about the Transformations work are one by M. Thomas, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Jordan Snowden of the Pittsburgh City Paper. Thank you to both writers, and especially M. Thomas for the research you did, and for quoting this blog.

Attention Enamellists!

you know what time it is…

Helen Aitken Kuhnen’s prize-winning work. Photo courtesy Gallery Bilk, Canberra.

Thus far I have collected scant new items for the The Enamelist Society (TES) newsletter, aside from the wonderful news that Helen Aitken-Kuhnen has received the President Award in the 52nd International Exhibition of Japan Enamelling Artist Association.

So, if you in an upcoming exhibition; have you seen a cool collection; are leading a workshop; doing a residency, or are in the know about some enamel event that needs more media coverage, then…

enamel (at) melissacameron.net

Include details, dates, images (with artist and photographer captions at the very least) and other relevant info and I put it into the prestigious TES newsletter. And I’ll email you back, though probably not until within a week of the next first-of-the-month deadline. Which is next week. Submissions due to me next Wednesday, please 😉

Exhibition – IMAGINE on tour

Continuing the tour of this important anti-gun-violence exhibition

The Boris Bally coordinated exhibition IMAGINE Peace Now has continued to gain relevance as it has toured the USA. It now makes its home at Radius Gallery in Santa Cruz, where Ann Hazels, the director, has made the bold move of showing it in time for the midterm elections in the USA. We are all of us, here in the rest of the world, crossing our fingers for you my USA people.

And if you want to go see the exhibition, (mentioned on here lot in the last two years) please see the address and important dates below.

Open from October 11- November 11, 2018
October 25: Peace Panel – partnering with SCPD and Resource Center for Non-violence
November 11: Artist Talk 2pm (also closing day of show)

Part of the Tannery Arts Center
1050 River St Unit 127
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Hours: Wednesday – Sunday 12:00-5:00 pm

Exhibitions and events!

This week: With Other Eyes, next: Northwest Jewelry and Metals Symposium, the following: Uneasy Beauty

object 1, object 2. steel from a shipping container, vitreous enamel. 2018
1/ With Other Eyes:

See Contain, a brand new series of works I produced for this exhibition, the last works to come from my Seattle studio.

With Other Eyes

29 September – 18 November 2018

Stephen Bottomley, Melissa Cameron, Helen Carnac, David Gates, Beate Gegenwart, Kiko Gianocca, Margit Hart, Rebecca Hannon, Kirsten Haydon, Mari Ishikawa, Kaori Juzu, Fritz Maierhofer, Ruudt Peters, Ramon Puig Cuyàs, Isabell Schaupp, Bettina Speckner, Gabi Veit, Silvia Walz, Gudrun Wiesmann, Tamar De Vries Winter

Enamel and Photography


‘Photography has changed, expanded and even deluded our perceptions. It is a vessel of memory, yet also a corrective instrument thereof.

Ruthin Craft Centre
The Centre for the Applied Arts
Park Road, Ruthin
Denbighshire, Wales

2/ Symposium

Come join me at The Northwest Jewelry and Metals Symposium, presented by the Seattle Metals Guild:

This year’s dynamic speaker line-up includes European jewelry artist Terhi Tolvanen, metalsmith/sculptor David H. Clemons, jeweler/enamelist Deborah Lozier, and repoussé master Douglas Pryor; plus Ideation: From the Belly to the Brain, a panel discussion featuring artists Melissa Cameron, Eva Funderburgh, and Gina Pankowski.

The Symposium will be in Seattle this year, rather than in Tacoma as originally planned. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we’ve had to make a last-minute change, so this year we will be at the Langston-Hughes Performing Arts Institute, with everything the Symposium has to offer: Silent Auction, Book Sale, and a fabulous line up of speakers and panelists, detailed above.

Date: Saturday, October 6, 2018
Location: Langston-Hughes Performing Arts Institute, Seattle, WA

It’s the day before I leave the USA permanently for Perth, Australia, so come say goodbye and join us at the after-party to end all after-parties!

3/ Uneasy Beauty

See my works Drone: Attempts to Kill… and RPG in this exhibition at The Fuller Craft Museum in MA, curated by Suzanne Ramljak the former editor of Metalsmith Magazine.

Uneasy Beauty: Discomfort in Contemporary Adornment will bring together 75 examples of contemporary jewelry and costume that demonstrate the immense power of adornment to impact us physically, emotionally, and intellectually. Showcasing wearable work in various media from regional and national artists, the exhibition will explore the outer limits of comfort through works that constrict body movement, irritate the skin, make extreme demands, or touch upon sensitive cultural nerves. Uneasy Beauty is part of the Mass Fashion collaborative, a consortium of eight cultural institutions that aim to explore and celebrate the many facets of the Bay State’s culture of fashion. This exhibition is curated by Suzanne Ramljak, an art historian, writer, curator, and former editor of Metalsmith magazine.

October 6, 2018 – April 21, 2019
Fuller Craft Museum
455 Oak Street
Brockton, MA 02301

STUDIO SALE

send me an email with the number of your pick, receive confirmation, make PayPal payment!

2018 SALE 25-9

One Design 9-21

The only sale thus far from One Design is OD-01, the first piece 😉

HEAT-Single Panel Array

Fuse-Sun

73 pendants

 

  • The PDF’s will be regularly updated. There are 5 of them, the first is 6 pages. One Design works are also reduced.
  • These are mostly production line works and some limited run series
  • There are 4 Recycled Object works in the main list, these have never been discounted before!
  • One week online sale – in person sale at Fancy in Seattle is Thurs thru Sat, inclusive. Same works!
  • My apologies in advance if a work you have chosen has already been sold
  • 73 pendant is brand new, only available here or at Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh
  • You will have to click through twice, I’m sorry, old tech…
  • See two prices? You pay the wholesale or discounted one!

 

  • Please send me an email with the number/name of your choice and I will reserve it for you.
  • Shipping is a flat $10 to anywhere in the contiguous US states.
  • USA only (sorry Australia)
  • Payment is via PayPal (I’ll give the address with your confirmation.) 

Announcing..

I’m super-proud to tell you that on Friday my work 1.1.2017 was announced the winner of 2017 Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize at the Transformations 10 exhibition in Pittsburgh. I have a total of ten works on view at Contemporary Craft including the prizewinning piece (pictured below) and earlier last week we shot a couple of hours of footage for an upcoming 5-minute documentary which will soon air in the space. So if you do want to see what now feels like a mini-retrospective of my time in the USA, and hear my thoughts on my practice and the making of this work, Contemporary Craft is the only place to go. It runs until March 23, 2019.

1.1.2017

55 places. 62 incidents. 66 guns. 73 people dead

1.1.2017 is a large scale jewellery work that contains portrait of each of the 66 guns used in fatal incidents on January 1st, 2017. These gun outlines are made in metal, plastic, fabric and paper, from containers crowdsourced from the 55 places in which these acts of violence occurred. The work was created for the Transformations 10 exhibition  at Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, where it won the 2017 Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize competition for artists working in found materials.

And once again I acknowledge the help of the donors who gave me containers for the work, as well as the models and my director, stylist and assistants who helped me photograph the wearable sections.

Electrical Sale

Closing down US studio sale – all electrical equipment must go!

The USA voltage is 110, and Australia’s is 230. This means I’m getting rid of a lot of cherished equipment. We’ll start with the big one, and work our way down:

PUK 4.1 Micro-welder SOLD

This machine is a workhorse, and had been recently serviced by the PUK US distributor in Chicago, so he is being kind enough to offer a 6 month warranty on my 2nd hand machine. What a guy!

$3250

Comes with a new set of 0.5mm electrodes and in its original packaging with 2 alligator clips and a set of pliers and an extra electrode grinding wheel and of course the regulator. Bought new for over 5k, it is the version for which you can also purchase the tack foot pedal, and is the full version, rather than the new US only abbreviated model, the C440. And if you’re in the Seattle area I’ll throw in a 1/4 tank of argon. You’ll be ready to weld in moments!

If you’re not in Seattle I’ll make up the disappointment of not getting the argon tank by throwing in free insured shipping to anywhere in the contiguous states. Please contact me at blog@melissacameron.net. I’ll see to the emails in time-stamp order.

OK, and now in order of the gallery (the only other piece I will ship is the Proxxon mini drill press):

Proxxon mini drill press – $100 so many bids!

Foredom SR flex shaft with brand new hand piece – $120

Mini crock pot – FREE (pickup only)

2 Space Heaters –

– Silver – FREE! (pickup only)

– Black – $15 – it’s 7 months old and great desk size for drying liquid enamel, fast

Aluminum clamp lamp – 6 months old – FREE! (pickup only)

Ultrasonic cleaner – $15 (pickup only)

Oxygen bottle – FREE! (pickup only)

Orbital Sander – FREE! (pickup only)

Hot knife – 5 months old – FREE! (pickup only)

Jigsaw – 6 moths old (courtesy of TurboNerd) – $5, or free with any other item

Air Compressor – you move it – $150 ono. Wired in, needs to be detached from power. Located in garage with easy access.

Pair of daylight CFL photography lamps from Glazers Camera. One switch sticks, one head clamp has failed.  $80.

Shop Vac – 1 year old, comes with a pack and a half of bags – $2o

Bench lathe – great little polisher from Otto Frei, removable spindles – $60 – so many offers!

contact me at blog@melissacameron.net and we’ll do a deal.