dialogue – Melissa Cameron

Today’s Q + A

For your delectation and delight, I present the live stream feed from today, conveniently queued up to the start of our q + a chat! We chatted, we answered questions, we got off topic (prompted by a comment, though) and I ranted, just a little.

As you would guess there’s 1 hr 24 mins of me grinding and making before this point, and after we’re done – there’s about an hour of talking – we get back to same, gradually finishing this piece. In that one hour we’re talking about the process, the reasons why we’re streaming at all, the changes to the studio between streams and how we plan to get this work out of this place and into the gallery, making this a good addition to the original Q + A we did in February (also below, so you can fully appreciate our changing hair styles.)

As you can note even in the screen grabs you see now, the major differences are 1/ the size of the work on the left hand size of the room, and 2/ the fact that today we were masked while talking. It’s not ideal, so I am sorry about that, but we were on schedule to have masks off indoors on when I planned this chat. Owing to a new COVID-19 case, that region-wide directive changed late Saturday afternoon. We got off ok, really, the football had to be played without a live audience so we were just foloowing the same rules, and are obviously just as popular 😉

Thanks for checking in, or at least enjoying the screen grabs, and I’ll be back in touch soon when I finish this piece. Very soon!

xx m

humble apologies

to anyone who got sent to Twitch instead of YouTube by clicking on my link yesterday, I’m really sorry. I don’t know where the twitch link came from – I had that URL in a draft of one of my posts for a tiny moment, 6 weeks ago! I did make the mistake of copying an pasting from a previous post, but it was the published version that links to YouTube! Be aware folks, the internet NEVER forgets…

On the upside, we had a great q+a with a bunch of email questions and live questions from Instagram thanks to my dm’s, and you can go back in time to catch it all here:

And we will be live again on Monday, right here: https://www.youtube.com/c/MelissaCameron-artist

tomorrow!

Come chat with me on YouTube for an hour!

pretty much what you can expect, but with more talking to camera

Live now: https://youtu.be/Zzsu3Q2_bks

Details: go to my YouTube channel where you can click on the live-stream and in the chat window type in a question for us to answer. Yes, us! Susannah Kings-Lynne will be there too.

11am at GMT +8, (though the feed will be running from about 9am as usual) which is maybe not your time, but hopefully your time is listed here:

7 p.m.: Seattle **Thurs 18th
10 p.m.: Philadelphia **Thurs 18th
3 a.m.: UK **Fri 19th
4 a.m.: Italy
8:30 a.m.: India
11 a.m.: Perth/China/Singapore
1 p.m.: Brisbane
2 p.m.: Melbourne/Sydney
4 p.m.: New Zealand

Look forward to answering your questions 🙂

Upcoming talk

this picture is just me showing off. it gets worse…

Next Tuesday, the 24th of September, I’m going to be talking to some of y’all at the JMGA WA monthly meeting. If you’re not across it but you’re in the WA area (visitors welcome, just let me know and I’ll look out for you) you’re hereby invited to come hear and see what I’ve been up to over the last couple of years, jewel-wise.

It’s on at 7:30 pm@ WA Lapidary and Rock-hunting Club
31/35 Gladstone Road, Rivervale WA 6103

As for the photo, this was taken by Helen Aitken-Kuhnen (*clang* first name drop) at last weekend’s masterclass with these legends of jewellery in Australia. For the finished product of David Walker’s endeavours (as you might expect, he put us all to shame with his work ethic and the quality of his output), and to hear me spill the tea about another jewellery-legend that I lunched with this week (*hint* he’s over from Europe [just…] and been at #RadPav and The Jam in the last week) you’d better get in on time to claim a seat.

In all honesty, I could fill my time just talking about the last two weeks. BTW, does anyone know how much time I have??

Adorn and Driven to Adorn

Happy New Year!

My studio is finally back on line after a 5-month hiatus, during which time Bruce and I have moved country, sold a house in the USA, bought a house in Australia, made some minor renovations to the place and celebrated the closing of a year and the beginning of a new one. I did not stop working entirely but I did take advantage of the studio down-time to slow down a bit. The year proceeding the move was intense, but it was planned that way knowing that there would be some down-time immediately after our US exit, which in the end worked great. It has taken a month since the unpacking began to get my office and studio back in working order, and while I have a few tweaks left to do for full functionality in the studio (anyone have a drill press or air compressor going cheap?) the non-studio work on upcoming exhibitions and other events never really ceased. Which brings me to the latest news:

The Adorn exhibition and Driven to Adorn forum

The Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group of Australia – Western Australian (JMGAWA) branch is hosting a member exhibition at the City of Joondalup Art Gallery from 18 March-12 April 2019, and local craft thinker Carola Akindele-Obe of Maker and Smith is presenting a day of conversation with well-known local makers to coincide with the show on 24 March. And if that’s not enough, local legends Sarah Elson and Claire Townend will be teaching one-day classes of their respective specialties the following weekend; cuttlebone casting and enameling. I learned how to cast with Sarah in high school – in an uncharacteristic display I believe I drew and made a butterfly (in a surprise twist I was not actually influenced by Sarah’s superb Moth series as I believe they came later) – while Claire was my teacher when I went back to Curtin to dabble in jewellery in 2005. I’d not be where I am today without these two engaging instructors who are also thoughtful makers.

The Driven to Adorn conversation on March 24th will feature Katherine Kalaf, who in her Cottesloe gallery played host to significant international artist including – very memorably – the recent Loewe Prize shortlisted artist Giovanni Corvaja. Katherine’s space and the makers she attracted were an inspiration to me in my early career, and she was one of my first stockists. After Katherine’s presentation the Driven to Adorn forum will move into a 6×6 presentation, in which I will be one of the six local makers to present six minutes on an aspect of their practice. The full listing of ‘sixers’ for the afternoon is:

Melissa Cameron, Sarah Elson, Susannah Kings-Lynne, Bethamy Linton, Claire Townsend and Alister Yiap

Adorn

Joondalup Art Gallery
4/48 Central Walk, Joondalup WA 6027
18 March – 12 April 2019

Tuesday – Thursday: 10am to 2pm
Friday: 10.30am to 2.30pm

Driven to Adorn

2-5pm 24 Mar 2019 (Includes afternoon tea and an invitation to a viewing of the Adorn exhibition after the forum)
Joondalup Reception Centre, Boas Avenue, Joondalup
Places are limited to 30 and there are 16 spots left (as of 15.2.19)

DRIVEN TO ADORN – a forum for craft conversations

Exhibitions and events!

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

1.1.2017

The folks at Contemporary Craft shared these images this week:

I got these and my heart swelled – I’m so proud of Tegan and her son Calder, and of everyone for coming out on the 7th of July to make these images with me. There are so many of them, which I’ve shared with all the participants, but here’s the big group one:

and one of the pairings images I sent to Contemporary Craft

Contemporary Craft sent out their invitations this week for the free and public opening of the Transformations 10 exhibition on Friday the 14th of September, (at that link you can see the Tegan + Calder pairing too) as well as for the public artist talks that happen the next afternoon with some of the exhibiting artists. I told Pittsburgh folks at SNAG months ago that I would be going to this event, and I am making good on that promise. I will see this work installed before I leave the USA, and I hope that if you’re in the Pittsburgh area that you’ll come along and share the experience with me.

Next week I will send out all of the barter jewels to my container donors for this project, so stay tuned to see what they look like – and if you sent me something, your trade jewel will be in the mail next week!

(And if you want to know what I’m on about, there’s the post about donations, the post about the photo shoot and all of the Monday-Gun Day posts to learn more about this project.)

Can You Help – Update

*** UPDATED June 8th*** – Thank you everyone who has participated – the list is much smaller!

I have not yet been promised an object for my project from the places listed below. Please let me know (blog@melissacameron.net) if you can send me a container from one of these towns, and I will take it off the list.

Full details here.

Address for shipping your container:
Melissa Cameron
2212 Queen Anne Ave. N. #412
Seattle WA 98109

State	City Or County	#
Alabama	Athens
Alabama	Birmingham
Georgia	Allenhurst
Georgia	Moultrie
Illinois	Villa Park
Illinois	Rockford
Illinois	Chicago	3
Louisiana	Anacoco	3
Mississippi	Meridian
North Carolina	Asheboro	2
South Carolina	North Charleston
South Dakota	Rapid City
Tennessee	Nolensville
Texas	Edcouch

And please, no glass, ceramic, enameled metal or stainless steel. Use a magnet to test your steel – if it sticks, I’ll take it!

SNAG 2018

For those of y’all headed to Portland for the SNAG conference, here’s a few things I’m involved with that I’d love for you to check in on:

1\ Crossings

See works by SMG and CMAG members at Crossings in the Pearl District

Crossings is a combined show of Portland Creative Metal Arts Guild (CMAG) and Seattle Metals Guild (SMG) members. Come check out the best of the Northwest!

It’s on at: Annie Meyer Gallery
Wednesday 23rd May-Saturday the 26th May
12-5:30pm and during Gallery Crawl – 5-8pm on Thursday
120 NW 9th Ave Ste 102, Portland, Oregon 97209

The Crossings show explores the intersection of diverse disciplines, processes, and media. Artists were encouraged to work across craft boundaries such as incorporating ceramics, wood, or glass. Collaborations between artists were also encouraged. This show represents a cross section of our metals communities and a wide variety of styles and materials will be represented, including jewelry and sculpture.

It’s the only exhibition I’m involved in that’s in a real gallery, so please get out and support it!

/ / /

The rest are a part of SNAG’s own Adorned Spaces, which runs Thursday, May 24th, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm and Friday, May 25th, 10:00 am – 8:00 pm at the conference venue: Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront, 1401 SW Naito Pkwy, Portland, OR.

2\ (Un)common Interest

Curated by (and including) Sharon Massey, it showcases: April Wood, Ben Dory, Kat Cole, Jim Dunn, Michael Dale Bernard, Jessica Tolbert, Maia Leppo, Lynn Batchelder, Melissa Cameron, Sarah Holden and Michael Hull. Need a hint as to why we’re all together in this one? We all like to work in STEEL! (who doesn’t?)

See in rooms G,H and I next to the main ballroom that is hosting all of the presentations.

3\ In Touch

Katja Toporski and Anja Eichler’s co-curated exhibition from Munich Jewellery Week, In Touch, is getting a second outing just for SNAG, and I for one am very pumped to finally see it! And see it I will, long and often, as it is kitty-corner (don’t you love Americanisms?) from the Plate Glass show, in Salons C + D, on the same level as the main SNAG presentation venue!

This time it will feature one of my award-winning social unit works beautifully arranged, as I (and the universe – I did not invent the signage from which it takes its form,) originally intended.

…hopefully… There’s a lot to get done that afternoon, folks, because…

4\ Plate Glass

is having it’s 3rd and final outing in the USA. I’m making the display equipment out of cardboard, while coordinating the object drop-off for my current container-to-jewellery barter scheme (which is ultimately to complete the Monday-Gun Day project) which means I have also been able to add to the design a handy place to stash all the containers I receive from you this week!

Please consider helping out with the swap project if you can (forward it on to those distant cousins in Florida, why doncha? – or if you are at SNAG, I’ll have self-addressed padded envelopes for you to pick up to help you mail me something in return for your jewel), and definitely come and see this show. It’s received rave reviews in its two previous incarnations, and I think this is the best display yet! (Or it will be when I finish it…)

Phew! And if you’re chillin around these parts often, (and coming to P-town this week) you might recall I mentioned that it was my birthday couple of weeks back. The hottest rumor is a combined Seattle-peeps birthday celebration on one of the nights… Come say helloooo and get the skinny.

TES Newsletter

Work in progress by Sarah Perkins at Ghost Ranch, NM, 2018

The deadline for the Enamelist Society Newsletter is hurtling towards me, and thus far, I have nothing. Nada. Niente. Nil. OK, so there’s actually Jane, exhibiting some works at SNAG (image, Jane?), but aside from that…

Please see my last post on being the purveyor of Global Enamel News for all the important details. The one thing I will remind y’all of is that I have to hand in my copy about 2 months before publication, so next Tuesday I’ll hand over stuff that will appear in print in early July. So if you have anything for July/August/September, please hit me up now.

And fair warning, I’m on holiday/vacation in Australia right now, so if you send something, I will receive but just not respond until the deadline is nigh, so please include all the details and images that you can as there won’t be time for me to cross-check details.

And now, to Busselton!