It features some of the best writing on jewellery in print anywhere, with regular contributions from such luminaries as Liesbeth den Besten, Andrea DiNoto and Bella Neyman. And it’s the only place where you’ll find special contributions by artists and collectors like Susie Ganch and Helen Williams Drutt English (and that’s just in Vol 35 No 5!)
Metalsmith Extra has all the online content you can’t get in a print publication but expect from an online-only source, like videos by and about the artists and artisans featured in the magazine. They’re listed by issue, with folks in the newest edition featured at the top.
The current issue, which features profiles on Mirjam Hiller, Vivian Beer and obviously Hanna Hedman, and a LOOK section written by Jillian Moore, is in my opinion THE BEST issue EVER produced by editor Suzanne Ramljak and her crack team of writers.*
So as my mate Molly likes to say – do yourselves a favour, yeah?
*I’m not just saying that because I’m on the editorial advisory committee, nor because even the editor described it as the “Women in Metal” issue, and you know I’m all about women and metal. Turns out it’s a bloody solid read 😉
… to the presentation I’m doing tomorrow on the SnagSpark theme of holistic practice (where I’ll go into how and why to sustain your creative existence and ways to attain and maintain flow from 3:45pm at the On Broadway Arts Building) I’ve also been added to the 20/20 lineup for Friday night.
“What is this 20/20 that you speak of, Melissa?”
I’m so glad you asked! This Friday, May 20th from 7:00-10:00pm at the On Broadway Arts Building (49 Broadway Ave) in Asheville there has been added a group of 20 x 7 minute slide presentations where people are going to “Show us their vision.” More specifically, I’m going to talk about my recent solo show Body Politic that took place earlier this year at Gallery Bilk in Canberra.
I’ve lots of things to say about the show, the work and the inspiration for each work, and only a tiny time to do it in (SEVEN MINUTES!!) so come watch me talk my own face red trying to squeeze too many words into far to little time. I’m on second so y’all better be on time!!
And of course, let’s not forget the Trunk Show – 3pm – 6pm in the Grand Ballroom at The Renaissance on Saturday.
I’m in a tiny show at The Vatican at studio e which opens on Saturday night in Seattle’s Georgetown neighbourhood. The space is viewable 24-7 at 609 S Brandon street, Seattle WA 98108. Make plans quick to join me on Saturday May 7th at the opening from 6-9pm.
studio e gallery hours:
May 13th - June 4th
Friday, Saturday & Sunday 1-6pm
also open late Saturday May 14th for Georgetown Art Walk 6-9 pm
Shared Concerns is open at Penland Galleries! For those of y’all heading to SNAGneXt in Asheville you should budget an hour each way to reach Penland. My plan is currently to car pool, and I’ll be heading out there on Sunday the 22nd of May. Look forward to seeing you there! If you do want to head to this year’s amped up SNAG (and see my *brilliant* presentation) you’d better snap to it – tickets now only available at the door.
…so last week when I said that Saturday the 23rd of April would be the last day that the exhibition Body Politic would be visible at Bilk Gallery? Well I spoke too soon! The latest from Gallery Bilk, or more specifically, their Instagram, is that the show will close on the 30th of April. That’s right – there’s one more week to get along to see the show 😉
(I know, most of you can’t get to Canberra, so please enjoy the new images above!)
Nadia Myre and Sheryl Oring – images used without permission, please contact me should you want them taken down.
Nadia Myre: Indian Act, 1999-2002. Detail.
A couple of great projects I’ve seen online that I thought I’d share.
Thanks to the perfectly titled Fuck Yeah, Book Arts! site, I’ve been meditating on the beautiful beaded works orchestrated by Nadia Myre:
Nadia Myre, Indian Act
Indian Act speaks of the realities of colonization – the effects of contact, and its often-broken and untranslated contracts. The piece consists of all 56 pages of the Federal Government’s Indian Act mounted on stroud cloth and sewn over with red and white glass beads. Each word is replaced with white beads sewn into the document; the red beads replace the negative space.
Between 1999 and 2002, Nadia Myre enlisted over 230 friends, colleagues and strangers to help her bead over the Indian Act. With the help of Rhonda Meier, they organized workshops and presentations at Concordia University, and hosted weekly beading bees at Oboro Gallery, where it was presented as part of the exhibition, Cont[r]act, in 2002.
Nadia Myre: Indian Act, 1999-2002. Detail.
The piece itself is strikingly beautiful, a perfect realisation of her concept.
In summer 2015, a team of five typists took dictation at the Out of Site Festival in Chicago. Photo: Dhanraj Emanuel
Oring has been banding groups of volunteer typists to write postcards to politicians. She started the project with postcards to the President (of the USA, that is) and has recently moved on to the current presidential candidates, using volunteers to take dictation the same manner that she did with her first outing, dressed as a 1960’s stenographer:
In 2006, Sheryl dressed as a 1960s secretary, set up a portable public office complete with a manual typewriter in public areas across the country, and typed birthday cards to then President Bush as dictated by passers-by.
She has gone on to take in commentary of the Obama administration, and is about to start taking down community thoughts on the current lunacy presidential nomination battle.
and the effect?
I’ll never forget this guy in Chicago, at one of the last shows. He came down to where I was taking photographs and said, “I just want you to know that I am a better American because I participated in your project.”
The empowerment experienced by participants has of course been likened to therapy, which I think is a really interesting outcome of the process. Why does the act of airing your thoughts to someone who is an impartial observer give one a feeling of closure, more than, say, talking it out to a like-minded friend or relative? I also think of this project in relation to the public displays of jewellery creation and/or gifting that I have seen. I think the strength of this piece is its sustained and clearly impactful interaction, which is fostered using a rather generic and easily replicable format.
Sheryl Oring presents I Wish to Say April 26 as part of the PEN World Voices Festival at Bryant Park. You can dictate a letter to presidential candidates, or volunteer to act as a typist.
It’s to late not to sound like a broken record, so here goes (*in pleading voice*) go see my shooow!
Attempts to Kill… – as worn by the artist
It’s too late not to sound like a broken record, so here goes:
It’s the last week to see my exhibition at Bilk Gallery, and owing to the fabulous support shown to me and my work by the good people of Canberra, it’s the last time you will see this complete collection of work together anywhere! It closes on the 23rd of April, this Saturday.
The ever-involved Meredith Hinchliffe has also reviewed the show for City Arts. Many thanks to her for her support. Also artist Nigel Lendon, who opened my exhibition, has a great website/blog, and writes about his collection of rugs from Afghanistan with militaristic motifs at this post The Afghan Modern @RKD.
Title: “Attempts to kill…” Melissa Cameron, 2016. From the Escalation series, 2013-2016
The piece that its pictured in worn and unworn configurations, above, is one half of the Drone work.
Drone
The work is made from a steel tortilla pan sourced from Mexico City in 2014. The pan was cut down to 5mm x 5mm ’tiles’, each with a 0.8mm hole drilled into the centre. Then pieces were enamelled, in all about half of the over 1400 units. The enamelled and non-enamelled individual tiles are laid out in a sequence of ASCII characters that have been converted to binary. The encoded message for the Attempts to kill… piece reads:
“Attempts to kill 41 men resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, as of 24 November [2014].” S. Ackerman on US drone activity in Pakistan and Yemen, on theguardian.com
while the companion piece, made from the drone-shaped section excised from this work, spells out the name of that piece: General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper UAV
“The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper (formerly named Predator B) is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of remote controlled or autonomous flight operations, developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems primarily for the United States Air Force… The MQ-9 is the first hunter-killer UAV designed for long-endurance, high-altitude surveillance.”[1]
[1] “General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper,” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, January 1, 2015, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper&oldid=639809793.
If you’re in Canberra you can pick up a newspaper with me in it today 😉
from the 2015 Caltrops series – 19C Caltrop, 20C Caltrop and 21C Caltrop
Kerry-Anne Cousins has written a piece, published today in The Canberra Times, about my Body Politic exhibition at Bilk Gallery, entitled Body Politic by Melissa Cameron at Bilk Gallery is confronting. Check it out online, or in your local newspaper if you happen to live in Canberra.
The post in which I tell you about another article on the interwebs.
Ruchnoy Protivotankovy Granatomyot, from the Escalation series.
Many thanks to Vicki Mason for her excellent set of questions about my works in the Body Politic exhibition. The resulting article Melissa Cameron: Body Politic is up on the AJF website, while the exhibition is currently running at Bilk in Canberra, until late-April.
My solo exhibition Body Politic is open in Canberra; come down from 6pm tonight for the opening celebration!
Come to Bilk Gallery in Canberra tonight for the official opening by Nigel Lendon of my exhibition Body Politic. This is shaping up to be the only chance anyone will have to see this collection of work in the one gallery. I look forward to seeing you there!
Find me at Bilk Gallery in Canberra next week for the opening of my first solo show in that city!
You’ll find me in Canberra next week for the opening of the Body Politic exhibition, where I’ll also be giving a lecture and having a chat with the Gold and Silversmithing students at ANU on Friday afternoon.
