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Cover Feature: Nick Cave

Nick Cave Irreducible Energy. Andy Cooperman A Heightened Muscularity. Forging a Future A New Era in Jewelry. Gabrielle Gould Fine Feathered Fantasies. Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Craft on the Coast of Maine. Hezuo Festival Gansu Province. Exhibition Review Kevin Coates at Mobilia Gallery, A Notebook of Pins. Museum News Toledo Museum of Art: Glass Pavilion. Costume Conference The Costume Society of America. Native Arts Real Western Wear. Bead Arts Dustin Tabor. Jewelery Arts Robert Dancik. Marketplace Fire Mountain Gems and Beads.

Irreducible Energy
Energy is eternal. It may pass with electric rapidity from one site to another, transform in kind from radiant to thermal, or even condense into a largely hidden potential of objects, but it never ceases to be. Modern science formulated this persistence in the law of conservation of energy, but surely human intuition could not have failed to grasp it in a broader and less methodical manner even from the earliest of times. Certain inanimate objects, especially those intimately connected to human needs and objectives, seem somehow to preserve an inner energy as a consequence of their former employment. The energy invested in them through the motion and heat of use appears to linger on as a trace, even when these objects have lain still for ages. Ultimately, this perceived potential energy may be more aura than empirical fact, but it nevertheless impresses itself upon the imagination, imparting a secret inner life to objects as mundane as pencils, buttons and castoff garments. Photographs by James Prinz.

A Heightened Muscularity
His rigorously crafted, intellectually evocative jewelry is instantly recognizable to those who have followed Andy Cooperman’s twenty-year career. A master metalsmith, Cooperman’s skills at making metals respond to his touch have allowed him to create brooches, neckpieces and rings that are beautiful to look at and wear, and intriguing to ponder. Cooperman’s pieces inevitably suggest brooches and clasps that might have been unearthed during archaeological digs of ancient cultures, yet they are refined in ways that are entirely modern. Lately, however, the work is taking on qualities that Cooperman himself finds a bit surprising. Photographs by Doug Yaple.

A New Era in Jewelry
Several young American Indian jewelers are developing distinctive contemporary styles while acknowledging traditional ones. Like the generation before them, they are exploring materials and techniques new to American Indian jewelrymaking. Many of these young artists have unique experiences, including formal training in art or design at competitive universities and select art schools. Others have been influenced by global travels and hands-on opportunities with jewelers from other countries. The result is diverse and distinctive work that is engaging and intriguing. The jewelry of eight of this new generation of young artists is currently being featured at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. Photographs by Craig Smith.

Craft on the Coast of Maine
In 1979, the jeweler Michael Good was at a crossroads in his life. Living at the far northeastern end of Maine, he was doing odd jobs and tinkering around in metal, unsure of his next move. That summer he went to Haystack Mountain School of Crafts to take a workshop with Heikki Seppa, the renowned Finnish metalsmith. As fate would have it, he and the Finn clicked; Good took several more workshops with Seppa and eventually developed the anticlastic jewelry for which he is known today. J. E. Paterak attended her first Haystack session in 1991, taking a course with metalsmith Gary Griffin and blacksmith Tom Joyce. Inspired by what she learned, by the conversations around craft that took place in the studios, Paterak gained confidence in her work. Back home in Portland, Maine, she put together a group of slides and applied to Cranbrook Academy of Art. She was accepted and since then has developed a remarkable array of ornaments. Such transformative experiences occur every summer at Haystack. The school’s long-time director Stuart Kestenbaum likens the place to a hothouse. “Often students arrive at a certain time in their lives when they’re ready to be here,” he says, “and it leads to other things.” Photographs by Amanda Kowalski and Charles Gallis.

The Qinghai-Tibetan plateau of eastern Tibet is the setting for many festivals during the summer months, like the Highland Festival at Yushu (McDaniel 2000, Ornament 23(4): 48-53.). In July, 2001, Paddy Kan traveled with two Chinese American photographers through this area and visited Hezuo, a small town southwest of Lanzhou, situated at the eastern border of these highland grasslands. There they documented Nationality Day or the costume competition portion of the Hezuo festival. These popular events, like this two year old gathering in 2001, draw nomads from distant areas and are an important means of preserving culture in the autonomous regions of Amdo and Kham on this plateau. While Tibetans of many sub-groups live in Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan, the two primary Tibetan clans are the Khampa and Golok; their many splinter groups wear costumes that vary in each county or local area. Photographs by Paddy Kan.