Dear Ornament Reader,

Summer is traditionally the season when people relax or slow down, with school out and vacations topmost in mind. The heart desires even a modest reprieve from the march of work. But every season marks a new issue of Ornament, so there is little time-out for us during this more languid, sultry interval. As you read our postscript, the initial elements of the ornamentmagazine.com website will be in place, a lovely, sensitive evocation of the Ornament sensibility by artist Mary Sheppard. This gifted designer, who has worked with and been generously stimulated by our own in-house maestro, Stephanie Schreiber, will be adding more and more lush layers as we progress through the year.

We will also be assembling the first of our special issues, the fifth of your subscription year. Both of us will lecture at the Colorado Metalsmithing Association conference in Salida, Colorado; cover some of the many dynamic Colorado artists; and perhaps have enough time to gather more material for our Southwest issue, given the large number of prehistoric and contemporary Native American sites in that beautiful state.

This interlude should rejuvenate us, in what has been a challenging year. There is so much we plan for and hope to accomplish. We also hear from many artists and suppliers that they are facing their own adversities, creative and economic. Our hearts go out to these members of our community as they too work and create to fulfill themselves and replenish the lives of others with their particular talents.

We always find joy and renewed determination in the diversity of personal adornment; the work now being done, that of the recent past and of far antiquity. What these accomplishments reveal of the human spirit, the hand, the eye, the brain connections that lead to such beautiful textiles and ornaments that humans once displayed and continue to wear. What fossilization eternalizes with plant and animal life, the handmade object preserves for the human spirit, making visible our mind’s eye and revealing our heart’s delight.

Enameling dates to at least Mycenean times, yet the cloisonné jewelry of Mona and Alex Szabados is as fresh and contemporary in its appeal today. Akihiko Izukura’s textiles come out of a family tradition dating to the Edo Period, but his clothing expresses the best of Japanese design, the respect for material and processes that meld into sophisticated simplicity. Sallie Bell brings a Western sensibility to the use of Eastern motifs and materials. Sharon Portelance combines text and metal in her work, to produce jewelry that is literally commemorative. Robert Liu writes about faience beads in the Warring States period of Zhou China, a time of constant warfare, intellectual foment, and great artistic and technological innovations. As always, our departments span a great range of jewelry, clothing, beads, including botanical ones, folk and ethnography, and the ancient world, in this case the exciting return of Tutankhamun to American museums.

We welcome you to a summertime of Ornament, with more to fulfill you throughout the year.