COMA Conference 2010

METAL ART: MINIATURE TO MONUMENTAL

July 16-18 in Salida, Colorado

Presenters:

Bill Brinker

Bill Brinker, one of Colorado’s hidden treasures, began his career reluctantly making jewelry as a child, an admittedly “unwilling 12-year-old art student”. By the end of high school however, he was an accomplished fabricator and enamellist. In 1982 Brinker apprenticed with a prominent custom jeweler in Boulder, Colorado, and honed his skills as a production stone-setter and trade shop bench jeweler in one of Denver’s busiest wholesale trade shops. Bill became the head jeweler and workshop manager for a prestigious designer in Cherry Creek, where he remained for almost a decade. In 1990, Bill joined Lew Wackler in researching 19th century techniques of objects de virtu, such as ornamental turning, engine turning, and guilloche enameling. Their collaboration led to a long-standing association with Zadora Ltd., an international designer and producer of luxurious objects, reminiscent of those produced in the Faberge workshops. In addition to his work with Zadora in project management, technical design and execution of complex commissions, Bill does his own jewelry scale work incorporating his masterful skills as a goldsmith and enamellist.

Pat Flynn

Pat Flynn is a Master Metalsmith: an accomplished blacksmith, a classical-Modernist goldsmith who creates elegant, sculptural objects to wear. His materials range from rusty nails, fragments of once “useful” objects, to precious metals and gems, uniquely combined to create beautiful and meticulously crafted heirlooms. His work is a refined balance of opposites: matte blackened steel or iron with glittering white diamonds or a sprinkling of gold; crusty surfaces and irregular shapes with flawlessly designed mechanisms; beautiful objects of human desire forged with strength and grace. An award-winning artist whose work is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian, and the Art Institute of Chicago, Pat Flynn maintains a teaching and show schedule at prestigious schools and shows. (Photograph by Hap Sakwa)

Michael Good

Michael Good is widely known as the modern master of anticlastic rising. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of Belgian parents, Michael is a designer/sculptor/jeweler whose side interests include physics, philosophy, archaeology, and kayaking. In the late 1960’s, Good began to experiment with forging flat sheets of metal into hollow spring like structures that curve and twist, becoming miniature sculptures. A 1979 workshop with Heikki Seppa at the Haystack school in Maine reinforced Good’s interest in anticlastic raising and formed the basis for his lifelong exploration of this process. Michael Good has developed this technique to new heights, creating both miniature and large-scale objects in precious and non-precious metal, often combining forms with patinas and intricate enamel work. A resident of Rockport, Maine, where he lives in a remodeled 100 year old barn, many of his most outstanding pieces are reminiscent of natural vegetal forms found in his beautiful seacoast environment. Michael Good’s work is represented in stores, galleries, museums and private collections around the world. For over 25 years, he has been teaching for professional organizations, universities and schools in North America and Europe.

Gary Noffke

Gary Noffke Gary Noffke is a metalsmith’s metalsmith. Deep in the Georgia woods, Gary forges masterworks in copper, silver and gold in a studio which he built himself. His physical environment is one which would encourage an artist to stay and work un-encumbered by the distractions of urban life. Noffke is one of the great 20th century movers of metal. He is a blacksmith, a knifemaker, silversmith, coppersmith and goldsmith as well as an educator whose tutelage has influenced scores of fellow metalsmiths. Now Professor of Art Emeritus, he developed the metals program at the University of Georgia in Athens. An innovator in developing new alloys for hot forging, Gary Noffke continues to pursue his love of hot forging in non-ferrous metals. In his professional career spanning five decades, his work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including two solo exhibitions at the National Ornamental Museum in Memphis and the prestigious and widely travelled, "The Art of Gold" exhibit. His work is in the permanent collections of the Georgia Museum of Art, the National Ornamental Museum, the Museum of Art and Design in New York, The Vatican, and in numerous private collections including that of Herman Junger, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela. In 2001, he was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Craft Council.

Albert Paley

Albert Paley is a world renowned metal artist of multiple talents. In his long and illustrious career, he has been a jeweler, a blacksmith, a furniture maker, a sculptor, and teacher. His pieces have truly ranged from the miniature to monumental, and have incorporated materials ranging from glass to precious metals and steel. Paley is the first metal sculptor to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects, the AIA’s highest award to a non architect. His site- specific works include both public and private commissions, and his work has been acquired by the most prestigious museums in the world. Perhaps his best known work is the Portal Gates at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. Throughout his career, Paley has developed an innovative approach to form using traditional and non-traditional metalworking techniques. He has been instrumental in the resurgence of 20th and now, 21st century metalsmithing. Currently residing in Rochester, NY, Albert Paley holds an endowed chair at the Rochester Institute of Technology. (Photograph: Paley Studio Archive)

Conference Registration Form

News...