Anthony Tammaro

Anthony Tammaro is a designer of couture and production jewelry who takes advantage of a number of technological advances and materials developed over the past decade. These include the digital design environment of 3D-modeling software, as well as a number of additive production processes that, in his work, allow for creativity in form and function unattainable with typical production means. Since standard metal jewelry production methods were limiting in terms of scale, he began to devise techniques to assemble large-scale, dramatic body ornament.

Tammaro holds a BFA as a Crafts major at The University of Arts in Philadelphia, is a graduate of the Masters Course of Industrial Design at Domus Academy in Milan, Italy, and an MFA graduate in the Metals-Jewelry-CAD/CAM program at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art.

In his newest body of work, Tammaro continues to collaborate with fashion photographers to reach beyond the typical scenario of presenting objects of personal adornment in isolation. His work has been exhibited nationally in galleries including Wexler Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Velvet Da Vinci (San Francisco, CA), Gallery Loupe (Mont Clair, NJ), Sienna Gallery (Lenox, MA), and at The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Upcoming exhibits include a solo exhibition at Quirk Gallery (Richmond, VA), Design Philadelphia and in the national touring exhibition of “Lark’s 500 Plastic Jewelry Designs.”

emiko oye

Inspired by haute couture and salvaged materials, San Francisco artist emiko oye creates one-of-a-kind, urban jewelry and sculptures from recycled materials in combination with precious metals and gemstones.

Her jewelry strives to subtly transform the identity of everyday mundane objects to create new dialogues about our relationship with the environment and our culture.

In her sculptural work, alternative materials such as factory scraps, discarded toys and LEGO®, and sands from US internment camps are utilized to spark discourse on current socio-political issues. Topics of focus are consumerism and value, corporate greed and the media, and war and civil rights violations. Jewelry as a seductive vehicle for awareness.

Both her jewelry and conceptual sculptures are shown in exhibitions across the United States and in Europe, and are in the Museum of Contemporary Craft Teaching Collection.

Mike and Maaike

Mike and Maaike is an industrial design studio led by Mike Simonian and Maaike Evers. Formed as a design laboratory, the San Francisco studio works both independently and with clients to create progressive solutions for products, furniture, technology, wearables, environments, and vehicles.

Maaike Evers is Dutch, Mike Simonian, Californian. These distinct backgrounds inform a diverse body of work marked by experimentation, substance and strong conceptual narratives.

Recent collaborations include: Google, Belkin, Steelcase, Xbox, Blankblank, Council, Coalesse, Dupont, Fritz Hansen, Ironkey, and the City of San Francisco.

Stolen Jewels is an exploration of tangible vs. virtual in relation to real and perceived value.

Using Google Image Search, we browsed through some of the most expensive and often famous jewelry in the world, the low-res images we found were stolen, doctored, then transferred to leather, creating a tangible new incarnation. With the expense and intricacy of the jewels stripped away, their essence and visual intensity are extracted. These pieces are applied to printed and scored leather.

Jimin Park

Jimin Park received her MFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007. Currently, she lives, works, and teaches in Washington DC.

Imagination generates product. My body of work is manifested in theory and traditional insight regarding imagination as a core. After I majored in Metalsmithing in college, I worked for a high-end genuine European antique jewelry gallery. Spending my childhood with cartoons and comics, major culture industries in Asian countries, I found myself still enjoying them. These sculptural and cultural environments culminated in a deeper inquiry of jewelry.

My sarcastic approach can be attributed to a parody of reality. I am striving to revive classical forms, combined with contemporary approaches. In the series of Wonderland (2009), plastic materials and found objects were merged using the cartoonish inspirations: exaggerated shapes, bright colors, and surreal narratives. The bitter reflection projects the scene of abundant fakeness in the reality.

Amy Weiks

Amy Weiks is a nationally exhibiting artist with an artistic background that is materially and technically diverse. This diversity has greatly influenced the way she makes work, often moving fluidly from one material or process to another and blurring the lines between traditional media. It is the intimacy and interactivity of the object that draws her to jewelry and metalsmithing. While a desire to communicate her ideas through the objects she creates tends to dictate material choices, she also works very intuitively, often playing with a material or process until an idea emerges and aesthetic decisions become more conscious and deliberate. Some of her material choices include precious and non-precious metals, fiber, thread, beads, and paint.

The series, Equal and Opposite, is an exercise in form and function, an exploration of materials and an investigation of contradictions. Through repetitive hammer blows the metal is stretched and formed from flat sheet into its unique shape. The inside and outside are painted or patinated for dramatic contrast, accentuating the delicate edges. Each brooch hangs from a long stainless steel pin stem that arches above it thus requiring a balance of materials to combat the forces of gravity. Thread or beads are attached to provide visual or literal weight and balance. Due to their atypical pin mechanisms, the brooches are also reversible further pushing this idea of equal and opposite.

Weiks received a BFA in Photography from Western Michigan University in 2004. She has also studied at prestigious institutions such as the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland (printmaking) and Virginia Commonwealth University (jewelry/metals). At HCCC, she will share a studio with her partner, Gabriel Craig, through August of 2010. For more information, visit www.amyweiks.com.