COUP de COEUR : Mary DONALD

Mary DONALD  exhibits at the Smithsonian Craft Show 2011

« My connection to the natural world has not only inspired my visual vocabulary with it’s beautiful forms, textures, patterns and colors, but has also stimulated me conceptually. I began experimenting with organic, discarded and surplus materials several years ago for a project and continue to be motivated by my discoveries. The unconventional materials and processes keep it fresh and interesting for me. I mix it up with a little gold, silver and other metals to make unique, wearable sculpture.  »

Mary DONALD - bracelet « float » – rubber, nylon, silver

Mary DONALD - bracelet « float » – rubber, nylon, silver
Mary DONALD - brooch – plastics, nylon, 18k gold, stainless steel – cut, burned, drilled, riveted

Mary DONALD - bracelet « Swim » – plastics, nylon, silver, brass - cut, burned, drilled, riveted….

Mary DONALD - earrings – plastics, silver, brass, pearls - cut, burned, drilled, riveted….  like floating medusa ….

Mary DONALD - ring « Forever the Optimist » – plastics, 18k gold, nylon, silver

Smithsonian Craft Show – Washington DC (US) – 14-17 Avril 2011

29th Annual Smithsonian Craft Show
Telling America’s Story through the Art of Craft
Featuring 120 artists, including 55 first-time exhibitors

National Building Museum
Washington, DC

* Emanuela Aureli Santa Fe, NM	* Thea Clark Maplewood, NJ	Mary Donald Los Angeles, CA
Emanuela Duca New York, NY	Sandra Enterline San Francisco, CA	Pat Flynn High Falls, NY
Karen Gilbert Sebastopol, CA	Reiko Ishiyama New York, NY	John Iversen East Hampton, NY
Andrea Janosik Brooklyn, NY	* Olive Kraus Hannibal, MO	Ken Loeber & Dona Look Algoma, WI
* Maja Carmel, CA	* Mai Orama Muniz & Erica Millner Lancaster, PA	Carla Reiter Evanston, IL
* Gustav Reyes Chicago, IL	Joyce Roessler Boston, MA	* Melissa Schmidt St. Louis, MO
Biba Schutz New York, NY	* Kathleen Nowak Tucci Atmore, AL	* Francesca Vitali Rochester, NY
* Andrea Williams Cohasset, MA		* Georgia Yang Santa Rosa, CA

EXPO ‘TRANSMUTATIONS/MATERIAL REBORN’ – Gallery Loupe (USA) – 22 Juin-16 Juil. 2010

This exhibition represents the extraordinary work being produced today by artists who use plastics as a foundational element in their pieces.  These are pieces that span the realms of the sublime and the humorous.  Whether meant for everyday adornment or making a specific statement, for telling a story or giving straightforward aesthetic pleasure, this exhibition demonstrates the vast range of possibilities that plastic affords.

TRANSMUTATIONS/MATERIAL REBORN is curated by Susan Kasson Sloan who recently jurored Lark Book’s « 500 Plastic Jewelry Designs – A Groundbreaking Survey of a Modern Material. »  Kasson Sloan teaches at the 92nd Street Y in NYC.

 

 

 

 

 

voir aussi article :  EXPO ‘Transmutations : Material Reborn’ – Facèré Gallery, Seattle (USA) 5-24 MAY 2010

BLACK is BEAUTIFUL – for Mary DONALD rubber jewelry

 Mary DONALD rubber jewelry

Mary Donald (US) – ‘Wabi-Sabi’ cuff – rubber, nylon, nylon-coated steel cable

Mary Donald  – ‘puppet’ – ring (or…pendant) – mixed-media – 2008

Mary Donald  - ‘Float’ bracelet – rubber, nylon, silver – 2008

« With the eye of a jeweler, I practice the art of hunting and gathering. Like an urban aborigine, I collect a variety of materials and even detritus plus remnants and miscellany from natural and other resources, carrying it back to the studio where it’s examined and then used to create body adornment, objects and sculpture. It’s hard to say sometimes, exactly, what this work is all about. It’s about so many things and nothing at all; I’ve come to think of it as a meditation on aesthetics, with a particular regard for the natural world. It’s an exploration, motivated by the tension and interplay between value and values, materials and materialism, consumption and waste, the decorative and the conceptual, nature and culture, permanence and ephemera, art and craft, rich and poor, mind and body, organic and synthetic, personal and political, work and play, the precious and the banal, the crude and the refined, the tangible and the spiritual.
It’s about dancing the fault between human nature and the natural world. Yet ultimately, this work is a lyrical response to the world around me, embracing both the simplicity of pure form and the more engaging, conceptual aspects of the work.
Specializing in a sub-field which is often defined by the use of precious materials such as platinum, gold, diamonds, and sapphires, I’m frequently faced with the baggage that goes hand in hand with those materials. This includes unethical mining practices and human rights violations, to mention only the most glaring examples. Words such as “precious” and “value” are constantly part of the language surrounding jewelry, which I use as a point of departure — the springboard into my own creative process.
I’ve discovered a kind of poetry in every day materials, images and objects that often seems absent in traditional jewelery. The subversive act of rescuing materials destined for the dumpster motivates me further or simply repurposing various found goods. Taking the time to craft orange peels, cheap plastics, spent inner tubes and other odds and ends into “gems” intended to adorn the human body — where gold and diamonds are the tradition — or sometimes combining ordinary and/or waste materials with traditional precious materials, brings tension to the completed works.
Though not limited exclusively to materials that are recycled, surplus and/or found, I favor mining from those sources over conventional precious metals and stones. The search for and collecting of a range of unorthodox materials that fits into this rubric but also stimulates an aesthetic response, plays a significant role in my process. Simultaneously, it satisfies a curiosity regarding the material world, a penchant for experimentation that sustains my creative impulse and a sensitivity to the natural world. » (Mary Donald )

 

EXPO ‘Transmutations : Material Reborn’ – Facere Gallery, Seattle (USA) 5-24 MAY 2010

Transmutations : Material Reborn

An exhibition celebrating 27 international jewelry artists who transform plastics (materials that include resin, latex, rubber, vinyl, and thermoplastics) into wearable art.

There are pieces meant for everyday adornment, and pieces meant to make a statement. There is jewelry produced by using high technology Computer Aided Design or CAD and Rapid Prototyping – 3-dimensional printing in ABS Plastic. There is jewelry made of plastic Lego toy parts and jewelry made of found objects in varied combinations.

This show will be traveling to the Center for Contemporary Craft in Houston, Texas in March for the 2010 SNAG conference. From there it will travel to Facere Gallery (Seattle), then to Gallery Loupe (Montclair, NJ, USA).

Artist List :
Julia Barello, Mary Donald, Jantje Fleischhut, Suzanne Golden, Rebecca Hannon, Betty Heald, Masumi Kataoka, Karin Kato, Susanne Klemm, Jocelyn Kolb, Monika Krol, Gail MacMillan Leavitt, Vicki Mason, Masako Onodera, Emiko Oye, Adam Paxon, Natalya Pinchuk, Katja Prins, Geoff Riggle, Leslie Shershow, Lin Stanionis, Rebecca Strzelec, Anthony Tammaro, Uli Rapp, Karla Way, Sayumi Yokouchi, and Sandra Zilker.

Uli RAPP	Vicki Mason	Rebecca Strzelec
Mary DONALD	Emiko OYE	Lin Stanionis
Suzanne Golden	Susanne KLEMM	Jocelyn Kolb

 

Rebecca Hannon – ‘Camino’ Neckpiece – hand cut rubber – 2004

Sandra Zilker - ‘Graphic Organix’ Dot/Stripe Pin- sterling silver, acrylic, and resin

 

 

May 5, 2010 – May 24, 2010
Facèré Gallery
City Centre 1420 Fifth Ave.
Seattle WA  98101 – USA
tél : [phone]
[e-mail]
http://www.facerejewelryart.com/exhibits.php

 

Adam Paxon video :