Time, Presence, and a Great Editor

Mindbogglingly quickly, the Earth has made yet another trip around the sun, and so this month marks 36 years since I began my journey as a metalsmith. Somehow 16 months have flown by since I began work on my exhibition and monograph Radiant Echoes to coincide with my 35th anniversary.

Radiant Echoes evolved largely due to the conversations and correspondence with my consulting editor Emily Zilber and author Jane Milosch. Their brilliant ideas, insightful questions, and enthusiastic support gave form to the way my artwork is presented. To them and to the book’s other authors Kate Bonansinga, Cynthia Eid, Rauni Higson, and Elyse Zorn Karlin, I am as grateful for their analyses as I am their eagerness to participate.

In the thick of it, there were days that progress on the projects seemed insurmountable, and other days that the work felt exhilarating. Through it all, Emily gently but diligently kept me on track and expanded the projects’ possibilities astronomically beyond my initial concepts. It’s now my great pleasure to tell you more about her.

Emily Zilber is a curator, educator, and consultant. As Director of Curatorial Affairs and Strategic Partnerships at the Wharton Esherick Museum, she stewards Esherick’s legacy, including by facilitating conversation between contemporary makers and the historic site.  Recent projects include The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick, a traveling exhibition to open at the Brandywine Museum of Art with an accompanying full-length catalog. In addition to her work with WEM, Zilber maintains an independent artist consulting practice. She has also taught courses and workshops focused on craft and design history, curatorial studies, and professional practice at institutions including Tyler School of Art and Architecture, and served as guest curator for the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. For almost a decade, she was the first Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she built an integrated curatorial program for craft and design within the museum’s contemporary art department. Prior, she held curatorial positions and fellowships at Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

The exhibition highlight for this post is In Aria. I’m happy this necklace was Emily’s top pick for Radiant Echoes‘ front cover. I have great objectivity regarding design when I’m working on a piece, but it stops when the piece is finished. Having objectivity over how to present my work later is a whole other challenge. This is where the experienced perspective of a curator and editor is crucial.

In Aria‘s title comes from punto in aria the Italian term for an early form of needle lace, which translates to points in the air. My concept was to form an undulating textile-like structure that, though strong and unbending, would appear as ephemeral as the folds of fabric.

I love to create sculptural objects with the technique of filigree. First, I draw the dimensional designs first then mentally unfold the structures, redrawing them as they would be flattened out. I then use these drawings to create paper models to test how the finished structures will bend. My paper models provide templates for the filigree frame designs that I eventually curve and form into the finished sculptural pieces after I solder all the tiny tension fitted wires into place.

People often look at my filigree work and ask how long it takes or tell me I must have a lot of patience.

Me?

Patient?!?

Ha!

I used to scramble through an answer that involved numbers and clarification. Now I revert to the responses of two friends who have taught me much:

And

Time and patience are overrated. If filigree were fast, I probably wouldn’t be interested in utilizing the technique. Filing filigree frame cells with tiny filler wires feels like solving a spacial relations problem that might have been overlooked, a space no one realized could become more interesting if further divided instead of leaving it empty. Within those spaces, I lose time and find instead, immense satisfaction. If I were patient, I’d probably never have had the curiosity or the courage to fold In Aria‘s structure in half (twice).