Dukno Yoon and Hether Bayless + spring break

Last week two amazing metal artist came to give guest talks and just hang around for the week. this allowed me to make some observations about the jewelry/metal community in general along with hearing some great talks and seeing some really cool jewelry. the First talk I went to was a lecture by Dukno Yoon - he's a Koran artist who did his grad work in Miami and is now a visiting professor in Kansas state university for their jewelry program. he is a really interesting artist as he really works with a balance between a movement of a device and a clean light feel. almost all his work is kinetic, it all moves. his lecture was fascinating not only in the presses he used but the way he makes them to his interest in the movements and ideas behind his pieces. I really have seen nothing like his work before and so it was very exciting to see work that shared ideas that i have been thinking about for some time. He is most well-known for his wings series they are his most resent set of works some are table top devices such as this

the pendulums swings and the wings flap like a bird (I could not get the video to upload with it moving but I will give a link late)

But what he's really known for are the multiply part and wing rings.

when bending the finger or when pressing on a spring the wings will go up and down. the movement is done thought a series of thin steel wire that bends when your finger bends or for the metal wings it's a series of springs. they really capture a light feel and I love that you can see just how they work.

my favorite things of his were not the wings but his rings. they are rings that measure a distance as you roll them on a hard surface and then display the measurements at the top. I found the whole idea very interesting and i really like the look of the gears, i have always loved the look of gears and would love to incorporate them into my work, however if i would like the pieces to function I would have to ether laser cut them or sent them out to be cast as they need to be so excite.  the outer really cool part of this smaller collection was the gallery display. he rigged up his table to float in air with the help of giant magnets and then hid motion censers around the room so when someone walked by a table the rings would start to move. I mean that is just way cool.

his website is well done and if your interested you can read more about the relationship between his work, you can also see it all in motion which makes hopping over their way worth it.

you can find that link here.

Now before jump to Heather Bayless and her talk let me tell you about some of the things I have noticed about the jewelry/metal community.

One) everyone knows everyone else...its a small community, that makes sense. But not just locally or even country based I mean everyone knows everyone else world-wide. take Dunkon Yoon for example, when he was an undergrad (in Seoul Korea, keep in mind) he met/knew of our head of departments husband  who at the time was visiting with some of his students. He then met our department head during his grad work in Miami where she was just starting to teach, and one of his classmates was guess what, one of our outer teachers today. everyone knows everyone and everyone is connected

Two) all jeweler are married to outer jewelers - I'm not kidding. so far there is on person who i have met a great speaker from last semester who has not been married to a fellow jeweler. (and I don't know about the outer two teaches in the department so...) It's like they never leave the studio. the head of the department here - Marilyn de Silva's husband is a silversmith, the teacher I'm takeing casting from is married and has a business with her metal-smith husband. and to top it all off the two guest lectures are married to each outer.

Now onto the second guess speaker, the wife of the first guess speaker. she was very nice but way different style wise then Dukno Yoon. she is much more organic in her shapes and in her inspiration. she is also a bit more commercial then he is. her best known pieces are the look and see brooch's.

they are made of a half cast out circle. with a mirrored back. she does a bunch of veneration and as far as i can tell the line is still ongoing. what makes these impressive it she cast them with all thought holes in the piece. this may not seem impressive but trust me it is. Nature and the sturdy of nature seems to be the main inspiration for all of her work and lots of her grad work revealed around the underside of the gills of the mushrooms. I think that these may be my favorite pieces although she really did not to many but i am a fan of mushrooms and like the way her work abstracted them but you can still be identified.  she also seems to be big into contaminates for food so she made spice shakers using the mushrooms form.

Her current line is all about butterfly's. Monarch butterfly's. they are very nice using photos of the wings and silver polished to a high shine so it acts as a mirror. depending on where you are the thing you see changes because of the reflection.

  I should say i don't really like this line of work. its done really well and everything but Butterfly's and moths really freak me out as long as they are nowhere near me that's fine Moths more so than butterfly but they all creep me out. they might come in above spiders in the creep out charts (unless it's a really big spider *shutter*) this is so my problem and not her's but...

If you would like to know more please check out her website Here.

And Finally we have reached spring break!!!!! No sun for me I'm trading it for nice rainy cold Seattle!!! by the time you see this post I will be in transit or home enjoying a whole week off before I have to face the last six weeks of class which will mostly be a giant push to finals.