Above: Carmen Amador Brooch, pearls, sterling
In 1999 as she was planning her residency at the famed Massana School in Barcelona, Clara Ines Arana was also formulating plans to bring the work of a number of contemporary Spanish jewelers to the OXOXO Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. Born in Manizales, Colombia and resident in Baltimore, Arana is a well known contemporary jeweler with a strong desire to expand her knowledge of jewelry and to communicate her skills and vision. She was invited to be an artist in residence at the Escola Massana, which was founded in 1929 by Agusti Massana, a wealthy Barcelona pastry chef with an interest in art, and since 1953 housed in the former Gothic Hospital de la Santa Creu where it offers among other disciplines programs in sculpture, graphic design, and ceramics as well as in jewelry. Arana's time there was spent in round-table discussions with teachers and students where drawings and written projects for jewelry were analyzed. In the weeks following her residency Arana visited a number of Spanish galleries selling contemporary jewelry and viewed the work of artists in this field. A short list was drawn up; invitations were issued and on her return to Baltimore Arana curated at Baltimore's OXOXO Gallery a small show featuring contemporary jewelers, above all from the Catalonia region of Spain - a region which
Contemporary Spanish Jewelry, featured above all teachers and students from the Massana School. Twelve jewelers showed a total of one hundred and thirty works, both one-of-a-kind and serial-production pieces, and Baltimore provided the venue where the featured artists introduced their jewelry to a North American audience. A number of the students were guided in particular by one of the School's teachers, the noted Catalan jeweler, Ramon Puig Cuyas. Carmen Amador, whose jewelry suggesting ships and crescent moons, pursued the theme of fantasy and surrealism. Amador teaches repousse at the School, and her jewelry was uniformly executed in this technique. Another Barcelona artist, Estela Cuitart, a former student, showed Urush/-covered bracelets and necklaces. The articulation of these pieces was especially appealing, as was that of her stunning silver and oxidized silver necklaces which conformed beautifully to the wearer's neck. A complete departure from the jewelry already mentioned were the whimsical and witty . brooches of another student, Xavier Ines Monclus. A carrot on wheels topped by a tiny house (Pastanaga Speed); a teddy bear riding a train (Juguete Complete); a house and a tree behind a brick wall (Home Sweet Home) are some of the subjects of the brooches executed in silver accented with cold enamel which were on display. Two jewelers, Joaquim Capdevila and Daniel Lemmi, whose choice of unorthodox materials such as recycled plastic and glass define a distinctive aesthetic, furnished works which were appealingly colorful and tactile. A blue and green necklace made of large round discs and another of black, orange, and silver with an Art Deco sensibility stand out. The jeweler Carles Codina, yet another Massana teacher, showed splendid cast pendants, one decorated with a moss agate, and bracelets carrying niello decoration. Codina is the author of a beautifully illustrated recent book which treats the technique of jewelry. It was first issued in Spanish as La Joyeria, and has now been published in English as The Complete Book of Jewelry Making (New York/Lark Books, 2000). In his books Codina shows the work of a number of the jewelers in this exhibition, many of whom will in the future be featured artists at the OXOXO Gallery. From Baltimore Contemporary Spanish Jewelry moved to the Thomas Mann Gallery in New Orleans where it remained open from January 6 to February 3, 2001.
Martha
McCrory is a writer who lives in Baltimore,
Maryland.