The Enamelist Society held its 15th biennial conference at Monserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts, on August 7-9. Called "Alchemy 3," the gathering coincided with the inaugural presentation of the nationally-touring exhibition "Little Dreams in Glass and Metal: Enameling in America, 1920 to the Present" at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. Several of the artists attending the conference were featured in the exhibition and its accompanying publication including Harlan Butt, Jessica Calderwood, Gretchen Goss, Jan Harrell, Marianne Hunter, June Jasen, James Malenda, Averill Shepps, Judy Stone, and Jean Tudor. On the Friday preceding the weekend conference, about 90 participants attended a walk-through of "Little Dreams" given by co-curators Bernard Jazzar and Hal Nelson of the Enamel Arts Foundation.
Friday evening also marked the opening of the Enamelist Society’s biennial exhibition “Alchemy 3: Transformation in Contemporary Enamels.” Juried by Martha Banyas, Jim Malenda, and Vera Siemund, the exhibition featured a broad range of international perspectives including work by 70 artists from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Taiwan, the United States, and Venezuela. Several awards were given with the top prize - Best in Show - going to critically acclaimed enamelist Sarah Perkins. With a goal of increasing awareness of the fine work being done by artists in the contemporary enamels field, the exhibition will travel to the Worcester Center for Crafts in Worcester, Massachusetts, and to the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen and the McGowan Fine Art Gallery in Concord, New Hampshire. A student exhibition also showcased new and emerging talent in the enamels field. That exhibition will also be shown at Anna Maria College in Paxton, Massachusetts.
A highlight of the two-day conference was the keynote speech “Enameling NOW” by Jessica Calderwood, one of the foremost artists working in the enamels field today. In addition to discussing developments in her own work, Calderwood traced three major themes in contemporary enameling: industry, watch dogs, and process. She illustrated each with work by other contemporary enamelists.
Other notable presentations included an illustrated talk by Gillie Hoyte Byrom on her enamel portrait miniatures; a historically wide-ranging and highly effective talk by Barbara Seidenath called “Image and Pattern: Basse-taille and Champleve Techniques;” and a presentation by Rick McMullen called “En Resille sur Verre Enamel: The Forgotten Technique” on his efforts to resurrect this venerable technique.
A panel called “Migrating Materials” led by Katy Bergman Cassell with participants Cappy Thompson, Jan Harrell, and Cullen Hackler encouraged enamelists to explore other media and new formats in their quest to exploit the medium’s rich expressive potential.
Throughout the weekend there were breakout sessions on numerous topics offered by several of the speakers as well as by artists James Malenda, Anne Havel, Pat Nelson, Averill Shepps, and the New York-based studio jewelry dealer Charon Kransen.
This biennial gathering sponsored by the Enamelist Society offered enamelists from disparate parts of the country an opportunity to come together, to share ideas, to refine techniques, and to build a cohesive community based on mutual interests and goals. Everyone left Beverly exhilarated and with a renewed passion for the rich potential of glass on metal.
Bernard Jazzar and Hal Nelson are co-founders of the nonprofit Enamel Arts Foundation. Jazzar is curator for the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Collection, a Los Angeles-based private collection, and Nelson is curator of American decorative arts at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Together they co-curated "Little Dreams in Glass and Metal" and co-authored its accompanying publication.