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Thursday, August 13, 2009

Visual Art Currently Hanging

Posted by Jen Graves on Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 10:09 AM

Every museum has hidden specialties that almost nobody knows about. I've often thought they should hang a "specials" menu up for the casual museumgoer—who has no idea, for instance, that you should look for photography at the Henry, or Asian art at Seattle Art Museum.

Or jewelry at Tacoma Art Museum.

Because TAM is an underdog, it has quietly amassed a serious collection of jewelry—several of the world's leading jewelry artists actually live in the Northwest, starting with fountainhead Ramona Solberg—while nobody was really looking.

Now it has two exhibitions of jewelry up: Loud Bones: The Jewelry of Nancy Worden, and Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection.

I'm less interested in the second one, which sounds like a jewelry show trying too hard to be a highfalutin art show. Worden, though, is a local, and her work is always about something that would put you and the person looking at you in a particular situation upon meeting. Here's an example. True, it's heavy-handed—but some people need a serious smacking.

Armed and Dangerous (1998); silver, 18-carat gold, malachite, plastic, and found objects

More of Worden's charged work at her web site.

Comments (6) RSS

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But what you've done here
Is put yourself between a bullet and a target
And it won't be long before
You're pulling yourself away

Posted by muggims on August 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM

Someone needs to wear that while in Drag!!!

Posted by Cato the Younger Younger on August 13, 2009 at 10:36 AM

Yuck... Her stuff is just awful!

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me on August 13, 2009 at 10:50 AM

Christianity is about violence and death! That's so, like, deep. And edgy.

Posted by Greg on August 13, 2009 at 11:10 AM

Looking at her website, I can't help but think that all of her work is heavy handed - literally and figuratively. Isn't jewelry supposed to be worn? Because most of the stuff on her site looks heavy and pinchy - not exactly points that make me want to invest. I appreciate the steampunk vibe in a few of them, but none of it looks comfortable enough to wear. NONE.

Posted by kathleenb on August 13, 2009 at 12:29 PM

I wonder if the necklace shown was intentionally constructed like a squash blossom? The bullets, the cross, the silver spacers... all ad up to a very dismal celebration of Native American history.

Posted by Dougsf on August 13, 2009 at 1:03 PM