FOREVER OUT OF MY REACH

So, I didn't win the Super Powerball.  Bummer...I had plans for all that dough.  Yes, I would pay off bills, loans...and yes I would donate to charities for animals and children...and yes, I'd share with my amazing family...BUT I would also amass the most KICK-ASS collection of vintage silver jewelry.  A girl's gotta have dreams, RIGHT?  I'd hunt down the mid-century Mexican masters, I'd stalk the auctions of mid-century Scandinavian pieces, You know the Native Americans are up there on the list, and I would hunt for as many of the Modernist pieces that I could find.  I know, I'd probably need a museum to house it all, but my "Ambition" in 1991 was "To own an art museum".  So I'd be right on track!

And if something amazing happened tomorrow, I'd start right here:

This piece is by the artist Art Smith.  I found it on Ebay, auction # 180608083035.  The auction may be over, but I can still dream.  Art Smith (1917-1982)crafted the most amazing jewelry.  Truly.

  Original.  Sculptural.  Organic. 

Born in Cuba, he was a creative child.  He obtained a scholarship to Cooper Union, but didn't land on jewelry until "teaching crafts at the Children's Aid Society in Harlem."  It was there that he worked with a woman named Winifred Mason, who had been making copper jewelry and selling it to friends.  At their shop in Greenwich, Art listened to great jazz and socialized with other great modernist jewelers of the era...Lobel, Kramer, and Rebajes to name a few.  He moved from his second location due to public prejudice. He worked from a studio on w. 4th St. unil he became ill in the late 70's.  He was recognized during his lifetime.
 Art Smith, "more than any other modernist jeweler of his day, [he] was concerned with ornamenting the human form.  His primitive-inspired biomorphic constructions can only be truly understood in relation to the human structure."
LOVE HIM!!!!!

Modernist Jewelry 1930-1960  The Wearable Art Movement  by Marbeth Schon (quotes from pages 70, 72)  This is a fabulous book, that I highly recommend!