Radical Jewelry Makeover (RJM) is Ethical Metalsmiths’ innovative community mining project. It raises awareness of the connection between mining, metalsmithing, activism, collaboration and art. It involves volunteer “miners,” “smelters,” “refiners,” jewelers, and metalsmiths working together to create a new and transparent supply chain. The project is both performance and event, linking recycling, reuse and collaborative work sessions with the creation of unique, innovative, handmade jewelry, concluding with an exhibition and reception. The project was designed and developed by Christina Miller and Susie Ganch and is now directed by Susie Ganch and Kathleen Kennedy.
Curtis H. Arima is an Associate Professor and Co-chair of the Jewelry & Metal Art Program at CCA where he enjoys teaching students different approaches to making art, and helping them find their artistic identities. Curtis earned a BFA from California College of the Arts and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Arts. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. He takes a holistic approach to Metalsmithing, and makes work from fine jewelry, holloware, and found object sculpture. His publications include Metalsmith Magazine, Sculpture Magazine, Lapidary Journal, the Lark 500 Series books, and New Brooches. He has taught workshops in the US, as well as Japan, and China.
Kathleen Kennedy is an artist and educator currently living in Richmond, VA. She received her BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University, and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Kennedy is an Instructor and Metals Area Coordinator for the Department of Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She has also taught as an Instructor at Montgomery College in Maryland and the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina. She is a member of the advisory council for the Ethical Metalsmiths and currently serves as Co-Director of Radical Jewelry Makeover, an international jewelry mining and recycling project that continues to travel across the country and abroad. Kennedy’s work explores the value of common objects. Recent exhibitions include the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, VA, the Tacoma Art Museum, WA, and Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA.
Taylor Zarkades King is a studio artist and jeweler living and working in Western Massachusetts. Formally trained as a metalsmith her craft based practice sways between a jewelers bench and a studio that finds its form through larger configurations of wood, fiber, print and re-contextualized objects. Her reuse of materials has become an ongoing study in adaptation, coded language, and a queer digestion of belonging, kinship, desire and home. King received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2019 and a BFA from California College of the Arts in 2010. She was a 2013 artist-in-residence with EDITIONBasel at Druckwerks [Basel, Switzerland] and the 2019 artist-in-residence with Quirk Gallery + VisArts Center [Richmond, VA]. Her work has been exhibited in San Fransisco, Oakland, Seattle, Richmond, Chicago, New York, as well as internationally in Basel Switzerland, Oaxaca Mexico, and Beijing China. King has taught Jewelry/Metalsmithing workshops and classes at California College of the Arts, Richmond Fine Art Center [CA], Virginia Commonwealth University, VisArts Center of Richmond [VA], and several small pop-up project spaces across the US.
Jina Seo (b. South Korea) is an Assistant Professor in Metal + Jewelry at Missouri State University. Her practice explores the relationships between body, clothing, sexuality, fetish, and space by using worn garment items like leather gloves. She recently won a Grand Prix at Amber Trip Art Jewelry Competition in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2019. She was a recipient of Fountainhead Fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University 2016-2017 and was chosen as one of the SNAG Emerging Artists in 2016 at SOFA Chicago. In 2010, she received Shirayuki Itami Morohaku Award (Gold Award) during the ITAMI International Craft Exhibition in Japan. She received her MFA in Metal at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and her BFA in Metalwork and Jewelry Design at Kookmin University, Seoul, South Korea. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including Munich Jewellery Week; Brooklyn Metal Works, NY; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL; Sung-Gock Gallery, Seoul, Korea; and (AV17) Gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania.
