Brian Adam's show report

Hi all, I’m forwarding this email from a Canadian list that Brian
Adams posted to, because I think its a very interresting example of
how art/craft jewellers can get together to make change and educate
the public. check out the gallery web site he mentions below as well,
very interesting. Charles

JAM <http://www.adam.co.nz/jam.htm is a festival of contemporary
jewellery events running Oct, Nov and Dec 1999 in and around Auckland
New Zealand.

We had the ‘Showing Off’ Party at a pub the other night, most of the
contemporsry jewellers in Auckland in a special room in a cafe, all
wearing their work - ‘Showing Off, where the jewellery on show will be
what you wear!’ I wore my latest little 25mm disc silver specs that I
fitted with my 10 year old prescription lenses an hour before the
party.

Margaret West from Sydney was there, as was Cynthia Cousens from
Britain, here on a 3-mth residency. And a few surprises were the
jewellers from Wellington - travelled 400 miles up to Auckland. They
have a ring show on which you can see at this great website:
http://www.craftinfo.org.nz/diary/moreinfo/deeper.html.

Fingers Jewellery invited their ‘stable’ of about 48 contemporary New
Zealand jewellers to exhibit in ‘925’ their silver anniversary group
exhibition. See pictures from the opening last Monday night
http://www.fingers.co.nz.

JAM is a unique event. Put on by a disparate (desperate?) group of
interested people who had never done this before. I hope you there in
Canada will appreciate the energy that goes into such a ‘festival’,
and the rewards from getting it done. Here’s a short history of the
development of JAM published in the JAM Publication 1999 and reprinted
with permission.

Let me know what you think!
Cheers,
Bri

Thanks for posting this up, Charles. I appreciate it. I had already
posted it, complete with Areta’s article, but under a more discrete
subject header. (Me trying to be discrete - I should give up on that
one.)

Well anyway maybe the JAM idea is not such a startling one.

However, we have had many JAM events since that posting, the latest
one deserves a mantion. It was last night. 4 recent jewellery grads
got together with an idea to reverse the usual
jewellery-making/exhibiting procedure. Called ‘Cargo’ they devised
their ideas around the messages that pieces of jewellery take with
them as they change hands or are stolen, made their pieces, hired a
shipping container, hired some City Council space in a public plaza in
downtown Auckland, and exhibited their work in that! At the opening
they offered us port cabin bread and those lifesavers lolloies,
rather than the usual wine and biccies.

I have some great shots I took to show the container with us all
milling around, in the middle of the big cityscape.

Let me know what you think, Orchidists! Cheers, Bri

B r i a n A d a m J e w e l l e r y E y e w e a r
@Brian_Adam1 ph/fx +64 9 817 6816 NEW ZEALAND
http://www.adam.co.nz/ photos from Australia!!
http://www.adam.co.nz/jam.htm Jewellery Events on now