Radical Adornment – Artwork Jewellery Discussion board

When collector Lois Boardman wore her gold nosepiece, by German jeweler Gerd Rothmann, to the grocery store, clients averted their gaze. It was unusual and, she supposed, could have gave the impression to be a prosthetic. The piece was not a false appendage. It was made utilizing an impression of Boardman’s actual nostril taken with the assistance of her pricey pal, the ceramist Ralph Bacerra. Rothmann’s “physique prints” are meant to offer the wearer the sensation of one thing bespoke, one thing so particular they establish with it fully. Whereas Rothmann definitely achieved this for Boardman, the chosen physique half clearly had a strong affect on her fellow customers as properly.

This anecdote about carrying a gold nostril to the grocery retailer exemplifies two essential features of Boardman—her staunch assist of artists, and her indelible humorousness and enjoyable. The Lois Boardman Assortment, which was generously donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork (LACMA) by Boardman and her husband, Bob, was assembled to impress and foster dialog: to immediate the query “what are you carrying?” (Not “who’re you carrying?” because the pink carpet chorus goes.) In a metropolis legendary for its glamour and glitz, this assortment encourages discussions about how jewellery communicates highly effective messages in addition to the wearer’s wealth and standing.

This extraordinary assortment was gathered by a longtime admirer and advocate of up to date artwork and design generally, and jewellery particularly. Born in Chicago, Lois Myer was finding out in Lausanne, Switzerland, when she met her future husband. They settled in Southern California in 1959. At all times avidly within the arts, Boardman studied ceramics with Bacerra on the Chouinard Artwork Institute (now CalArts). She started working on the avant-garde Pasadena Artwork Museum (PAM, now the Norton Simon Museum) in 1964, organizing programming, most notably an underground movie competition. In 1969 she joined the Pasadena Artwork Alliance, initially based to assist the PAM and now an unbiased group supporting modern artwork all through Southern California. She served as an energetic member and on its board for greater than 45 years.

From 1978 to 1985, Boardman served as director of California Design, an unbiased nonprofit (at one time affiliated with the PAM) that curated exhibitions and produced publications about design in California. The primary director, Eudorah M. Moore, a passionate advocate for craft and design and Boardman’s nice pal, constructed the small exhibition program right into a powerhouse, securing nationwide press protection and publishing fantastically illustrated catalogs. When Moore resigned in 1978 to develop into crafts coordinator for the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Boardman assumed the function of director.

In 1980, Moore invited Boardman to take part within the NEA-sponsored Nationwide Crafts Planning Undertaking, the mission of which was finding out the wants of America’s craftspeople to create an motion plan to advance the sphere. At a gathering at Black Mountain Faculty, Boardman met the indomitable craft collector and gallerist Helen Drutt, initiating a decades-long friendship. Drutt and Boardman carried on a multiyear dialogue about modern jewellery, discussing the deserves and virtues of every piece. Boardman additionally traveled ceaselessly to Schmuck, the annual jewellery truthful in Munich, and when Drutt closed her gallery, in 2003, Boardman continued amassing by way of a wider circle of sellers.

LACMA has gladly accepted Boardman’s incitement to debate what jewellery means past the standard associations of decoration. The gathering contains greater than 300 objects and displays the modern jewellery motion’s full chronological, geographic, and typological scope. It exemplifies lots of the motion’s central precepts, specifically a essential examination of the values of the standard jewellery business, using nontraditional supplies and methods, explorations of the work’s relationship to the physique, the expression of private or political messages, and the potential to shock and delight. Inbuilt Los Angeles, the gathering has a distinctly Western standpoint. It’s particularly robust in work by West Coast jewelers, comparable to Arline Fisch, Helen Shirk, and Nancy Worden. At an encyclopedic artwork museum like LACMA, the gathering could be proven alongside artwork from throughout time and across the globe to point out how concepts embedded within the notion of knickknack are common.

Boardman’s advocacy for modern jewellery was contagious. Impartial curator Jo Lauria recollects that “the ability and urgency of Lois’s message—conveyed by way of the ever-present brooch, necklace, and ring she can be carrying at each event—struck a chord in me. It propelled me to affix her rank of disciples who appreciated, supported, and advocated for studio jewelers who make daring statements with their fingers, minds, and instruments. Lois was a champion of up to date jewellery and she or he might be dearly missed; such a spirit is irreplaceable.”

Boardman was quite a lot of enjoyable. Through the summer season when Rosie Chambers Mills and I catalogued the donated jewellery, we spent in the future per week in Boardman’s art-filled residence in South Pasadena. She at all times offered a hearty lunch in her huge eating room stuffed with ceramics by Peter Shire and different associates, and regaled us with tales about her artwork world adventures. She at all times begged us to take a dip within the pool. (I remorse we by no means did!)

Boardman’s generosity to LACMA, Los Angeles, and the world of up to date jewellery is irreplaceable. Her spirit lives on by way of the gathering and the various wonders that it comprises.

Tailored from Mills, Rosie Chambers, and Bobbye Tigerman. “Introduction.” In Past Bling: Up to date Jewellery from the Lois Boardman Assortment. Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork, 2016.

We welcome your feedback on our publishing, and can publish letters that have interaction with our articles in a considerate and well mannered method. Please submit letters to the editor electronically; accomplish that right here. 

© 2025 Artwork Jewellery Discussion board. All rights reserved. Content material might not be reproduced in complete or partially with out permission. For reprint permission, contact data (at) artjewelryforum (dot) org