90 exhibitors in all to fill the Museum’s Beaux-Arts Court in time for holiday shopping

The Brooklyn Museum’s Beaux-Arts Court will shine with jewelry in a remarkable range of styles, media and techniques November 18-19, the weekend before Thanksgiving. The exhibitors are among the 90 at the fifth American Fine Craft Show Brooklyn. In addition to silver, gold, platinum, copper, brass and recycled metals, the artisans work in Polymer clay, nylon mesh, silk, wool and felt, precious and semi-precious stones, glass, Shakudo, Shibuichi and one incorporates found objects. They are experts in such techniques as millefiori marquetry, Mokumé Gané, enameling-- Basse Taille, Champlevé, Cloisonné, Limoges--and quilting seed beads around a core globe. Jewelers join fashion designers, glass and furniture makers, ceramists and more.

Highlights of a few of the handpicked exhibitors that illustrate the skills and creativity of the country’s most illustrious jewelers follow: 

• For her one of a kind jewelry, Bonnie Bishoff creates small personal sculptures of polymer clay, metal and wood using such techniques as millefiori marquetry. She writes on her website that her pieces “enliven the wearer and communicate in intimate detail.” In her Brunswick, Maine studio she transforms materials to achieve “tactile, curious and wearable forms, and rich surfaces of continuing interest.”
• Sonja Fries uses recycled metals and diamonds in her rings, cuffs, bracelets and necklaces. She said: “Jewelry is architecture for the human body. Much like an architect, I set out with a unique vision, carefully select my materials, design a piece and then start constructing, layer by layer.” The Brooklyn-based jeweler uses traditional jewelry-making methods: sawing, forging and soldering.
• Lara Ginzburg is “passionate about all forms of enameling,” which she said is “considered the most intricate and difficult of all jewelry techniques.” For her necklaces, pendants, rings, brooches and earrings she enjoys experimenting in her Yardley, Pa. studio with many techniques such as Basse Taille, Champlevé, Cloisonné, Limoges, painting and drawing.
• New York jewelry designer Lori Kaplan focuses on colorful stones in her collections that feature semi-precious stones, precious sapphires and emeralds. Her classic, sophisticated yet understated earrings, bracelets, necklaces and rings are crafted from precious and semi-precious metals--sterling silver, 14K gold fill, 10-18K gold and 22K gold vermeil. Lori also offers limited edition pieces and one-of-a-kind creations.
• Brooklyn-based jeweler Michal Lando, Michal Lando Design, fell in love with the properties of nylon mesh, a supple, dramatic, lightweight material once used as a structural element in hats and clothing. Her latest pieces are “based on a kind of controlled unraveling.” She developed a technique of applying heat to shape the material into new forms for an ethereal, delicate and otherworldly effect.
• From internationally recognized quilt maker to jeweler Barbara Packer, Germantown, N.Y., eventually “learned a Japanese method of knotting” to repair a necklace which lead her to “quilt” seed beads to globe shapes. “I segued from stitching hundreds of pieces of fabric to make two-dimensional quilts to weaving thousands of minuscule glass beads into three-dimensional globes” for necklaces, earrings and bracelets.
• The simplicity of metal and more specifically the traditional Japanese technique of Mokumé Gané [that achieves the look of wood on metal], impact Lisa Jane Grant’s ideal of contrast and movement in her jewelry. She manufactures Mokumé in her studio. It is created using precious metals such as platinum, gold, palladium and silver. “My designs,” says the Cumberland, Maine-based jeweler, "are of a contemporary feel, hand-crafted and custom made."

For more information about the American Fine Craft Show at the Brooklyn Museum, visit www.brooklyncraftshow.com.

Fee includes general admission to the museum. Discount tickets are available in advance on line: http://www.americanfinecraftshowbrooklyn.com/, $12 for everyone until Nov. 10 and $14 after that. Cash only at entrance: Adults - $16.00 Seniors -$14.00 Students - $10.00 Museum members with membership card -$8 Children under 10-Free. Hours: Saturday Nov. 19 and Sunday,  Nov. 20: 11 am-6 pm. Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238. Directions: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/visit/directions.php. For information visit www.brooklyncraftshow.com.

Richard and Joanna Rothbard, founders and directors of American Art Marketing, have launched and produced art fairs and craft shows for over 30 years. They established the American Fine Craft Show NYC, Contemporary Art Fair NYC and the Rockefeller Arts Festival in Manhattan. Currently they produce the annual American Fine Craft Show Washington DC in October; American Fine Craft Show Brooklyn Museum in November, Sarasota Craft Show in Florida in December, the Berkshires Arts Festival in Massachusetts in July and American Fine Craft Show Philadelphia in April.

The Rothbards also own An American Craftsman Galleries, http://www.anamericancraftsman.com/ with Manhattan locations—294 Columbus Avenue and 830 7th Avenue—as well as on Main Street in Stockbridge, Mass. Richard Rothbard, a craftsman who designs puzzle boxes of wood, owns Boxology (www.boxology.com), Slate Hill, NY.