Two weekends ago, I spoke at a symposium on American jewelry at the Yale University Art Gallery. It was an interesting event with a diverse audience: jewelry historians, dealers, appraisers, interested curators, and a few jewelers. Part of the program was an opportunity to look at parts of the Yale jewelry collection. A curator provided background info and of participants got to handle the objects. For the first session, I elected to look at some examples of Yale’s costume je

There’s an interesting little book now available from the Museum of Contemporary Craft: Garth Clark’s “How Envy Killed the Crafts Movement: An Autopsy in Two Parts.” (It’s a print-on-demand title from Lulu.com for $9.00 plus shipping.) In many ways, Garth and I agree. I have long been accusing the craftworld of art envy, and I have long been saying that craft needs to find its own subjects and critical vocabulary. But death? The end of craft as we know it? Clark overstates th