44This is where I am today, finding
diverse subcultures and venues
that will let me institute my guer-
rilla jewelry indoctrination.”
—Gabriel Craig
In 2007, on a cold October afternoon in Richmond, Virginia,
I gathered my tools, wheeled my bench outside and began The
Collegiate Jeweler, a series of performances. “Making jewelry
by hand is like magic,” I said to a gathered crowd. “In an age when
people are disconnected from the means of production, they have
no idea how things are actually made. So when they see something
they don’t understand, something that seems impossible for them
to do, it’s magical.” For many standing around that day, jewelry
suddenly became a lot more interesting.
Over the next month I took to the streets, making my work and
using my bench as a soapbox to preach the jewelry gospel. My ob-
jective was simply to share handmade jewelry with those who may
not ordinarily encounter it. I wanted the format of the performances
to reflect my educational and altruistic goals and so I gave away silver
rings that I made on the spot-over 30 in the first few weeks. By
giving away jewelry I was able to focus on its cultural value rather
than its commercial value. The criterion for receiving a ring was
participation. Those who seemed interested got to take home some
of the excitement.
I was spurred on by the attention and spectacle that public per-
formance creates. I sought to engage an audience by being provoca-
tive, but to keep them interested with entertainment, education
and, of course, the promise of getting something valuable for free.
On Halloween I procured some flash paper (material that burns
brightly and quickly disappears), and after heating my metal, I used
it to ignite the paper and then pointedly tossed it in the air. The
gathered crowd jumped and screamed with delight. In the studio
I am just a jeweler, but on the street I am a magician.
Combining jewelry with performance transcended medium and
process to become a cultural experience. I knew immediately the
impact of this type of practice. I could see it in the eyes of my audi-
ence. I wasn’t sure what kind of change I could effect by bringing
my studio to “the people,” but I knew that there was more to making
than just producing an object that would seduce and sell. Approach-
ing jewelry as a theme, I found that the opportunity for communica-
tion and change grew exponentially. Despite how pervasive jewelry
is in our culture, as a maker I spend a lot of time in the studio by my-
self, complacent in the isolation and insular world built around
studio jewelry. With The Collegiate Jeweler performances, I had
finally found a direct way to share what I do with people. That was
how it started—wanting to share and be inclusive. Being an exhibi-
tionist didn’t hurt either.
By taking my studio practice outside, I was afforded a direct
interaction with my viewers, many of whom may never enter a gal-
lery, museum or craft fair. I wanted to emphasize the personal
relationship that we all have with jewelry, and so the accessibility of
the handmade became a frequent topic of conversation. Before giving
away the rings, I would strategically ask people to reflect on the
experience of watching me make them and the conversations we
had, essentially turning simple silver rings into vehicles for memory.
At my suggestion, the rings came to contain the experience; they
stood as a symbol of the value of the handmade in our culture, and
of the accessibility (and inaccessibility) of art. The recipients of
the rings left the performances with a tangible reminder to be good
jewelry viewers.
I soon realized that I was not alone in wanting to share my craft
directly. Multimedia artist Michael Swaine has been taking his >
042 american craft
apr/may 09
