Joan Tenenbaum: Fifty Playful Things

Fifty Playful Things debuts necklaces, bracelets, and earrings that have been a year in the making, and are a testament to the many techniques and materials that Tenenbaum utilizes. In the work are themes of geology and the Earth itself: folding, striating, creasing, sliding, crystallizing, and hints of hidden veins of precious metals.

From her artist statement:

“My work is a journey. Early this year I realized that I had not allowed myself to play in my studio for quite some time. I had been wanting to experiment with several new techniques and revisit some that I had explored in the 1980’s.

I have been entranced in recent years by the technique of Fold Forming, which is the technique of creating three-dimensional shapes by the simple process of folding, hardening, and unfolding sheets of metal. I have played with the various types of Fold Forming but this year I wanted to create an entire line of jewelry pieces utilizing this technique and see where it took me. I envisioned a textured surface broken into numerous parts by folds in the metal, and then embellishing the resulting surfaces with Keum Boo, the Korean name for the process of fusing thin sheets of pure gold onto silver alloys.”

Exhibition Dates: