Ever wonder how things get done in AMCAW? We have teams of dedicated volunteers that keep things running. A new feature this month is an AMCAW Team highlight. AMCAW has sixteen different volunteer teams that keep AMCAW alive, creating new and exciting tutorials, virtual guild meetings, newsletters and all things metal clay. Let’s look into one of our teams – the newly-formed Archive team.
While metal clay is still regarded as a relatively new medium, it’s actually been around for several decades now. As we are beginning to lose some of the artists who were early leaders in exploring metal clay as a medium, AMCAW has created an Archive Team to capture and preserve the early history of metal clay and the voices of those artists who led the way. This team is working to create an online archive which will be available to the general public on the AMCAW website.
The purpose of the archive is to capture and make available documents, publications and other items related to metal clay that are no longer readily available to the public. To date, we have received materials from Tim McCreight, the first director of the PMC Guild, and Kevin Whitmore of Rio Grande. Examples of some of the items include a program and papers presented at the first PMC Conference held in Ohio in 2001, the PMC Annual volumes 1-5, and a catalog on CD of an exhibition curated by Linda Kaye-Moses called “Millennial Metal” that was held at the Brookfield (Massachusetts) Art Center in 2001.
At the suggestion of volunteers and board members, an oral history of the early years of metal clay is being planned. The first phase will focus on the introduction of metal clay to the US, the PMC Guild, metal clay certification programs and their importance to the metal clay community, and innovators in metal clay. Right now, archival materials are being prepared for upload to the website by Linda Kaye-Moses and her husband, Evan Soldinger, and Susan Lokaj, under the direction of Sian Hamilton.
Let’s get to know the Archive team members including Barbara Rivolta, Linda Kaye-Moses, Brandy Boyd and Jeanne Keefe:
Barbara Rivolta has a background in archaeology and the history of ceramics. She has worked in art and history museums, retiring from the Ocean County Museum in New Jersey as Director/Curator. She has worked with metal clay for twenty years and is especially interested in combining metal clay with ceramics, glass and other materials.
Linda Kaye-Moses has been working with metal clay since 1996 and has taught its use for around 20 years. She taught the first metal clay workshop open to the public in 1997 and curated/juried the first exhibition in the US. “Millennial Metal; The Art of Precious Metal Clay” in 2001 at Brookfield Craft Center’s Tendler Gallery. Her husband, Evan J. Soldinger has been busy using his extensive photography skills to digitize archival materials, some of which date back to before metal clay became available in the States. So far, he has digitized all the issues of PMC Fusion and all the volumes of PMC Annual, archiving over a thousand pages of material.
Brandy Boyd has loved metal clay since she first tried it in 1999. Since 2006, she has been teaching metal clay and other metalsmithing classes through adult education programs, workshops, and her studio. She took over as editor and publisher of Metal Clay Today magazine in 2018, after having been a member of the layout team for several years prior. Her passion is preserving and sharing knowledge, so the Archives team has a goal near and dear to her heart.
Jeanne learned to silversmith through classes at her local arts center and has continued to create and teach since then. In 2008, she discovered PMC. At the time she could not find any classes but read anything she could get her hands on. Eventually she took classes run by Nancy Miller in Saratoga. Jeanne retired 9 years ago after over 40 years as an academic curator, librarian and archivist dedicated to photography and digital media pertaining to art and architecture.
If you have any materials from the early days of metal clay that you’d like to contribute to the archive, please contact us at hello@amcaw.org.
