Who Wears What Big Jewelry?

Jewelry That Makes You Think.

ARTICLE

WHO WEARS WHAT BIG JEWELRY?

Seeing Commonality Among Our Differences

by Carrie Yodanis

"I didn’t win this year’s World Championship Belt Buckle Competition. The winning buckles are fascinating, ranging from beautiful to funny to powerful. Some are unwearable in the general sense, or at least are too large, too loud, too inappropriate to actually wear as a buckle. They’re art. But other buckles might be seen as appropriate for some bodies, not others. The same jewelry that’s considered easily and commonly wearable by some people is considered unwearable—too large, too loud, too inappropriate—by others."

SPOTLIGHT ON

BIFEI CAO

Winner of the 2018 AJF Artist Award and juror for the 2020 Young Artist Award

Bifei Cao attended Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, majoring in fashion design and sculptural metals; he then studied jewelry and metalsmithing, receiving an MFA from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and a PhD from Australian National University. In 2018—the year he won the 2018 AJF Artist Award—Cao was the artist in residence at Te Auaha NZ Institute of Creativity, under the Wellington Asia Residency Exchange. He’s now an associate professor in the School of Art and Design at Guangdong University of Technology, in Guangzhou, China.

Having spent so long studying outside his native China, Cao has described himself as consistently inspired by cultures. “ In a globalized and multicultural society, cultural identity shifts to a hybrid situation and waits for reconstruction through complicated negotiations between one’s original cultural background and references from other cultures,” he says.

“Jewelry can be worn as an individual or identity card,” says Cao. “As a transportable object, jewelry imbues personal cultural identity and narrative meanings. Jewelry also brings a triangular dialogue among the maker, wearer, and audience. ”

Applications for the 2020 Young Artist Award, which has a prize of $7,500, are open to jewelry artists through January 12, 2020. Find the guidelines here .

The 2020 AJF Young Artist Award Guidelines are now available.

Applications will be accepted through January 12, 2020.

Get your applications ready!

FEATURED AJF LIBRARY CONTENT

Tradição e Humilhação/Tradition and Humiliation is an a rticle on the role of women in jewelry tradition nowadays, and the acceptance of jewelry practice as contemporary art. Written by Pedro Sequeira and published in Portuguese and English in the September/October 2013 edition of Attitude magazine .

View the PDF.

SUBMIT TO AJF'S LIBRARY

AJF believes that making information available about jewelry as an art form is an important step in advocating for the field. Our digital library supports the jewelry community by providing online access to jewelry scholarship that would otherwise be impossible to find.

The library has a new feature that prevents PDFs from being downloaded. Just check the appropriate box when you submit—this will allow people to read the texts, but protects you from undesirable access and distribution.

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