The Importance of Jewelry in Portraiture Drawings: Symbols, Power & Secrets

This event is organized by in partnership with the , and in association with

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The Middle Ages (5th-14th century) coincided with the fall of the Roman Empire and the Golden Age of Islam, a period when paintings were often more symbolic or centered on nature. There was a renewed interest in Greco-Roman knowledge during the Renaissance, accompanied by significant achievements in the arts and sciences. Jewelry also contributed to this wave of creativity and innovation, and Renaissance jewelry is a treasured period for collectors of antique jewelry. All designs were carefully crafted and featured mythological scenes, allegorical figures, and floral arrangements. Painting, sculpture, and metal smithing were among the skills of artists.

In a panel moderated by Savona Bailey-McClain, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the West Harlem Art Fund, we will learn about notable painters from Western Europe, India, Pakistan and ancient Persia. How did these paintings influenced society? Do they still affects us today?

Panelists:

Laura Engel, Professor, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA
Ayala Naphtali, Metalsmith and Jewelry Maker, New York
Kim Nelson, Assistant Chair of Jewelry Design, The Fashion Institute of Technology, New York

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Panelist Bios:

Laura Engel is a Professor in the English Department at Duquesne University, where she specializes in eighteenth-century literature, theatre, and material culture studies. She is the author of The Art of the Actress (Cambridge University Press Elements Series, 2024), Women, Performance, and the Material of Memory: The Archival Tourist (Palgrave, 2019), Austen, Actresses, and Accessories (Palgrave Pivot, 2015), and Fashioning Celebrity: Eighteenth-Century British Actresses and Strategies for Image Making (Ohio UP, 2011) along with numerous essays on actresses, fashion, and women artists. She is currently co-curating the exhibition, “The Paradox of Pearls: From the Renaissance to the Gilded Age” at the Frick Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (opening fall 2027).

Ayala Naphtali is a NYC based metalsmith / jewelry maker with a studio inEast Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She began making jewelry as an early teen in NYC. She studied Gold and Silversmithing at FIT and SUNY NEW PALTZ where she received her BFA. Ayala was recently awarded as a 2021 Honoree by NYCxDesign.

Ayala’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally in galleries and museums shops and design stores. Her work has been collected privately, and in the permanent collection of Cooper Hewitt and Kunsindustriumuseum in Norway, The White House ornament collection.Ayala has exhibited in major national juried art shows such as American Craft Exposition in Baltimore, SOFA, Cherry Creek Arts Festival and numerous others annually. Selected publications include American Craft Magazine, ELLE, The Fashions of The Times, The New York Times, Mademoiselle, Women's Wear Daily, Glamour, and New Women Magazine, New York Post. Ayala has been a juror for The American Craft Council Craft Shows.

Ayala Naphtali draws inspiration from ancient alphanumeric systems, contemporary architecture and her own personal, cultural history. She is intrigued with balance and proportion and feels that each of her pieces must find its axis on the wearer. She creates work with elegance and minimal, bold forms.

The choice of a particular material is often the motivation for the artist todesign a specific work. It’s texture, color and versatility influence the end result. Some materials are hand dyed or carved. Other techniques she utilizes include forging, fabricating and casting. Different combinations of techniques allow her to make jewelry pieces with dimension and volume, but without excessive weight.

Kim Nelson is a multiple award-winning designer with 32 years of jewelry industry experience. He currently serves as the Assistant Chair over Jewelry Design within the Fashion Department at The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), a position he has held since 2017.

Originally from Salt Lake City Utah, his jewelry career began with the Jewelry Design Program at The Fashion Institute of Technology, where he studied in the process of transitioning from a successful career in illustration. He began working as a free-lance designer for Andre’ Chervin at Carvin French Jewelers while still a student at FIT and was hired as their in-house designer upon graduation. Kim’s design apprenticeship under Andre’ Chervin lasted for three years and would shape his understanding and approach to jewelry for the rest of his career. After three years with Carvin French, Kim accepted an offer to work as a Senior Designer at Stuller, Inc., In Lafayette Louisiana, where he learned to develop commercial product while gaining a deep understanding and appreciation for jewelry manufacturing on the industrial scale. This was also where he was first exposed to CAD/CAM technologies and began his work with CAD modeling as one of the earliest Rhino users in the industry.

Upon returning to New York, Kim resumed his work with Carvin French for another three years, working on some of the most important jewelry from the turn of the twenty-first century before leaving to open his own jewelry design business where his first client was Stuller, who continuously contracted him for design and CAD modeling over the following ten years. During this time, he also did free-lance design and modeling projects for numerous important houses in the industry.

Kim’s academic career began when he returned to FIT to teach jewelry design and CAD modeling as a part-time adjunct professor in 2000. He accepted a full-time teaching position in 2013 and became head of the Jewelry Design Program in 2017, a capacity he continues to serve in. Kim remains active in the jewelry industry through free-lance design and model making, commercial training, and private client work.

Moderator Bio:

Savona Bailey-McClain is a Harlem based curator and arts administrator. She is the Executive Director/Chief Curator of the West Harlem Art Fund, which has organized high-profile public arts exhibits throughout New York City for the past 20 years, including Times Square, DUMBO, Soho, Governors Island and Harlem. Her public art installations encompass sculpture, drawings, performance, sound, and mixed media, and have been covered extensively by the New York Times, Art Daily, Artnet, Los Angeles Times and Huffington Post, among many others. She is host/ producer of “State of the Arts NYC,” a video podcast program on several platforms. She is a member of ArtTable, Advisory Board member of NYC’s Dance in Sacred Places, Governors Island Advisory Council and new Board member of NY Artists Equity Association.

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Image: Willem van Mieris (Dutch, 1662–1747), An African Woman, c. 1710–1715. Oil on panel 7 1⁄16 x 5 13⁄16 in., Alvin and Carol Merlin Acquisition Fund and the Deaccession Fund, 2018.1

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