Susan Cummins – författare

In the 1960s and 1970s, a generation of young Americans rejected the promise of prosperity and the suburban dream embraced by their parents. Furious about the war in Vietnam, fighting for civil rights at home, and eagerly exploring the effects of psychedelic drugs, the delights of free love, and the mystical teachings of eastern religions, thousands followed the advice to "turn on, tune in, drop out," bringing about a counterculture in the process. For many American jewellers, these events and values found their way into the studio, as well as affecting how they lived, worked, and loved. Jewellers, like other studio craftspeople, rode the wave of popularity for the hand-made and authentic that was at the heart of the counterculture.In Flux is the story of how their jewellery contributed to the raucous, contradictory, and enthusiastic clamour for a new kind of society that made the 1960s and 1970s so extraordinary.

For more than four decades, jewellery artist and educator Laurie Hall has been making stories the subject of her work. Her playful, often whimsical jewellery made with found objects is about the places she lives, the landscapes that fill her imagination, her family history, and her ideas of what it is to be an American. As a jeweller, Hall never plays it safe, preferring to fly by the seat of her pants and push her skills and technical knowledge. Her work is part of numerous private and public collections including The Museum of Art and Design in NYC, The Tacoma Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She is a product of the jewellery histories that make the Pacific Northwest unique within the larger story of American contemporary jewellery. Featuring 58 images of Hall’s jewellery spanning the period from 1974 to 2019, this book explores why she is an important maker whose practice deserves to be more widely known.

Welcome to a private tour of the home of American collector Susan Beech. Since 1991, Beech has been transforming her house in Tiburon, California, into an extraordinary environment, in which the themes of her extensive jewellery collection interact with craft and fine art, all against a backdrop of Art Deco glamour. Beauty is entwined with darker forces of death and decay, and glimpses of pleasure are complicated by a nod to the surreal and uncanny. The result is a wholly original and fascinating stage for a major collection of contemporary jewellery thoughtfully assembled over four decades.Lavishly illustrated and featuring four essays exploring Beech’s activities as a collector and wearer as well as the key themes of her pieces, the publication Feast: Contemporary Jewelry from the Susan Beech Collection marks the donation of the collection to the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, in Washington, DC, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.

The name Marzee refers to intertwined identities. There is Marie-José van den Hout (known as Marzee), the dealer and the individual whose drive and passion makes everything possible. There is Galerie Marzee, the institution with a rich backstory, a fabulous building, and enviable programs. And there is the Marzee Collection, more than 2,500 objects that track the history of Marzee the individual and Marzee the gallery.This book, with a foreword by Petra Hölscher, chapters by Susan Cummins, Flos Wildschut, and Lizzie Atkins, and photographs by Michiel Heffels, tells the story of the dealer, the gallery, and the collection. In 1978 Marie-José opened the first Galerie Marzee in an old butcher’s shop in Nijmegen, the Netherlands; today the gallery occupies an impressively renovated grain warehouse on the river Waal. Imbued with the powerful minimalism of the building, Marzee the book presents over 300 pieces from the Marzee Collection that have been chosen and arranged by Marie-José van den Hout herself.