ASJRA Takes Fall Conference Virtual

Ellicott City, Md.—The Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Arts will hold its fifteenth annual conference virtually this October due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The conference was set to take place in person in April this year in New York City, but was then postponed to September before being postponed again to October and moved online.

In an email to National Jeweler in March, event co-director Elyse Zorn Karlin said the organizers felt they had too many attendees who are in the high-risk group for coronavirus.

“We could not in good conscience be responsible for a gathering that might help expose people to the virus, despite the financial losses we will suffer,” she wrote.

It will now be held Oct. 10-11 and keep its original speaker line-up, inviting nine speakers to hold 10 lectures.

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The theme of this year’s conference is “Jewelry in America,” and it is open to anyone who is interested in jewelry and jewelry history.

Keynote speaker Beth Wees, the Ruth Bigelow Wriston Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will open the conference.

Conceptual gem artist John Nels Hatleberg will present “An Affinity for Gems.” He is known for creating exact replicas of famous diamonds.

ASJRA co-director Elyse Zorn Karlin will hold three talks: one discussing the jewelry of Peter Lindenauer on Oct. 10, one on the Diamond Jim Brady on Oct. 11, and another on the jewelry of Robert Lee Morris, also on Oct. 11.

Curator and scholar Jeannine Falino will discuss the work of Betty Cooke in “The Circle and the Line, Over 70 Years of Designs by Betty Cooke.”

Falino is currently curating a retrospective of Cooke’s work for the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, which is set to open in fall 2021. 

Annamarie Sandecki, who has been Tiffany’s corporate archivist for 28 years, will present “Notably American: Tiffany & Co. Jewelry at the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle.”

On the second day, artisan goldsmith Tom Herman will present “Analyzing Plique-a-Jour Jewelry by Marcus & Co. and the Matilija Poppy Brooch Project.”

Herman will be joined by enamelist Patsy Croft, who helped to create the Matilija brooch.

Curator and author Lois Sherr Dubin will present “Floral Journey: Native North American Flower Beadwork.”

Dubin has published the History of Beads: From 30,000 B.C. to the Present and