Thank you to our conference sponsors:
Saturday, July 15 - Monday, July 17, 2023 ~ Fort Collins, Colorado
Current Registration Fees for the three-day conference are as follows:
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CoMA Member - $350
CoMA Student Member - $100
Student Group Rate (5+) - $75 each (code required)
Non-Member - $400
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In addition, day passes will be available, on the day, for Sunday & Monday ONLY @ $150 each.
Want that Member discount?
SCHEDULE
PRESENTERS
David Huang
At the young age of eleven I decided I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. For some reason I never seriously wavered from that path and devoted much of my time to learning and improving my skills. In high school I discovered metalsmithing and was immediately enamored with the material and processes involved. I had always had this sense in my head that it took big, powerful industrial tools to shape metal. When I discovered that with just the power of my arm and a hair thin saw blade I could cut shapes with great precision I was hooked. Shortly thereafter I became enthralled with how the humble hammer could form metal into almost any shape desired.
After an extended 12 year college “career” I finally earned my BFA with an emphasis in metalsmithing from Grand Valley State University. It is at Grand Valley that I discovered the raising process I use to form my vessels from flat sheet, still using that humble hammer and the power of my arm.
In 2003 I finally achieved that goal of my young eleven year old self and was able to sustain full-time career as an artist. It was not an easy dream to achieve, but for me it was worth seeking. I now spend my days at my Michigan home/studio working to bring objects of beauty, light, and inspiration into the world.
Click the video box above to
watch the Interview with David!
Barbara Minor
Barbara was raised in Chicago, Illinois and studied jewelry and metalsmithing as an undergraduate student. The addition and love for enameling, in combination with metalworking and jewelry making, began during graduate school with continued exploration during the following ten years of university teaching. Barbara left the university with a desire to spend her professional life as a full-time studio artist. She spent the next twenty years creating and marketing her enameled jewelry in galleries and by participating in prestigious juried craft shows such as the American Craft Council Craft Shows and the Philadelphia Museum Craft Show. Her work can be seen in publications such as The Art of Enameling, 500 Enamel Objects, 500 Brooches and The Penland Book of Metalworking. Barbara now focuses her studio practice on researching and innovating enamel processes, preparation for teaching workshops and creating very special enameled jewelry and objects that utilize her well developed enameling and metalworking skills.
Click the video box above to
watch the Interview with Barbara!
Paulette Werger
“My jewelry relates to the abstracted botanical form and the discipline of line drawing, reminding the wearer of the first forms of spring or the last of winter. “
Born into a family of makers, Paulette’s childhood activities of drawing and fixing things in her dad’s auto garage, formed her passion for tools, metalsmithing and jewelry making. Growing up, surrounded by Hudson River school landscape paintings of her great grandfather, the importance of the natural world persists in the narrative of her work. The spark of making and curiosity took hold and Werger pursued art as her career.
Werger’s emphasis of design strips away excess and gets to the core of the image, surface, and the mechanics of function. She works with silver, high-karat gold, ethically sourced, gems and pearls. Torch-fired enamel adds pops of color to her neckpieces, chains and brooches.
Paulette works directly with materials using the classical techniques of fusing, forging, forming and fabricating to create each piece by hand.
Paulette Werger is an upstate NY native living in New Hampshire. She received her B.S. in Painting and Sculpture from the College of Saint Rose and Skidmore College, NY, and her M.F.A. in Art Metal from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She teaches metal techniques nationally and online. From her studio at AVA Gallery and Art Center, Paulette creates jewelry, flat ware and vessels.
Click on the video box above to
watch the Interview with Paulette!
Anne Wolf
“My chisel is the river, carving through the rock. My hammer is metamorphosis, compressing and deforming. My stamp tool is uplift. My file is erosion, making the patterns visible like the layers of rock in the grand canyon.”
Anne Wolf has been teaching jewelry/metalwork classes and creating custom mokume-gane wedding rings, jewelry and one-of-a-kind metal art objects since 1991. She earned her MFA in Jewelry/Metals in 1999 at San Diego State University. After ten years of teaching part time (jewelry/metals and art history) at various colleges in California, she opened her own studio and school - Anneville Studio. In 2007 the direction of her work changed when she came across a group of mokume artists working in Northern California. With them she learned to fuse, forge and pattern mokume gane using traditional Japanese methods, and from that point forward her work became focused on this technique. Wolf has been a SNAG presenter, and taught workshops at venues such as Idyllwild, Mendocino, and Metal Arts Guild Georgia. She has had her work shown across the U.S. and in international venues such as the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus in Hanau, Germany and the Tsubame Industrial Materials Museum in Tsubame, Japan. She currently teaches both online and in-person workshops on all aspects of mokume gane.
Click on the video box above to
watch the Interview with Anne!
Bette Barnett
Since 2013 Bette Barnett has devoted her work to exploring and experimenting with steel and gold. After learning to fuse gold and its alloys to steel, Bette has continued to perfect additional techniques and processes for steel jewelry, including Keum Boo on steel, fusing alternative metals and alloys to steel, etching steel, fusing powdered metals to steel and fusing gold to non-traditional mild steel forms such as wire, perforated sheet and woven steel mesh. Bette is focusing much of her current work on enameling of woven steel mesh.
The Santa Fe Symposium selected Bette to create a research paper on steel jewelry entitled “Steel Jewelry—Expanding the Horizons of Steel with Gold,” which was presented at the May 2022 conference. Bette has also published articles on steel and gold jewelry in Lapidary Journal: Jewelry Artist. She is in the process of authoring a book entitled Creating Steel Jewelry, which is scheduled for publication by Artisan Ideas in late 2023.
Bette teaches private lessons (both virtually and live) in her San Diego studio and offers virtual and in-person group workshops throughout the U.S. In 2023, she launched the Steel Jewelry Online Learning Series, a lineup of 10 focused online workshops on various techniques related to steel jewelry. She administers Steel Artists (facebook.com/groups/steeljewelry), a Facebook group designed to foster a community of artists who work in steel.
Click on the video box above to
watch the Interview with Bette!
PRE-CONFERENCE
WORKSHOP
SCHOLARSHIPS
With the support of donations from members, CoMA is able to offer a limited number of scholarships to the conference every year. For 2023 we have 8 scholarships available for Emerging Metalsmiths to attend the 2023 BENEATH THE SURFACE FREE of charge.
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2023 Marlin Cohrs Emerging Metalsmith Scholarship
In keeping with CoMA's mission, we want to support and foster the professional, educational, and artistic growth of all metalsmiths! The intention of the following definition is to include aspiring metalsmiths of all ages and following a diversity of paths to metalsmithing. Applicants should have the goal of developing a metalsmithing career. If you have any questions or need clarification, please contact Kim Harrell, president@coloradometalsmiths.org.
Emerging Metalsmith is defined as follows:
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graduated from a full-time or part-time educational program (college, university, technical college, community college, non-traditional school) and/or any other degree, certificate or non-certificate granting program within the last 3 years.
OR
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enrolled full-time or part-time (2 or more classes) in any educational program (college, university, technical college, community college, non-traditional school) and/or any other degree, certificate or non-certificate granting program.
OR
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having less than 3 years of professional experience as a metalsmith.
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If you have received a CoMA scholarship anytime in the past, you may still be eligible to apply.
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Applications are open to all qualified persons regardless of member status.
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Emerging Metalsmith Scholarship recipients will be selected by the current CoMA Conference Committee and notified upon acceptance.
TRAVEL INFO
The city of Fort Collins, Colorado is located approximately 1 hour north from downtown Denver and 1 hour from the Denver International Airport. It is rich in recreational activities, local craft breweries and distilleries, as well as art in public spaces, and cultural-rich venues.
"Colorado State University acknowledges, with respect, that the land we are on today is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations and peoples. This was also a site of trade, gathering, and healing for numerous other Native tribes. We recognize the Indigenous peoples as original stewards of this land and all the relatives within it. As these words of acknowledgment are spoken and heard, the ties Nations have to their traditional homelands are renewed and reaffirmed."
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428 Linden St
Fort Collins, Colorado 80525
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LODGING:
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The Hilton Hotel, 425 West Prospect Road, Ft. Collins, 80526
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We have a group rate of $169+taxes per night/room; $5 per night/car for parking​
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Booking details & codes will be on your purchased ticket DISCOUNT RATES EXPIRE JUNE 16 5PM MDT
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PARKING:
There is free parking at Block One Events
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WEATHER:
Sunny & hot! Temps average in the mid to high 90's in July. Ft Collins is 5,003 ft above sea level so bring your sunscreen and stay hydrated!
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ABOUT FORT COLLINS:
https://https://www.fcgov.com/
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CULTURAL ACTIVITIES: Fort Collins offers a variety of local cultural venues, historical sites, and activities such as: The Lincoln Center, Fort Collins Museum of Discovery. Check out the Visit Fort Collins Colorado website for more information:
NORTHERN COLORADO REGIONAL AIRPORT: 4900 Earhart Road, Loveland, CO 80538
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DRIVING TO THE BLOCK ONE EVENT CENTER:
EXIT 269B from I-25 NORTH
EXIT 271 FROM 1-25 SOUTH
Continue on E Co Rd 50/Mountain Vista Dr. Take E Vine Dr to Linden St
SATURDAY, JULY 15TH
10 AM - Attendee check-in opens
- Vendor Room opens
- Silent auction items intake
1 PM - Welcome
1:15 to 2:45 PM - Keynote Presentation:
Barbara Minor - "Enameling: Preparation,Opportunities,Choices,
Growth, Results"
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2:45 - 3:15 PM - BREAK
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3:15 - 4:00 PM - All Members Meeting
4 - 4:30 - Member Spotlight - Liz Covert
4:30 PM - End of Day Announcements
[Dinner on your own]
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7 PM - Jewelry Night Trivia with MC Andy Cooperman - at Block One Events
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SUNDAY, JULY 16TH
9 AM - Vendor Room opens:
- Coffee & Pastries available
​ - Late check-in table opens
10:00 AM - Silent Auction opens
10:15 AM - Morning Announcements &
Welcome
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10:20 - 11:50 AM - Keynote Presentation:
David Huang
12 - 12:30 PM - Member Spotlight -
Jennie Milner
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12:45 - 2:00 PM - Lunch provided @
Block One
2:15 - 4:00 PM - Keynote Presentation:
Paulette Werger
4:15 PM - End of day announcements
- Pre-Dinner Drinks & Pin Swap
5:00 PM - SILENT AUCTION ENDS
(Dinner on own)
6 - 9 PM - All Members Show Reception
@ Darvier Jewelry Design Studio
MONDAY, JULY 17TH
9 AM - Coffee & Pastries in Vendor Room
- Vendor Room open
- Silent Auction pick-up opens
10:30 AM -12 PM - Keynote Presentation:
Bette Barnett
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12:15 - 12:45 PM - Marshall Fire
Presentation: Rocky Riviera
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12:45 - 2 PM - Lunch provided @
Block One
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2 - 3:30 PM - Keynote Presentation:
Anne Wolf
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3:45 - 4:15 PM - Master Panel with all 5 Keynote Presenters
4:15 PM - Closing Remarks