BY SYLVIE PEDERSEN
Wearable Fine Art Sculpture
A Hannah Goldrich retrospective
F
or five decades counted among con-
temporary metalsmiths who demon-
strate that jewelry can be approached
as a fine art, Hannah Goldrich creates unique
pieces, which stand alone as small-scale sculp-
ture. Her aesthetic vision is not subject to the
whims of fashion and time, however deeply it
may belong to this period and culture.
Goldrich’s 50-Year Jewelry Retrospective is ex-
hibited at the Jacobs Gallery through May 29.
Jewelry is not merely a fine art. It is func-
tional, and function imposes formal constraints.
Wearable art must be pleasing to both the eye
and to touch, not just to the skin but to the three-
dimensional, moving body, in a most intimate
relationship. Goldrich does not forget this.
Jewelry is also a craft, which means that
quality of workmanship and materials are para-
mount, whereas in non-functional art other con-
siderations may override. In her attention to de-
tail, Goldrich thinks like a master craftsman as
well as a fine artist. Even the hidden parts of her
work — her clasps — deserve display.
Goldrich grew up in an aesthetically ap-
pointed home in New York City with supportive
parents who loved and understood art. Early on,
she became acquainted with the work of mod-
ernist metalsmiths Paul Lobel, Sam Kramer and
Ed Wiener, who broke away from mainstream
jewelry design and laid the ground for subse-
quent generations of fine-artist jewelers.
Goldrich never studied jewelry formally.
Her university degrees were in sociology
(Antioch) and education (Harvard). To learn the
metalsmith’s craft, she became jeweler Charles
Hopkins’s apprentice in Chapel Hill, N.C., in
1956. She designed pieces for him, and he in
turn showed her the techniques to create them.
After moving to Eugene in 1963, Goldrich took
courses from UO professor Max Nixon, who
became her mentor. Although she taught 15
years at Maude Kerns Art Center, to this day she
still enjoys taking workshops.
Goldrich’s aesthetics and grasp of design
were in place from the start, as were the hall-
marks of her style. Sterling silver, 14-carat yel-
low gold, gemstones and pearls have always
been her materials of choice. She generally uses
construction techniques instead of casting. She
cuts out small, individual component parts from
metal sheet and wire. She textures and shapes
them, soldering them together “like a jigsaw
puzzle,” a patient, work-intensive process.
Goldrich favors a strong, fluid line and ele-
gant simplicity, whether the piece is minimalist
such as “Sawtooth Serenity” pin, a 1958 choker
with a bold, wing-like horizontal pendant bear-
ing an off-center pearl, or created from compo-
nent parts, such as “Proud Headpiece” or the
solar “Fritz Goro’s Opal.” Her forms are usually
organic, inspired by female curves, leaves, buds
or teardrops. And central to her design is an ex-
quisite sense of asymmetrical balance.
Asymmetry provides visual complexity, which,
combined with flowing lines, gives a sense of
freedom and the unexpected.
Goldrich learned the techniques of inlay and
texturing with a rolling mill in 1978 at a work-
shop in Haystack, Maine, and a variety of subtle
textures became another characteristic of her
work. “Haystack Moon” (1978) is a rounded
rectangular pin whose abstract landscape we
may interpret as a lightly textured silver ocean
reflecting the light of a pearl-moon and lapping
at an ebony shore.
Goldrich considers 1990 to have been the
beginning of her properly narrative work, when
the death of friends prompted her to tell stories
and express emotions through her art. But from
the start, she created figurative pieces, which in-
evitably hint at a story, as well as non-represen-
tative, formalist jewelry. Early neckpieces,
“Intimate Leaves” (1976) and “Winged
Foliage” (1977), reach an apex in terms of for-
mal design, based in both cases on a leaf motif.
I think of them as royal pieces. Not the stilted,
fussy, glittery kind associated with institutional
royalty, but royal in a simpler, freer, more per-
sonal and primary way, for a queen such as
Hatshepsut of Sheba or for a pagan goddess.
“From the Boreal Depths” (2002) follows in
the same vein. Its biomorphic shape evokes
both an opening bud and a female form.
Goldrich often replicates in the metal section of
a piece the characteristics of a stone used in that
same piece. Here the silver’s texture at left mir-
rors that of a fossilized coral at right, while the
color of both is echoed in a dark gray pearl at the
bottom. The form of that pearl is in turn re-
peated in the silver beads at the top.
“Hannah’s Pendant,” with its poised balance
and light texture, shows a more geometric de-
sign, although angles are still softened, and
asymmetry still plays a central role.
Her figurative pieces include landscapes.
Whether pins or pendants, these are genuine
bas-relief sculptures, albeit miniature ones.
“Urban Views” (1958) is the earliest in the
show, with individually enameled, colorful sky-
scrapers against a deep blue night sky and fore-
ground elements in relief. A majority are ex-
quisitely stylized renditions of the Northwest,
which bring to the fore her sense of composi-
tion, her subtle use of contrasting textures, and
an ability to maximize the effects of individual
stones.
“It’s Just the Tip” was inspired by Alaskan
glaciers whose color and brilliance is captured
by a chrysocalla drusy placed off-center among
richly textured mountains. “Oregon Wonder”
distills Western Oregon in three tightly inte-
grated parts: a stylized silver-and-gold moun-
tain landscape, a Morrison Ranch jasper with
hill-depicting striation, and a luxuriant green in-
dicolite.
Goldrich visits Mexico every year. To
Oaxaca we owe several delightful pieces.
“From the Museum Window in Oaxaca #1” and
“#2” represent views from the Santa Domingo
museum. The first, framed in the shape of a
shrine, is a delicately textured bas-relief of
houses, trees and mountains. The second is a
one-point-perspective, vertical tableau of a
building-lined street under a tall sky. “Casa
Panchita,” unframed, has the power and magic
of a miniature world.
The female figure is a recurrent motif in
Goldrich’s figurative and narrative work.
Gentle, affectionate humor characterizes her
few animal figures (“Hansel,” “Hoot”) but is
also often present in her portrayal of woman
(“Senora,” “Hampelfrau”). A sense of liberated
energy imbues “Go, Girl!,” a bellydancer, torso
bared and a pearl in her navel. “She’s Dancing
Through Her Sixties” was inspired by Carolyn
Heilbrun’s book.
Goldrich’s ongoing story of woman in-
cludes themes not often found in art, let alone
jewelry. “Menopausal Moods,” a reversible
pendant, shows what a woman experiences dur-
ing menopause. With understanding and humor,
one side expresses the torment of hot flashes ir-
radiating from a fire-opal womb and the storm-
ing emotions that accompany hormonal
changes. On the other side, inner peace is re-
gained, and the womb, a cool green tsavorite, is
settled.
Hannah Goldrich (above)
Loss (lower right)
Casa Panchita (lower left)
“The Wonder of Birth” tells of an earlier
stage of womanhood with a wonderful mix of
symbolic stylization and realism. The pregnant
belly is a locket that contains a cast-silver infant
with a hand-wrought chain for an umbilical
cord. “Secrets” (the woman’s chest is another
locket), “Woman Embracing Her Stories,”
“Elusive Totem” and “Turquoise Mother,” all
differently convey the mystery at the core of
womanhood.
Some pieces tell stories in an oblique, sym-
bolic way, while others bring cultural symbols
to bear on personal stories, as does “Hamsa for
Ursie,” a “healing hand” with amethyst created
to make her sister feel better. “The Crying
World of 2001,” which the title describes, was
done after 9/11. Making “Never Again” and
“Forgive, but Don’t Forget” was a way to deal
with her emotions after a visit to Heilbronn, the
German town Goldrich’s family fled from in
1937. Similarly, “Peace in the Middle East
1992” followed a trip to Israel. Powerful in its
economy, the pin beautifully combines stylized
religious architectural elements and symbols
from the three religions that hold Jerusalem sa-
cred.
ew
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