Top Foldforms of 2012 Released in Video

Dec. 17, 2012 - PRLog -- The Jurors’ Choice 2012 video from the inaugural Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition has been released. Twenty notable entries, plus the four prize winners, are presented at http://youtu.be/r2s0d1HqU7Q?t=9s for public viewing. This video will serve as a resource for  

"Thirty years is a short time in a field whose milestones are measured in centuries,” said juror and publisher Tim McCreight, in commenting on the quality of entries to the inaugural foldform competition. “It is a thrill to see the diversity and innovation in foldforming that is so clearly manifest in this competition."  

The inaugural Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition was launched to recognize the experimental work being done using the techniques of foldforming across art disciplines. The Center for Metal Arts also wanted to create a benchmark survey of how this innovative sheet-forming technique is evolving as an art form. The competition coincided with the annual Lewton-Brain Conference at the Center for Metal Arts in 2012. Foldforming as a process is best described as a combination of origami and other metal techniques, especially forging. Goldsmith and jewelry arts educator Charles Lewton-Brain developed and cataloged foldforming as a technique in the 1980's and the process has since spread worldwide among jewelers.

Entries to the inaugural competition suggest that jewelers who construct with foldforming techniques are moving into more sophisticated and less obvious uses of the folded forms. The organic forms that foldforming produces have been taken to widely ranging styles from exuberant folds, as in Theresa Nguyen’s “Spiritus” and “Con Brio”, to crisp architectural pieces in Alison Antelman’s “Hanging Garden” or Kaiya Rainbolt’s “Quadrant”. Foldforming can be restrained and sedate, as in the drinking vessels of Grant McCaig or witty, as in Deborah Jemmot’s “Foldformed Spoon”, Evelyn Markasky’s “Dangerous Vagina” or Aimee Petkus’ “Co-exist”.

While it is not surprising that the process would be widely used as a forming technique in jewelry, exploration of foldforming has begun in related disciplines of sculpture and functional objets d'art. Peter Danilo’s “Tea Box” and Brad Severston’s “Foldformed Tea Pot” show the potential for vessels and other 3-dimensional objects. Anne Wolf's “Flight” and “Retreat” takes the process to large-scale sculptural installation pieces, while Christine Finch’s “Guardian” and “Ascension” uses the line fold as a way to produce essential compositional marks.

"As amazing as it may seem," wrote Alan Revere in The Innovator's, Part V, "nobody ever worked with metal this way in the more-than-10,000-year history of the craft." While it may be surprising to think of discovering a new technique in one of humankind's earliest technologies, sheet metal as a material has only been in existence for a relatively short period of time, and merging the plasticity of origami with other metal techniques, including forging, was a potent source of new possibilities in the metals.

Earlier this year, Charles Lewton-Brain, the creative genius behind foldforming, was honored by the Canadian government with the prestigious Governor General Award, and he continues to be a sought-after presenter of topics surrounding the process at select events across Canada and the United States.

The call for entries to the next Foldform Competition will coincide with the 2013 annual Lewton-Brain Conference at the Center for Metal Arts. The Center for Metal Arts, one hour north of New York City, sponsors an annual summer conference with Charles Lewton-Brain, providing an ideal venue for participants to work with and learn under Lewton-Brain in an intimate and collegial setting.

The Center for Metal Arts is in the lower Hudson Valley of NY state, near major airports and just off two interstate routes, and is accessible by public transportation from NYC.  Located at 44 Jayne Street, Florida NY, in the former 1890’s Borden’s Creamery Icehouse, the Center is affiliated with the working studio of Fine Architectural Metalsmiths and the second floor gallery museum of antique tools and “sketches in iron”.