Arline Fisch's Whimsical Metal Jewelry

The bold and fanciful jewelry of Arline Fisch was selected for nearly every exhibition of metalwork held at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts beginning with the 1958 "Young Americans" competition and leading up to her solo show in 1968. Many more exhibitions featuring Fisch's collars, rings, head ornaments, and sculptures followed. Her ability to create work varying in theme, technique, scale, and invention with each passing year made Fisch a natural choice for entrance into many museum exhibitions the world over.

Known for pioneering the use of textile techniques such as weaving, knitting, and crochet with silver, gold, platinum, and copper wire to produce intricate, yet voluminous pieces, Fisch is still practicing and experimenting in metal and fiber today. Her most recent work was shown at the Fresno Art Museum, where she was named Distinguished Woman Artist for 2012. Fisch was previously inducted into the ACC College of Fellows in 1979 and was named a "Living Treasure of California" by the California legislature in 1985. She received the ACC Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship in 2001. Her works can be found in permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Vatican Museum in Rome, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London among many others.     

Back in 1968, Fisch was one of three metalsmiths, alongside Brent Kington and Olaf Skoogfors, whose work was highlighted in a series of educational slide sets produced by the Research and Education Department of the ACC. Now available online, the objects created by these trailblazing metalsmiths, such as Spider Brooch (above) by Fisch, represent some of the changing shapes - both literal and figurative - of jewelry and metals in the United States during these foundational years of the contemporary studio craft movement.

Throwback Thursday is a weekly series highlighting visuals from the American Craft Council Library's Digital Collections Database. Check back on Thursdays for more.