USA Projects

We are asking for $16,500.00 to bring Radical Jewelry Makeover to Santa Fe, NM in October of 2011. Radical Jewelry Makeover (RJM) is an international community jewelry mining and recycling project that draws attention to the creativity and skills of local jewelry designers, reveals the stories behind our personal collections and encourages re-consideration of our habits of consumption.

Santa Fe, NM is known throughout the U.S. for it’s jewelry and has a large community of makers.  Today, materials used in jewelry production are sourced from some of the poorest countries in the world, from sacred lands and disputed territories, and at a great cost to the environment. In New Mexico, RJM will raise awareness of these material sourcing issues while teaching solution driven design strategies. It will bring together volunteer “miners”, people who dig out and donate their old jewelry, with volunteer jewelers and students, working together as refiners and designers to collaborate on an exhibition of re-made jewelry. We have been invited by the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian to come to Santa Fe, New Mexico this fall (Oct. 2011).  RJM directors, Susie Ganch and Christina Miller will be working with jewelry students at the Santa Fe Community College and The Institute of American Indian Arts. One of our aims is use the project to build community.  We do this locally by recruiting professional jewelers in the region and nationally by bringing jewelers that have embraced the vision of the project through prior participation.  This united group tackles big problems while creating innovative new jewelry from the unwanted, donated materials. During this one-week intensive project artists will be working together to build an exhibition at the Wheelwright Museum.

RJM's goals are:    •    to encourage a re-consideration of our   society’s habits of jewelry consumption    •    to explore our emotional attachment to jewelry    •    create a collaborative environment (unusual for jewelers) where risk taking is supported    •    to expose materials’ origins and their re-use potential    •    to actively expose students to alternative approaches to making jewelry    •    to inspire and motivate artists to change their studio practicesRadical Jewelry Makeover needs to raise a minimum of $16,500 for:    •    General project organization and development    •    Curriculum development and related educational materials     •    Bringing 3 to 4 past RJM participants to New Mexico (travel, food stipend)    •    Documentation (photo and video) Support to date: Travel expenses and honoraria for Ganch and Miller are being covered by the hosting institutions. RJM background information:Radical Jewelry Makeover is a project of Ethical Metalsmiths, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate people about irresponsible mining, to generate a market that values jewelry made with ethically sourced materials and to promote transparency in the jewelry supply chain.Since 2007, there a have been 5 makeovers, Brisbane, Australia; Penland, North Carolina, San Francisco, California, Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Richmond, Virginia. 370 artists have participated, 500 pounds of jewelry have been donated, 980 pieces of jewelry have been made and hundreds of people are wearing RJM jewelry today. We are honored by the generous commitment jewelers and jewelry donors have made to the project and the ideals it stands for. We hope that you will join this supportive community by donating to the New Mexico edition today!