The great Renaissance artist Albrecht Durer learned engraving techniques from his father, a goldsmith, who guided him in the use of tools essential to both jewelry and printmaking. Master goldsmith Linda Kindler Priest, renowned for her work in the ancient repousse method, might also have taught Diirer how those same tools can enable an artist to sculpt exuberant life forms directly in precious metal. Her choice of subject matter, whether bird, fish, flower, bug, or beast- as common as a gray squirrel or exotic as a pygmy marmoset-establishes her kinship with the Old Masters, who, like Diirer, frequently included benign creatures as iconic elements in their pictorial, often allegorical, works. But Kindler Priest brings her life forms to the forefront, celebrating them in small-scale reliefs expressive of their special attributes, habitats, or even environmental challenges. A fish breaks the water; a hummingbird hovers; a polar bear strides an ice flow. (Forms are not exact renderings such as a naturalist or botanical artist might produce, but neither are they stylized in the extreme.) There are no frames around these plaques; rather, each animal or plant exists within an abstract shape that barely contains the form.
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