Meghan Patrice Riley Fashioning Jewelry

摘要

2011 WAS A very good year for Meghan Patrice Riley. Most notably, the art jeweler garnered the prestigious Raphael Founder's Prize, awarded biannually in a juried competition by the Society for Contemporary Craft. Interstitial, her winning piece, was a delicate necklace of seven intersecting, nylon-coated-steel wire loops-actually Mobius strips. Juror Bruce Pepich, executive director of the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin, described it as "a kind of line drawing in space that floats on the body." The design demonstrated Riley's basic approach: melding textile and metalsmithing techniques to create airy, flexible pieces that comfortably inhabit the sometimes mutually exclusive worlds of art jewelry and fashion. Recognition in the latter category also came in 2011, when Riley, featured in a one-woman show of her own jewelry during New York's Fashion Week, won a semifinalist position in the Council of Fashion Designers of America's coveted Ecco Domani Fashion Fund awards competition. Such high-profile recognition left Riley feeling "stunned" and "surprised," but also validated in her decision in 2008 to be a full-time art jeweler and launch her business, MPR. Riley quickly invested the Raphael award's $5,000 cash prize in setting up her Brooklyn-based studio, and hiring interns to help her prep for New York Now (formerly the annual New York International Gift Fair).