ABOUT THE ARTIST

Arizona silversmith, Kim Rawdin, combines knowledge gained in New York museums and on a Navajo reservation to create his own distinct jewelry designs. Using an intriguing blend of the traditional and the abstract, Kim is best known for his shadow-boxed bracelets and rings.

Rawdin grew up in New York and spent many hours at the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim and many of the other museums which are so much a part of life in New York. Studies in art were followed by an eight-year job on an Indian reservation in Chinle, Arizona, where Kim learned his craft from the masters.

ABOUT THE WORK

Kim’s work is an elegant synthesis of the styles that he admires, primarily Indian and modern. The concepts of Taoism and Eastern Philosophy, which are evident in the beginning of minimalism in modern art, have also strongly impacted Kim’s style.

Heavy wide silver or gold bands characterize the work, bulging with asymmetrical cabochoned shapes, domes of turquoise, purple chalcedony, mantis-green chrysoprase, pink and orange coral and many other semi-precious stones.

Each of Kim’s bracelets (he calls them his “talking bracelets”), bears an individual poem on it’s inside curve. These poems are composed by Kim during the final stage of creation and embody the natural unique spirit of the piece.

EXHIBITIONS

2002 "The Renwick Invitational: Four Discoveries in Craft" Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American
        Art Museum.
2002 “Microcosms of Landscape,” Patina Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2000 “Structure, Symbol and Substance: The Power of Jewelry,” Mobilia Gallery
2000 “Loot! 2000,” American Craft Museum, New York, NY

PUBLICATIONS

1998, Spring, Lapidary Journal
1998, Spring, Metalsmith
1997, Autumn, Metalsmith