2016 Lewton Brain Foldform Competition Results

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Oct. 10, 2016 - PRLog -- The annual Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition celebrated its fifth year this summer with entries from metal artists in eleven countries and five continents across the globe. In addition to prizes for 1st, 2nd, 3rd Place and Honorable Mention, judges also named 21 Jurors' Choice selections. Visit www.foldforming.org to view each piece recognized this year and every year since the event began in 2012.

Also look for the story in Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist magazine's Nov 2016 issue on newsstands Nov 1, and across the globe via snail mail, Google Play, Amazon Kindle, Zinio and iTunes.

2016 Top Prize Winners
FIRST PLACE: Rauni Higson of Caernarfon, Wales, U.K., with Britannia Silver "Meander Dishes" and "Brush Stroke Dish" in Britannia Silver.
SECOND PLACE: Emma-Jane Rule of Leicester, England, U.K., with "Prickles Platter,' in Britannia Silver.
THIRD PLACE: Denys Knight of Bonners Ferry, ID, U.S., with "Morning Surf" in copper.
HONORABLE MENTION: Rauni Higson of Caernarfon, Wales, U.K.,  for "Loving Cup" in sterling silver.

2016 Jurors' Choice: Each piece selected in the Jurors' Choice round is captivating in its own right. To call out just a few, Sharon Stafford's "Coiled Cup" is a shallow foldformed vessel tucked with lovely simplicity into a cleanly coiled wire base. Chelsea Dyck's "Impregnable" combines foldforming and chain mail to achieve a neckpiece with medieval-modern undertones. Marco Fleseri's "Keratathirio No.1" uses metal clay details with a foldformed base for an organic look that borders on reptilian. Ken Roussin's "Inseparable" depicts two abstract figures that portray an emotional bond with uncanny clarity.

Each piece speaks with its own distinct voice, ensuring that each visitor will be drawn to different aspects of this unique collection. If the artist has a website, it will be listed at www.foldforming.org -- so please do jump off to explore your favorite artists' personal galleries.

About the Competition
Developed in the early 1980's by Charles Lewton-Brain, foldforming is a multifaceted system for working with sheet metal that continues to grow and change. The annual Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition established in 2012 is driven by a mission not only to survey that natural evolution process, but also to encourage artists to continue pushing the boundaries.

Due to its versatility, foldforming attracts goldsmiths, silversmiths, blacksmiths, sculptors and metal artists of all types. Each year, artists submit a captivating array of metal work for consideration in the Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition to showcase their use of foldforming techniques in a wide range of metals. This year's entries included fashion and fine jewelry, expressive non-jewelry wearables, tableware, vessels and utility objects, small and large sculpture, light fixtures and wall art. Metals included gold, silver, copper, brass, nickel, aluminum, bronze, palladium, rhodium, stainless steel, mild steel, anodized titanium, niobium, iron and more.

Mixed media artists have included wood, glass, fiber, canvas, gemstones, found objects, existing structures and living botanicals. Artists also combine foldforming with traditional fabrication techniques, wire-work, raising, piercing and more, with texture or finishing options like enamels, colored pencil, patinas and paints that take objects in unexpected directions.

View the top prize winners along with all 21 Jurors' Choice selections at http://www.foldforming.org/2016-results.html and in the annual results video here: https://youtu.be/yStyLmok_0s?list=PLh6kjvl1A-hnjIkBS2-Wa7...


2016 JURY: 1) Charles Lewton-Brain of Alberta, Canada; Artist Goldsmith, Educator, Author; 2) Dr. E. Aspler (Hanuman) of Chiang Mai, Thailand; Founder of the Ganoksin Project, 3) Merle White of Pennsylvania, U.S.; Editor-in-Chief, Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist magazine.

2016 SPONSORS:  Rio Grande at www.riogrande.com, Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist magazine at www.jewelrymakingdaily.com, The Ganoksin Project at www.ganoksin.com, Craftsy at www.craftsy.com, and Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts at www.revereacademy.com.

About Charles Lewton-Brain, Foldforming Pioneer - As a student in Pforzheim, West Germany, Lewton-Brain was fascinated by innovative coursework that allowed the natural properties of metal to influence form and design, leaving visible traces of process in the finished piece. This departure from traditional jewelers' methods led Lewton-Brain to pursue an intense study of 'forming using metal characteristics' as a SUNY New Paltz graduate student in the early 1980's. His work with folded sheet metal evolved into the system now known as "foldforming."

The impact of foldforming is aptly described by Alan Revere, founder of San Francisco's Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts. For "The Evolution of Foldforming" by Sue Lacy (Art Jewelry magazine, Nov 2015), he wrote: "Charles is … an outlier and a genius who thinks beyond what most of us can even conceive of. [He] opened the door to a whole new way of thinking about metal that everyone had overlooked, even though foldforming is intuitively obvious. … I am not surprised that there is a now a third generation of foldformers out there. Just like kids who grew up with computers, this generation takes foldforming for granted; it is part of their repertoire."

Visit http://www.foldforming.org for all results of the Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition since 2012, learning resources for metal artists interested in foldforming, tool tips (including information about the illusive paper hammer), artist spotlight stories, links to artist websites and more.

Sue Lacy is owner / director of The Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition and The Foldforming Hub at www.foldforming.org, and Foldforming Central on Facebook; Independent consultant for website design, writing / editing, graphic design and art event administration at www.suelacy.com. Contact for help with projects at sue@suelacy.com.