Press Release from Alone Moose

Barb and Jayne

Maine jewelers Barbara Fernald and Jayne Redman, finalists in the international 2009 Saul Bell Design Award Competition, will be honored at a morning coffee on Friday, July 31,  9:30 am to 11:00 am at Alone Moose gallery in Bar Harbor. Both jewelers will be in attendance to show and discuss their awards and recent work.

Jewelry designer and PMC® artist Barbara Fernald of Islesford, a finalist in the PMC® category of the 2009 Saul Bell Design Award competition, along with her necklace named “Double Vision II ” was honored in Las Vegas during JCK Las Vegas on May 30. Fernald previously earned second place in the PMC®  category of the 2006 Saul Bell Design Awards competition. She attended that award ceremony with her lobsterman husband, Bruce, and their two sons.

Barbara, who lives year round on Little Cranberry Island, started working with Precious Metal Clay in 1998, and it continues to be her favorite silver jewelry material.  Always on the forefront in metal clay design, she attended the Metal Clay World Conference in Chicago this month. Barbara learned the keum-boo technique which she uses in PMC designs during a Jayne Redman workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. She says “I am honored to be a Saul Bell finalist with Jayne, and I am looking forward to celebrating with her at Alone Moose gallery where we have shown our work for a number of years!”

Jewelry designer Jayne Redman of Portland, a finalist in the silver category of the 2009 Saul Bell Design Award competition, with her necklace named “Dahlia” was also honored in Las Vegas. The “Dahlia” was hand fabricated in sterling silver and 18K yellow gold. A Maine native,  Jayne earned her B.F.A. in Jewelry and Silversmithing from Maine College of Art in 1977. She began her jewelry career in the fashion jewelry industry in New York as a design and production assistant. She started her own company, Jayne Redman Jewelry, in 1982 and began developing the Floraforms™ Collection in 1995.

Jayne is a former faculty member of Maine College of Art and teaches workshops nationally. She is the recipient of a Niche Award and Lapidary Journal’s Jewelry Arts Award and has had feature articles in Crafts Report, AJM, Lapidary Journal, Professional Jeweler, Niche, and Ornament magazines. Her work has appeared in several books including Art Jewelry Today by Donna Z. Meilach, Making Metal Beads by Pauline Warg, and 500 Earrings, by Lark Books.

The 2009 competition challenged jewelry designers to push the boundaries of creativity as they created original and innovative pieces in any of six categories. Each designer chose one category as the foundation of their piece and integrated additional stones or materials as they wished, provided that the predominant material remained at least 75% of the finished, original design.

Although awards were presented to jewelers from as far away as Australia, Korea and India, Fernald and Redman were the only finalists from the State of Maine The pubic is invited to meet the artists at Alone Moose gallery, 78 West Street, on the Waterfront, Bar Harbor. For more information about the event, please call 288-4229