gray/yellow drop earrings

costume beads, reused plastic bags, sterling silver findings

1 7/8” x 1” x 5/8”

The current series of wearable objects juxtaposes the idea of preciousness against the discarded artificial material they are made out of. I use a traditional craft process, crocheting, to contrast the slow labor intensive making with the speed of refuse. Small stiches, vast land fields. These materially and time-dense objects are physical manifestations of numerous bags discarded and time spent in a futile attempt to reclaim them. In addition to being made out of and stuffed with plastic bags, some pieces are physically weighted to make us consider what it means to carry these materials on our bodies.

Yevgeniya Kaganovich is a Belarus born, Milwaukee, Wisconsin based artist, whose hybrid practice encompasses Jewelry and Metalsmithing, sculpture and installation. Yevgeniya has received a Masters of Fine Arts form the State University of New York at New Paltz and a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Metal/Jewelry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Yevgeniya has been an active art practitioner since 1992, exhibiting her work nationally and internationally. Her work has received a number of awards and has been published widely.

Yevgeniya’s interests in craft scholarship and pedagogy lead her to undertake curatorial projects, panel and symposium organizing, and other contributions to contemporary craft discourse. Yevgeniya has worked as a Designer/Goldsmith at Peggie Robinson Designs, Studio of Handcrafted Jewelry in Evanston, Illinois and has taught Metalsmithing at Chicago State University, Chicago, Illinois, and Lill Street Studios, Chicago Illinois. Currently Yevgeniya is a Professor in the Department of Art and Design, Peck School of the Arts, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she has been heading a thriving Jewelry and Metalsmithing Area with a graduate and undergraduate programs since 2002.