BARBARA MCFAYDEN

Biography:

Barbara McFadyen is a metalsmith and enamelist who has been designing jewelry in gold, silver, and enamel for nearly five decades. Barbara received her MFA in Metal Design from East Carolina University and BA from Eckerd College. Her award-winning work is nationally recognized through exhibitions with the American Crafts Council, the Smithsonian Institution, SNAG, and the Enamelist Society, as well as gallery exhibitions such as her Award for Technical Excellence from the Craft Council of British Columbia. Barbara’s work is found in the collections of The Enamel Arts Foundation, the Mint Museum, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Art, the Crocker Museum, and Yale University Art Gallery. In addition to her love of enameling, Barbara finds inspiration through teaching others, and has led workshops at fine craft schools throughout the US, Japan, and Italy. She has curated several exhibitions including the upcoming East/West Enamel Exchange Exhibition during the Japan Enamel Artists Association annual competition “All Things Beautiful” in Tokyo and Kobe, Japan 2022-23.

Currently, Barbara serves as secretary on the Board of Directors for The Enamelist Society and maintains her studio practice in Chapel Hill, NC on a 50-acre farm where she also enjoys the practice of Beekeeping with her husband Douglass Phillips.

Artist Statement:

Jewelry and enamelwork have long been used as an enduring symbol of rank, status, expression of achievement, or memento of love and remembrance to create a unique kind of language in glass, precious metals, and gems. Inspired by this language, my work explores the many techniques and challenges of enameling and metalsmithing, as I seek to embody moments of time, layers of memories, expressions of beauty and mystery into future heirlooms.

My inspirations are deeply connected to the ever-changing beauty and power of the natural world, it’s intricate details and captivating patterns. I believe the sense of awe encountered while observing the flux of nature, cycles of life, and stirring beauty within nature can serve to remind us of our place in the world and help find new meaning beneath the layers of the hectic every-day.

Rooted in the tradition and dedication of making, my love of good craftsmanship reflects my belief we should be returning to a culture which values beauty and quality over cost and quantity in material goods. My hope is that what I create will come into someone else’s life and shift the balance of their world a little further into the direction of beauty.

Barbara McFadyen (USA) - Plus One Collective

BARBARA MCFAYDEN

Biography:

Artist Statement: