2020 WINNER • SAUL BELL DESIGN AWARD

“ PRIMAVERA”

COVER PHOTO BY MICHAEL TROPEA

1ST PLACE

2020 FIRST PLACE, CATEGORY : METALS / ALTERNATIVE MATERIALS THE SAUL BELL DESIGN AWARD • 20TH ANNIVERSARY PRESENTED BY RIO GRANDE Since 1944

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To say the least, Linda MacNeil’s winning necklace, “Primavera”, as well as her entire body of work, is breath-taking. What makes her designs so special is that she focuses on a material most people don’t pay attention to… glass! She creates one-of-a-kind pieces in her New Hampshire gallery alongside her husband, renowned glass artist, Dan Dailey.

Linda’s necklace is a perfect example of her fine craftsmanship and exceptional vision.

— http://www.saulbellaward.com/linda-macneil

Artist Interview

By Marlene Richey

Q. How did you come up with the title?

I created the piece, then found the title that was appropriate in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Q. What/who was your inspiration?

The inspiration for the floral necklace comes from observing the fantastic ways of nature. I believe plant life and the natural world contain the ultimate perfection of design and function.

PHOTO BY MERCY STREET STUDIO

Q. How long did it take to make the piece?

I lost track of time with this design. Because of indecision and difficulties solving the mechanism structure, I put the parts away until I was strongly urged to complete the necklace for a retrospective solo exhibition at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, in 2016.

Q. What challenges did you overcome while you were making it?

In addition to the linkage problems I had to hire a stone setter with the skill to follow my sketch and take on the responsibility of understanding my design and communicating with me directly to achieve my vision.

Q. What do you plan to do with the piece?

I have a personal collection of my work since the beginning of my career. I plan to show this necklace in future exhibitions. I feel it was an important decision to keep a collection of significant pieces from my career as “show” pieces.

Q. Will this piece inspire other work?

Since the 1980s I have made my work in series. A series may continue for years. I do this so I can develop my original idea and let it grow. Primavera is from my Floral Series made from 2000-2020.

Q. What did you feel when you learned you’d won?

Mixed emotions, but very glad to have this award.

I questioned if I had applied to the appropriate category; Alternative Metals/Materials. I did so because my jewelry is primarily glass in combination with precious materials. But to what is glass an alternative? But obviously I made the right choice!

Q. Whom did you tell first about winning?

My mom, of course!

My mom, of course!

Q. Of all the arts and crafts why did you choose jewelry?

I must have been born with the need to make things.

For many generations, my family has been thinkers, artists and hardworking individuals. When it was

time to go to college I chose an art school with a great department in jewelry and metalsmithing.

Q. What was the first piece of jewelry you ever made?

In 1972, during high school, I had a summer job selling my hammered-to-death silver jewelry in my hometown on the street from the back of my parents’ car.

Q. What was your training/academic background in jewelry-making?

Before college I was self-taught and encouraged by my family who are hands-on people and very open to the arts. I attended craft classes and later went to art colleges, eventually majoring in jewelry and metalsmithing. I graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1976. When I was in college I felt the era was deeply committed to craftsmanship but also breaking out of traditions. I feel like I received important technical training and learned to take my own path in my career.

Q. What was the biggest challenge you have faced in your business?

To keep this pace up financially throughout the years has been my biggest challenge in business. An ongoing challenge in my life is to have my galleries promote my work enough to make a living and allow me to make what I think up. Sometimes it’s difficult to make enough time in the day to accomplish this.

Q. What is the best advice you received?

I highly respected Jack Prip as a professor and skilled silversmith. He always kidded me for being too serious about my work. He advised me to loosen up and have more fun in life. A memory: While I was his student in 1974, after I left the RISD jewelry studios for the night, Jack rearranged the parts of my very important project upside down to make a point.

Q. What other awards, honors have you received in your career?

In 2011 I received the “Master of the Medium “ award in Jewelry from the James Renwick Alliance of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The JRA was created to support achievement through scholarship, education and public appreciation of the craft arts. According to the JRA mission statement, the alliance was “founded in 1982 and is the exclusive support group of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the nation’s showcase of contemporary American craft.”

Q. What artist, dead or alive, do you most admire? Why? Lalique has been a powerful influence on my concepts for jewelry. I admire his combination of all types of materials, from gold and diamonds to cast glass and tortoise shell. His jewelry paints a picture, references history and

uses insects, animals and human imagery. All of the works are constructed beautifully and the techniques are completed masterfully.

Q. Do you follow long-term trends? If so, why or why not?

I think of an enduring design style as a long-term trend. The Art Deco style has been a favorite of mine. Deco is often bright and opulent with bold, contrasting forms and colors, and these qualities are incorporated in my work.

Q. Is the product or the process more important to you? Why? The product or idea concept go hand-in-hand with the process of creating a piece. I feel process can evolve or have many different ways to make a piece.

I use precious materials as well as non-precious with the glass. I respect traditional methods but I don’t feel compelled to follow them to get the design right.

Q. What is your favorite tool?

Interesting—it is hard to narrow this down. I suppose a very important tool is a small hand combination square. I use it almost every time I work.

Primavera Necklace, “Floral” series, no. 98, 2008–16 Plate glass, mirror, diamonds, and 18k yellow gold. 18 x 3 1/4 x 7/16 inches (45.7 x 8.3 x 1.1 cm) (open)

PHOTO BY MICHAEL TROPEA

Q. What choices/decisions underpin your greatest success or longest leaps with your art?

I can’t pin down a time when I had my greatest success. I have a passion for creating, evolving, and staying the course. It takes a lifetime to grow and reach for achieving goals. It is a gradual buildup of experiences, trials and tribulations. I cannot recall any major decisions that have jeopardized my career or any fantastic happening that changed my art. I have had two museum solo exhibitions, in 2000 and 2016, which were milestones for me. I feel a bit more relaxed or confident about myself since. Two books accompanied these events and made me feel more fulfilled and that the artistic community believed in my work. I suppose if I was more business-like, I would have the confidence to hire assistants and have more art out in the world. Is this a regret? I have not resolved this. I believe my work is better for not having the responsibility of producing more pieces by deadlines and the burden of paying and being responsible for employees.

Q. What metals, gemstones, processes do you enjoy most?

My work incorporates brass, gold, some gems and glass of all types. The metals are mainly the basis for connections in the design of my jewelry. Glass is the focus of the pieces, with its vast range of colors and qualities of the material. Glass can be translucent or opaque, polished and reflective, filled with

bubbles or pure, it has myriad possibilities. Glass is a demanding medium requiring time to master the skills and techniques to achieve the desired results.

Yet it also provides the creative freedom to imagine and create forms that can be made with no other material.

Q. Describe your studio.

I have a private space in a shared studio with my husband Dan Dailey’s business. Our studio space is a renovated 1822 farm in New Hampshire. I work at my bench and have a few machines that are for my use only. A section of my studio is for designing by drawing and arranging parts I have created. Most of the time I have music around me while working alone. In the main Dailey/MacNeil studio we have a soldering fabrication space, model making area and glass facilities that consist of machinery for shaping the glass and kilns for the casting process. b

LINDA MACNEIL

www.lindamacneil.com