Lewton-Brain Foldform Award Competition Winners Announced

“Undersea Candelabra”, Rauni HigsonThe winning entries for the inaugural Lewton-Brain Foldform Award Competition 2012 have been announced at the final day of the 5th annual Lewton-Brain Conference in Florida New York, about 60 miles north of New York City. Charles Lewton-Brain announced the winners of the competition at closing ceremonies August 6, 2012, at the Center for Metal Arts.

First Place honors go to Rauni Higson (Talysarn, Caernarfon, U.K.) with her entry “Undersea Candelabra”.  Second Place winner is Theresa Nguyen (Birmingham, U.K.) with her entry “Spiritus”. Third Place goes to Kaiya Rainbolt (San Francisco, USA) with “Quadrant”. A fourth prize of Honorable Mention was created by the judges to recognize the entry by Grant McCaig (London, U.K.) with “Pleated Silver Drinking Set on Ebonised Base”.

The Lewton-Brain Foldform Competition was launched to recognize the experimental work being done using the techniques of foldforming across art disciplines, and to create a benchmark survey of how this innovative sheet-forming technique is evolving in the thirty short years since it was first developed and catalogued by Mr. Lewton-Brain in the 1980’s. The competition stirred international interest among jewelers and metalsmiths, with 160 entries from three continents.

Judges Tim McCreight of Brynmorgen Press, Charles Lewton-Brain of Brain Press, and Ed Mack of Center for Metal Arts deliberated with a strong field of deserving final round contenders, and ultimately chose to create the fourth Honorable Mention prize. "Thirty years is a short time in a field whose milestones are measured in centuries. It is a thrill to see the diversity and innovation in foldforming that is so clearly manifest in this competition," said Tim McCreight.

Charles Lewton-Brain, in whose name the annual competition was created, said “It is wonderful to see such quality, exploratory, beautiful work being made using foldforming,” Rio Grande Jewelry Supply of Albuquerque, NM was a generous co-sponsor of the competition, with gift certificates for the winners. Winning entrants also received Lewton-Brain’s latest DVD iteration of his foldform catalogue, plus a hand-selected foldform for each entrant.

A catalogue of winning entries, which will include a Jurors’ Choice of additional entries, will be released later this month, through www.brainpress.com and www.centerformetalarts.com. Foldforming as a process is best described as a combination of origami and other metal techniques, especially forging. Goldsmith and jewelry arts educator Charles Lewton-Brain developed and cataloged foldforming as a technique in the 1980’s, and the process continues to spread worldwide among jewelers and metal artists.