CALIFORNIA LOVE SONG
Maya Kini + Laura Lienhard
May 4th - May 29th, 2024
Meet The Artists
Join us for a glass of wine!
Saturday, May 11th from 3:30 - 5:30 PM
SHIBUMI is pleased to present CALIFORNIA LOVE SONG featuring artists Maya Kini and Laura Lienhard. The artists have shared a studio on the Sausalito Waterfront since August 2020.
“The fuchsias and pale pinks of the magnolia bloom, the rippling green hills of early spring, the golden hills of late summer, a constant sea, salty air, and king tides.
Abalone from agate beach, a sea urchin cast in silver, rough gemstones set in luminous gold, and antique coral linked with alloys of copper, gold and silver.
The textures of a February walk in Tennessee Valley as shadows grow long and the first buds appear on willows, navigating around puddles on a muddy trail until the beach opens up ahead and reveals a treasure trove of iridescent mussel shells, or sand dollars, or a bloom of jelly fish glinting like diamonds on the sand.
The acid green of eucalyptus leaves, the fiery brown of a madrone’s curling bark, the reflective surface of the Bay as the sun sets, and, always, the ocean lapping at the edge of California.”
MAYA KINI's process stems from a belief in perfection and symmetry, with the knowledge that these qualities often hide within imperfection and asymmetry. She brings a love of research, a minimalist sensibility and a sculptural approach to making both her bespoke and limited production pieces. Maya investigates materials and their capacities to perform both physically and poetically, and often uses high karat gold, steel, silver and raw, textured stones in her jewelry. Her work emerges from the belief that no material is static and that there is beauty to be found in the changing surfaces of objects as they are worn.
Maya was born in 1977 in Boston. She studied sculpture and literature before going on to receive a graduate degree in Metalsmithing in 2007 from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Maya's jewelry is made by hand in Northern California and is exhibited and sold both nationally and internationally.
LAURA LIENHARD founded her jewelry studio after a successful twenty-year career in textile design, turning a highly trained eye from the patterns of the loom toward explorations in metal. Investigations into the interplay of pattern and structure define her work. Elements in her jewelry are derived from nature’s forms and textures as well as its surprises. Spontaneity and instinct lead to unique, often kinetic connections of hand fabricated elements that harken back to her textile roots. Crafted in a varying palette of 18k gold, silver, shibuichi and keum-boo Laura’s jewelry represents the transformation of nature’s raw beauty into personal expressions of elegance.
Laura has a BFA in Textile Design and an MFA in Industrial Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has attended intensive metal workshops at Haystack Mountain school of Crafts in Maine, Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and Alchimia Jewellery School in Florence, Italy. Recently she has been studying independently with a master jeweler and artist in the hills above Florence.
Lapis and 18k Gold Ring by Maya Kini