The Ann Orr Morris Memorial Fund presents the Visiting Artist in Jewelry and Metalwork Artist, Lori Talcott

We live in the long shadow of Enlightenment thinking. Primarily thought of as oppositional to all that is modern and rational, the idea of magic is often viewed with skepticism. This presentation will reframe assumptions and biases and examine jewelry’s relationship with language and how this potent connection is evidenced in ritual and magic. Drawing on historical context, as well as the artist’s own work, Talcott will discuss how jewelry functions as a magical, mnemonic device – as an archive that gives us access to a body of knowledge and experience.

Lori Talcott is a Seattle-based visual artist, the fourth generation in a family of watchmakers and jewelers. Through the format of jewelry, her work and research engage with contemporary theories on magic, the agency of objects, and the nexus of language and matter. Her performance projects explore the role of jewelry as a rhetorical device, and in this capacity, how it functions as an agent in rituals that negotiate social, temporal, and spiritual boundaries. After her undergraduate work in art history (Lund University, Washington State University) and metal design (University of Washington), she worked as an apprentice to a master silversmith in Norway, and later completed her MFA in Visual Arts (Vermont College of Fine Arts). Talcott is the recipient of two Washington Artist Trust fellowships and an Arts Fellowship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation. Her work is in numerous private and public collections, including the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery, the Tacoma Art Museum, and the Rotassa Foundation. Talcott’s work is represented by Sienna Patti Gallery in the USA, and Platina Gallery in Europe. For the past ten years she has been a Guest Lecturer in the graduate program at Rhode Island School of Design.