2025 Presenters
Alan Revere
Alan Revere holds a unique position in the American jewelry community with one foot firmly planted as an award-winning designer and the other as one of the country’s most prominent jewelry educators. With degrees in psychology and art plus the Woodstock experience, Alan traveled to Pforzheim, Germany where he received formal training as a goldsmith. For two decades, Alan Revere designed and created a signature line of award-winning jewelry, which was sold in stores and galleries nationwide and overseas. Alan’s jewelry appears in many books, His work is included in the Pforzheim Jewelry Museum, the GIA Museum in Carlsbad, California, and the Oakland Museum of California.
As a teacher, Alan Revere has trained over 10,000 students at the school he founded and directed, the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts, in San Francisco, California, from 1979 to 2017. Alan is the author of seven books including, Professional Jewelry Making and over a hundred magazine articles. He created a series of eight DVDs called Revere on Jewelry Making.
Alan was founder of the Contemporary Jewelry Design Group (1986-2000) and is past president of the American Jewelry Design Council (AJDC.org). Alan has received three lifetime achievement awards. He continues to nurture and train the next generation of makers through his educational Facebook group, Let’s Make Professional Jewelry. With Alan’s deep understanding of the field and his broad influence on the industry, it is no wonder that he is revered as, “A master’s master.”
Curtis Arima
Curtis Hidemasa Nickerson Arima is a visionary craft artist and educator who transforms inherited and found materials into meaningful objects that honor sustainability, cultural heritage, and personal narrative.
As a Californian of Japanese descent (Yonsei) and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Arima draws from multiple cultures and identities as inspirations for his work.
Arima is a Professor at California College of the Arts, where he chairs the Ceramics, Jewelry & Metal Arts, Sculpture, Textiles, and Individualized Undergraduate Programs. He is dedicated to mentoring students, supporting faculty, and fostering innovation promoting sustainable practices.
His work has been exhibited at the Metal Museum, Fuller Craft Museum, New York Jewelry Week, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and internationally at The Vennel Gallery in Scotland and the Ruthin Craft Centre in Wales, among others. His pieces are held in the permanent collections of the Metal Museum (2024) and the Kamm Teapot Foundation (1997).
He has lectured, taught workshops, and done projects in the US and abroad, including with YBCA, SF, CA; SNAG conference, San Diego, CA; Indiana University, Bloomington; Haystack Mountain School of Craft; Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan; and Shenzhen Polytechnic in Shenzhen, China.
He serves on the Board of Directors for Ethical Metalsmiths, where he advocates for responsible practices in metalsmithing and jewelry.
Arima holds an Individualized BFA in Ceramics and Jewelry/Metal Arts from California College of Arts and Crafts and an MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Leah Aripotch is a metal sculptor based in Oakland, California. She was born is 1987 and raised in Montauk, New York. She spent her childhood in swamps catching bugs and reptiles, surrounded by the lore of the abandoned air force base in her childhood backyard. She studied painting at SCAD for three years before transferring and receiving her BFA in sculpture from Academy of Art University. Upon graduating, she began a paid apprenticeship in a commercial fabrication shop under her mentor, Brian Martin. Three years later, she opened her own metal shop where she has since focused exclusively on making art. Her work has gone down the runway at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, featured in various magazines and publications, and displayed in museums across the country, including the National Museum of Metal, the Fuller Craft Museum, Haggin Museum, and the DeYoung. A forever student of the metal arts, she continues to train and learn under masters of the craft and is constantly pursuing the equipment and knowledge necessary to push the limits of what can be hand built in steel. She lives in Oakland with her husband and two cats and builds monsters and aliens out of her metal shop.
Vicki Ambery-Smith
Vicki Ambery-Smith’s distinctive style of silversmithing reflects her great interest in architecture. Using techniques of manipulation and trompe d’oel to get her desired effect, each piece is an interpretation of a particular building. Her creations capture the client’s love and affection for a building of special significance. She specialises in celebratory and commemorative pieces which play with the power of architecture to inspire fantasy or trigger memory. Growing up in Oxford initially inspired her and she studied jewellery design at the famous Hornsey College of Art before being awarded a Crafts Council grant to establish her own workshop in 1977.
She has exhibited widely ever since and her work has been selected for many public and private collections around the world, including The Royal Scottish Museum, Norwich Castle Museum, Los Angeles Museum for Contemporary Art and Houston University, Texas and Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, acquired a selection of her design drawings as well as pieces for their jewellery and silver departments. Her book: Jewellery & Silverware inspired by Architecture published by Unicorn Press was released in 2023.
Jeff De Boer
Over the past 38 years, Calgary born, National Geographic featured artist Jeff de Boer has established an international reputation as one of the most original and skilled artists in the world. Made famous for his museum-quality suits of armour for cats and mice, Jeff is equally at home creating large iconic public works that showcase a vast range, from figurative to abstract conceptual. Jeff possesses a unique skill set that combines design, concept, project management and a jewellery-like approach to fabrication and finishing.
Jeff’s public works are located mostly in Calgary and Alberta, and occupy a range of locations, including museums, airports, hospitals, hotels, parks, synagogues, shopping malls and private residences. What makes Jeff’s work unique is his ability to create site specific and appropriate works for each of these locations.
Jeff is recognized as an expert on public art, having spent six years on the board of Calgary Arts Development Authority where he chaired the committee that won the bid to take over the Calgary Public Art Program and then later sat as the Chair for the CADA standing committee for public art.
In 2015, Jeff founded the Armét art jewellery company that produces high-quality, customizable kinetic pendants.
Jeff is a teacher, mentor and consultant to many emerging artists on the subject of professionalism in the arts, with a focus on entrepreneurialism, project development and management.
Join us in person or online