Karen Bachmann
(Fashion Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute)

Drop by the Lecture Hall to watch a demonstration by jeweler and historian Karen Bachmann. This session will focus on “gimp” work—a technique used in the Victorian era to create three-dimensional flowers and leaves from wire and loops of hair, often displayed in shadow boxes or under glass.

Karen Bachmann teaches at both Pratt Institute and Fashion Institute of Technology. She specializes in both fine and bridge jewelry, wearable art, and decorative art. She has interests in baroque, renaissance, memento mori, and Victorian wearable ornament and material culture. She is a practicing studio jeweler and a former master jeweler at Tiffany & Co. She is a past and current lecturer and workshop leader with NYC Jewelry Week. Her current line of jewelry centers anatomically correct human organs and insects, which are carved in wax and cast into sterling silver or brass using the lost-wax casting technique, a subject that she teaches. Her studio work has been published in Art Jewelry Today and the Lark 500 series books. Written published work includes “Hairy Secrets: Human Relic as Memory Object in Victorian Hairwork Jewelry.” Her most recent publication is an essay on nineteenth-century mourning jewelry in the book Death: A Graveside Companion (2017). She has delivered lectures and organized workshops at the American Folk Art Museum, Mütter Museum, Victorian Society of America, Morbid Anatomy Museum, Atlas Obscura, Katonah Museum of Art, and the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art, and Natural History.

Friday, October 2, 12:15 – 1:15 pm

38 West 86th Street, Lecture Hall
No registration required.