The road to San Francisco begins in Iceland. At least it did for Amy Tavern. In mid-2013, Tavern was living in Skagaströnd, a village on Iceland’s northern coast. An accomplished metalsmith, she was instead focusing on a different medium – her embroidery. The piece that resulted, Island of 14,264 Days, is a nubby, knotted, evocative topography – an imaginary land mass that represents her life. It took her 200 meditative hours, using only one stitch, to create.
Tavern returned to the United States, but Island didn’t leave her mind. A few months later, on a plane ride, she was reflecting – and she found a name for the shift she felt.
“It was the work that told me that I am an artist,” Tavern says. “I literally never used that word to describe myself until I made that piece.” Island had shown her that she was interested in – and capable of – expressing herself in more ways than jewelry.
It would have been easier, maybe, to parlay that awareness into the jewelry career she’d already built. At 41, Tavern has been a full-time jeweler for a decade. She has a robust résumé of exhibitions, a successful production line. She is a sought-after instructor and familiar name in the field. And this fall, she will walk into California College of the Arts as a beginner again: an MFA student in sculpture, installation, and interdisciplinary art.
In the past several years, she’s also been working more with photography and video. Last year, she returned to Iceland for several months. Throughout May, the month she turned 40, she stood in the same spot every day, capturing an image of the ocean. Everywhere she travels, she’s also been recording two minutes of light reflecting on moving water, like some cosmic collector, quietly gathering up the material essence of what it’s like to be alive on Earth.
Space, time, place: They’re the essential conditions for the work Tavern plans to develop in her next two years at CCA. “Up until now, I have always made work that goes on a pedestal – or that goes on the body,” she explains. Though she doesn’t imagine ever leaving metalsmithing behind (“I will always love jewelry; I will always make it”), she is shifting her focus to work that surrounds the body, creating spaces that immerse people. Human experience and perception, unique to each of us and thus also universal, will continue to be her language.
“It’s like I’ve been doing all this homework, all this research, for the past 10-plus years – and now it’s like, OK. I need to stop, and I need to focus. It feels like I’m ripe for this moment right now,” Tavern says.
Amy Tavern Iceland creek photo.