“appreciation of original jewelry design as art.” With that in mind, works from the collection have been shown in exhibitions like the one that this catalog accompanies and have been featured in publications such as Cindy Edelstein and Frank Stankus’s book Brilliance! Masterpieces from the American Jewelry Design Council (Lark, 2008) and the celebratory catalog Variations on a Theme: 25 Years of Designs from the AJDC (Forbes Galleries, 2013). Like other creators working at the highest levels of the various craft disciplines—furniture, glass, wood, metal—jewelry makers have long sought to be recognized as artists and for their work to be given equal footing with other art forms, rather than being relegated to subordinate status as a commodity or mere accessory. Many jewelry designers, including more than a few AJDC members, initially trained as sculptors and see their output as an extension of that medium, that is, as “wearable sculptures.” Indeed, if functionality is the main attribute separating “craft” from “fine art,” some of the pieces shown here cross that line entirely, shedding the “wearable” factor altogether. It is difficult to imagine anyone donning Susan Sadler’s 2016 New Egg, for instance, which presents a platinum goose and her platinum egg in a nest of gold atop a wooden pedestal. On the other side of the equation, curators and critics have increasingly embraced craft artists 12