Corey Wolffs
He/him
San Mateo, CA, USA
Corey Wolffs is an art jeweler, designer, and sculptor from the San Francisco Bay Area. He is an art and design instructor and has worked in creative arts education since 2019 teaching jewelry, design, and fabrication to students of all ages.
“I view my art as an autobiography in metal. My work explores identity, memory, and daydreams as I confront my age, my place, and my past as an adopted Filipino-American raised in a German Jewish and Christian Irish household with interwoven stories, folklore, beliefs, traditions, and experiences. I use jewelry and metalwork to archive the complex intersections of myself as an individual both welcomed-in yet completely anomalous, a person made of many cultures and seemingly no cultures at all. Each piece is an ornament, a story, and an introspection. ”
How does your creative practice reflect your experience of living and making as a BIPOC and/or 2SLGBTQIA+ maker?
“As an adopted Filipino-American who grew up in a Pluralist Household with Christian, Jewish, Filipino, Irish, Korean, and German members, my work explores the wide range of stories and visual storytelling, steeped in both realism and folklore. My creative practice has been shaped by the stories I was told as a child, the world view I cultivated growing up as a brown body in white suburbia, and the indigenous brown history I am only now truly beginning to explore through my work.
As a child, I heard the family stories of the Irish and German Jewish grand and great-grandparents and the complex relationships they had with America. I heard my mother sing songs she learned from Donegal and heard my father recite the prayers at Seder.“
“Sarimanok Necklace” Brass, bronze, cubic zirconium, lapis lazuli, wood beads
7" x 4.8" x .75""Thimble: Oncholysis”
Sterling silver 1.3" x .8" x .7"
What techniques, stories, or materials have been passed down to you, and how are you reimagining them in the present?
“Much of my work focuses on slow making techniques like Chasing and Repousse taught to me in the Arts and Crafts style during my studies at CCA. I see chasing as a painterly endeavor, with each metal artists having their own unique "brush stroke" (or rather, Hammer Stroke). In the age of 3D modeling and 3D printing, I have found chasing and repousse as their ancient ancestor, a forgotten art of drawing in three dimensions.”
How does your work honor those who came before you while forging new pathways for the future?
“I use chasing and repousse because it brings me peace, calm, and focus. It is slower, less efficient, and borders on obsolescence. However, I have found it is the one technique that gives me a sense of agency as a storyteller. I hope to share the slow and highly intentional practice of this technique with as many people as possible to keep this ancient art thriving.”
"(Bombastic) Lover's (Side)Eye Brooch" Copper, Nickel, Pyrite, Sterling Silver 1.9" x 1" x .6"
Photographs Courtesy of the Artist