Winner:
Jennifer Kahn

Runner-Up:
Emily Stoneking

SHAPE SHIFTER

In her senior year at the University of Vermont, Jennifer Kahn found a jewelry-making material that would change her life. Gallery artist Celie Fago introduced the young designer to Precious Metal Clay, a material made of silver, water and an organic binder that can be molded like clay and then kiln-purified to .999 fine silver. In the seven years since, Kahn has been producing wildly improvisational jewelry that combines daring, colorful and exquisitely textured shapes with this cutting-edge process, and her necklaces, rings, pendants and earrings — often incorporating semi-precious stones — are to machine-wrought jewelry what Café Shelburne is to McDonald’s.

-Matt Scanlon