To celebrate the opening of OUT of the Jewelry Box, join us for an enlivening two-part conversation with the exhibition’s artists. Jeweler Keith Lewis will begin the evening with a touching lecture about his groundbreaking series memorializing lives lost to AIDS and his recent work.  Artists SULO BEE, Andew Kuebeck, and Cheryl R. Riley will follow with a conversation moderated by fellow OUT artist Rebekah Frank. Together, they will discuss how queer artists making contemporary art jewelry use different materials and visual languages to explore and communicate their identities.

About the artists

Keith Lewis received his BS in Chemistry from Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA) in 1981 and his MFA in Jewelry & Metalsmithing from Kent State University (Kent, OH) in 1993. He has been teaching at Central Washington University since 1994, where he is currently CWU Distinguished Professor. His jewelry deals with issues of sexual identity, memory, loss, and the notion of jewelry as a transportable polemic. In 2022 he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Craft Council. He desperately wants to meet a wombat.

Rebekah Frank is a studio artist, independent writer, and arts administrator. Her creative practice focuses on steel, working as a blacksmith, a welder, a machinist, and, currently, a jeweler. She explores themes of protection, vulnerability, and boundaries in her work.

SULO BEE is a nonbinary interdisciplinary metalsmith and educator in Central Texas. They hold a BFA from Texas State University (2018) and an MFA from SUNY New Paltz (2022). SULO has exhibited their work nationally and internationally with various galleries, and Jewelry Weeks in Budapest, Milan, and New York. SULO is a co-founder of Queer Metalsmiths, where they aim to amplify queer voices in the field of metalsmithing and craft. Recently, they were awarded “Best in Metal” at the 2024 Materials Hard + Soft Craft Competition at the Greater Denton Arts Council. Currently, SULO is a lecturer in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University.

Andrew Kuebeck is an Associate Professor and Area Head of the Jewelry/Metals/Enameling Department at Kent State University.  He works in a variety of formats ranging from functional jewelry to vessels, and has lectured nationally on the incorporation of photographic images onto metalwork.  He has exhibited widely, and his works appear in numerous publications.  His work is held in private and public collections including the Museum of Arts and Design, The Philadelphia Museum of Art ,and Yale University.  Kuebeck holds his Master of Fine Arts degree in Jewelry Design and Metalsmithing from Indiana University.

Cheryl R. Riley is a multi-media artist, furniture designer, and art advisor to private collectors like actor Jesse Williams, a condo development in Harlem, and corporations such as BET.  Her focus in this practice is artists of the Black African Diaspora.  She creates wall art, installations, site-specific public artworks, and custom designs for corporate titans and celebrity clients.  Her works are in the permanent collections of two Smithsonian museums, SFMoMA, the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, and the Mint Museum of Art & Design.  She recently received a commission from the Brooklyn Museum and has another work currently on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art.  A former board member at several museums as well as on the first site-specific artist residency in the U.S.--Capp Street Project, Riley is a Trustee of the Museum.