Linda MacNeil

Linda MacNeil (born April 14, 1954) is an American metalsmith, jeweler, abstract artist, and sculptor. She works with glass and metal specializing in contemporary jewelry that combines metalwork with glass to create wearable sculpture. Her focus since 1975 has been sculptural objets d’art and jewelry, and she works in series. MacNeil’s jewelry is considered wearable sculpture and has been her main focus since 1996.

MacNeil is married to American glass sculptor, Dan Dailey. “MacNeil’s artistic relationship with her husband is distinguished between their very different aesthetic approaches to glass as medium. Dailey is known for his often witty use of glass in narrative constructions. MacNeil is more abstract, allowing the material to be itself. It is a philosophical divide between the celebration of form and materiality and the championing of human intellectual vector as applied to the material”

MacNeil has been published in Modern Magazine, and has been exhibited in The Mint Museum, Sculptural Radiance exhibition. Her work has been referred to as enhancements both in the fields of glass and jewelry.

Early life and education Linda MacNeil was born on April 14, 1954, in Framingham, Massachusetts. and raised in Farmingham MacNeil studied at the Philadelphia College of Art (now known as the University of the Arts), and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. At RISD, MacNeil studied in the jewelry and light metals department headed by Professor John “Jack” Prip. He was a major influence on her work, “Jack taught me a beautiful way of softening the hardness of a geometric idea and to keep with it a conceptual idea that is different and my own.” The Rhode Island School of Design Museum has in its permanent collection the work, Neck Collar No.4 (1988). MacNeil interned with Japanese American Jeweler, Miye Matsukata at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

MacNeil was introduced to glass as a medium at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design by her future husband, the glass and metal sculptor Dan Dailey.

One of the glass making techniques MacNeil employs is lost wax casting with pâte de verre (see Nile Grass below) to create intricate shapes with great surface detail. Her work was chosen as an example of this technique, which was very popular in the nineteenth century Art Deco movement, by Jeffrey B. Snyder in Art Jewelry Today 2

MacNeil’s earliest works were mostly objects in silver - vases and vessels and small sculptures. The Bell with Stand, 1974, sculpture created while at RISD was acquired in 2021 and is now in the permanent collection at The Metal Museum in Memphis, TN. Many of MacNeil’s jewelry pieces are in museum collections around the world including the Metropolitan Museum, New York, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, National Gallery of Australia, and the V&A in London.

MacNeil became a member of the American Jewelry Design Council (AJDC) in 2011. She created and led their exhibition committee and then later accepted the role of president of the organization for a term from 2019-2021.

In 2020 her “Primavera” necklace won the Saul Bell Design Award in the category of metals and alternative materials.

MacNeil and her husband Dan Dailey live and work in New Hampshire.

Color and its interplay with light is the other major factor in her work and this is why glass takes center stage because MacNeil can manipulate and control its translucence, transparency, reflectivity, color and texture, completely. (reference total control quote) Each glass jewel she creates is totally unique. Kate Dobbs Ariail writing in Metalsmith about the Mint Museum of Craft & Design's exhibit; "Sculptural Radiance: The Jewelry and Objects of Linda MacNeil" notes that "MacNeil evidences an unusually nuanced appreciation of her material. Her use of a variety of types of glass, along with various finishing techniques, gives her an unexpectedly broad palette of hue, value, tint and reflectivity, so that her crisp design takes on a painterly tone."

Materials and techniques alt=Linda MacNeil Drawing of "Nile Grass" brooch. Brooch Series No.18, 2002 Linda MacNeil Drawing of "Nile Grass" brooch. Brooch Series No.18, 2002 Vitrolite Vintage and Modern Plate Glass Art Jewelry Today published in 2003, identifies MacNeil as a pioneer in the use of glass in contemporary jewelry, while making reference to historic precedents. While at college, MacNeil and Dailey spent summers traveling across the United States collecting Vitrolite. Vitrolite is structural pigmented plate glass. It was produced between 1908 and 1947 first by The Vitrolite Company then by Libbey Owens Ford Glass of Toledo. It was made in distinctive opaque colors and is a rare, finite material. MacNeil combines this vintage glass with contemporary glass to create unique jewels. (eg Mesh No.132, 2012, Brooch No.81, 2013, Plate Glass Vessel, No.5, 1983, Hand Mirror, No15, 1981)

Metal MacNeil’s earliest works were made in pewter or silver - vases and vessels and small sculptures eg Pewter Vessel 1975. The Bell with Stand, 1974 was brass and is in permanent collection of The Metal Museum, Memphis. Early jewelry was also silver, but she then moved to plating brass with gold, or rhodium using stock and metal rods, and silver soldering.

Diamonds "Linda MacNeil makes glass a central element in her elegant and meticulously conceived jewelry, setting [glass] components in gold, silver, and industrial metals as if these non-precious bits of glass were gemstones. In her Necklace, (from the Elements Series, 2006), MacNeil uses clear, polished glass “gemstones” to draw the viewer’s attention, while traditional diamonds serve a visually supporting role." - The MAD Museum A glass making technique MacNeil employs is lost wax casting with Fritt to create intricate shapes with great surface detail. Her work was chosen as an example of this technique, which was very popular in the nineteenth century Art Deco movement, by Jeffrey B. Snyder in Art Jewelry Today To create some of her more organic pieces MacNeil has used fritting as a technique that creates bubbles within the glass. The size of the bubbles can be controlled as can the quantity.

Gallery

Elements 1984Includes Vitrolite

Nile Grass 2002Includes pâte de verre Lucent Lines 2004 Neck Collar 2010

Public museum collections American Jewelry Design Council, Hermitage, Pennsylvania Metal Museum, Memphis, TN Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina Museum of Arts and Design (formerly known as the American Craft Museum), New York City, New York Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, Massachusetts National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island