What you’ll learn in this episode: Why jewelry carries meaning beyond just its material value Where jewelry and adornment fits into visual culture How Lisa developed Initiatives in Art and Culture’s series of conferences, and how she has adapted them during Covid When the next IAC Gold Conference is and what speakers to expect About Lisa Koenigsberg Lisa Koenigsberg is the Founder and Conference Director of Initiatives in Art and Culture (IAC) which aims to educate diverse audiences in the fine, decorative and visual arts. Lisa has organized conferences, symposia and special sessions at universities, museums and professional organizations throughout the U.S. and abroad which explore fashion, materials and process. Her writings have appeared in books, journals, magazines and in Trendvision’s Trendbook 2018. Lisa previously served as Advisor to the Dean for Arts Initiatives; Director, Programs in the Arts; and adjunct professor of arts, NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Additional positions include: Assistant Director for Project Funding, Museum of the City of New York; Executive Assistant, Office of the President, American Museum of Natural History; architectural historian, New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission; and guest curator, Worcester Art Museum and Yale University Art Gallery. She holds graduate degrees from The Johns Hopkins University, and from Yale University where she received her Ph.D. Additional resources: Initiatives in Art and Culture Instagram Initiatives in Art and Culture Facebook Initiatives in Art and Culture Linkedin Initiatives in Art and Culture Linktr.ee Lisa Koenigsberg Linkedin Photos: Transcript: Throughout history, people have always had an instinct to adorn themselves. Although the materials and trends change, the desire to make things beautiful is deeply human. Lisa Koenigsberg, President of Initiatives in Art and Culture (IAC), joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about this phenomenon, as well as IAC’s series of conferences covering a variety of jewelry topics. Read the episode transcript below.  Sharon: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. Today, my guest is Lisa Koenigsberg, President of Initiatives in Art and Culture, an organization which is committed to educating diverse audiences in the fine, decorative and visual arts, with particular emphasis on jewelry. The organization offers some intriguing conferences and live stream events. We’ll hear all about those today as well as Lisa’s own jewelry journey. Lisa, welcome to the program. Lisa: Thank you. I’m so glad to be here. Sharon: Tell us about your jewelry journey. I know you covered a lot of ground prior to founding the organization. Lisa: It’s actually a more complicated question than that, because our journeys—the personal and the professional are always intertwined. I’ll start with one memory from my childhood, which is of my mother getting dressed for special evenings. She had an outfit that was red and shoes that were printed with a raspberry print—perhaps it was floral and I remember it as that—and she had earrings that were two rounds of small rubies with little diamond flowers and a ring that matched. That association is very profound, one of beauty with my mother, one of the meaningfulness of adornment, the specialness that it denotes. Special can mean many things, of course. I happen to be an extremely visual person. I was born into a world, if you will, a culture, and I have always looked at materiality from across a disciplinary perspective. How does the mother’s jewelry indicate that? On the one hand, you have the emotion that resonates, the association, which is a powerful way that humans think. When they see something they associate with X, and if you do it often enough, then you have an accepted, codified language. If we always see, for example, a steeple and then think “church,” then we’ve created a convention of meaning. The other thing is that her jewels were bea