Director of Ethical Metalsmiths Lectures on Ethics and Precious Metal Sources

Quick Facts

Christina Miller, the director and co-founder of Ethical Metalsmiths, will speak at 5 p.m. in the Rutledge Building 119 on “Is There Such a Thing as an Ethical Wedding Ring?”

She will give an overview of the challenges responsible jewelers and consumers face when creating or hunting down the most “ethical” ring today as globalism offers new opportunities to know real people at the source of materials like gold.

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Christina Miller

ROCK HILL, S.C. - The Winthrop University Jewelry and Metals program will host a Feb. 22 lecture on sources of the precious metals that become our jewelry.

Christina Miller, the director and co-founder of Ethical Metalsmiths, will speak at 5 p.m. in the Rutledge Building 119 on “Is There Such a Thing as an Ethical Wedding Ring?” She will give an overview of the challenges responsible jewelers and consumers face when creating or hunting down the most “ethical” ring today as globalism offers new opportunities to know real people at the source of materials like gold.

Jewelry – a complex, secretive, competitive and image-centered industry - links continents, governments, communities, mines, jewelers and consumers. The current trajectory of jewelry is toward traceability and transparency, but there is still a long way to go before all wedding rings are ethical.

Miller will ask what does “ethical” even mean in the context of a wedding ring.

Ethical Metalsmiths, founded in 2004, leads jewelers and consumers in becoming informed activists for responsible mining, sustainable economic development and verified, ethical sources of materials used in making jewelry. In collaboration with Susie Ganch, Miller designed EM’s popular Radical Jewelry Makeover project . Miller’s lecture is part of Winthrop’s Radical Jewelry Makeover project planned for Feb. 22-24.

Prior to assuming the directorship of EM, Miller was the assistant professor of jewelry and metalsmithing at Millersville University in Pennsylvania. She received her M.F.A. from East Carolina University and B.F.A. from Millersville University. She received a Distinguished Civic Leadership award while at teaching at Millersville for her work with Ethical Metalsmiths.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is made possible with support from the Winthrop University Department of Fine Arts and the Global Learning Initiative.

For more information, please contact Courtney Starrett, associate professor of fine arts, at 803/323- 2673 or e-mail her at starrettc@winthrop.edu.

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