Didi Suydam Contemporary

Didi Suydam received her Masters of Fine Art degree in Light Metals from the Rhode Island School of Design. As a contemporary jeweler and metalsmith, she has exhibited her work in galleries and museums nationally and internationally for over 40 years.
 She has received numerous awards including the Debeers Diamond Award, Fellowships in Craft from the National Endowment For the Arts, and from the Rhode Island Council on the Arts in both Craft and Design. She has been published in various books and magazines on metal-smithing and art jewelry, including the cover of Metalsmith, the American Craft Magazine, One of A Kind- American Art Jewelry, Metropolis, The New York Times, Elle, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

Private collections include Daphne Farago, Robert Lee Morris, Karen Johnson Boyd.

Public collections include The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Wustum Museum in Racine, Wisconsin and The Xerox Corporation.

Additionally, Didi owned a contemporary fine art and jewelry gallery for 15 years in Newport, Rhode Island. Currently, Didi works out of her home studio in Jamestown, Rhode Island.

Didi seeks out the minimal, the archetypal and the iconic expression of form, distilling it to its essence: the spirit, the balance, the elemental.

Drawn to ancient architecture and volume, she hand fabricates hollow constructions from sterling silver and gold sheet. She accents areas of the body with sculptural forms that complement or define the space. "It is important for the piece to respond to the landscape of the body as the relationship between the piece and the wearer is an intimate and sensual one, conveying one's sense of self and exuding inner strength and balance." Didi regards jewelry as personal “armor”, anchoring us and reflecting our confidence with grace. She has an affinity for metal and her personal touch can be felt in each piece.

Didi’s most recent collection, the Elysian Collection, referencing Greek mythology, incorporates cameos she casts in bronze and sterling. She juxtaposes these with her signature hollow, hand-fabricated constructions. With this collection, she strives to juxtapose the contemporary and the ancient.