The exhibition "Albert Paley: Portals and Gates" at the Christian Peterson Art Museum, Iowa State University, which closed January 15, demonstrated his notable facility with the genre. "I like the symbolism involved in creating entranceways," Paley says. "You enter a building through that portal, experience something inside, then go out through the portal and you’ve changed in the process. Entranceways represent the act of passage from the outside to the inside, light to dark—the whole aspect of transition."

Paley stopped making production furniture a few years ago but still accepts commissions for furniture, lamps and even candlesticks. His early decorative-arts pieces have become highly collectible, and his jewelry brings impressive prices at auction. A fibula brooch Paley made as a graduate student sold in April 2006 at Rago’s Arts and Auction Center for $30,000. Four of his jewelry pieces were featured in the "Ornament as Art" exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston through January.

Last year, Paley returned to the jeweler’s bench after accepting his first jewelry commission in three decades. "I’m pouring out my old jewelry tools and making sketches," he says. "I feel like Rip Van Winkle."

Cathleen McCarthy has written about art and design for two decades.

Paley Studios Ltd., Rochester, NY
585.232.5260 albertpaley.com
Hawk Galleries, Columbus, Ohio
614.225.9595 HawkGalleries.com
Hawthorne Gallery, Big Sur, CA
831.667.3200 hawthornegallery.com
Hunter Museum of American Art Chattanooga, TN
423.267.0968 huntermuseum.org
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art Memphis, TN
901.544.6200 brooksmuseum.org
Millennia Fine Art, Orlando
407.304.8100 milleniafineart.com
Rago Arts and Auction Center Lambertville, NJ
609.397.9374 RagoArts.com
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
202.633.2850 americanart.si.edu/renwick
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
011.44.20.7942.2000 vam.ac.uk
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
804.340.1400 vmfa.state.va.us