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Jim Charles Headshot

Jim Charles

  • Teaching Faculty II, Jewelry & Metalsmithing
  • Program Coordinator, Hubei University of Technology (HBUT)

Biography

Jim Charles is an artist and educator who lives and works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He focuses on jewelry design, sculpture, and material explorations of memory. At the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, he teaches Jewelry and Metalsmithing and leads the BA Capstone course. He is the Program Co-Coordinator for the UW–Milwaukee and Hubei University of Technology partnership in Wuhan, China, where he also teaches as a Visiting Assistant Professor.

His creative research examines how materials embody identity, history, and personal experience. He makes wearable pieces and sculptures that mix traditional metalsmithing skills with more experimental methods that emphasizes tactility, transformation, and reflection. His background includes a bachelor’s degree from SUNY New Paltz and a master’s degree in Special Education from Cardinal Stritch University. These studies support both his craft and his care for students, shaping a teaching style that is patient, thoughtful, and hands-on.

Before working full-time at the university, Charles taught Special Education in Milwaukee Public Schools. He also directed galleries at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts and at UW–Whitewater’s Crossman Gallery. In these roles, he organized exhibitions, worked with artists and students, and helped the public engage with contemporary art. This experience informs his inclusive approach in the classroom and in his curatorial work that fosters empathy, cross-cultural exchange, and the power of craft to connect personal stories to shared cultural contexts.

Recent projects show how far his work reaches, both in the United States and abroad. He is part of Slow Growing in the Time of Trees (with mycollective) at Lynden Sculpture Garden in Milwaukee, a long-term project that includes public talks. He has also taken part in several versions of Radical Jewelry Makeover: the Artist Project, including exhibitions in New York, Raleigh, and Memphis that focus on reuse and ethical jewelry practices. His work has been recognized with a Maker Tutor Award from a design school in Wuhan, China, and a feature titled Jim Charles, Everything Can Be Jewelry in a Chinese art publication. He also shares his ideas through talks on professionalism and visiting artist roles in Wuhan, while his studio practice continues to include national exhibitions, work in the Racine Art Museum’s collection, and related publications.

Links

Recent & Selected Works

small chrome balls attached to pins, semi-coated in white and gray plastic
circular chrome balls connected with cording, the last two in both rows is covered in plastic
four white rectangles with mirrored circular images, the top two have the imprint of the bottom two
two square plates on the wall with a piece of wood attached to one
Close up of the previous image's wood with a circle worn away

Artistic Exhibitions & Artwork

  • Charles, Jim. Radical Jewelry Makeover, the Artist Project. 2024, Metal Museum, Memphis, Tennessee.
  • Charles, Jim. Radical Jewelry Makeover, the Artist Project. 2022, Fault Lines: Art and the Environment, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina.
  • Charles, Jim. Radical Jewelry Makeover, the Artist Project. 2022, Bario Neal, New York Jewelry Week, New York, New York.
  • mycollective (a multidisciplinary team). Slow Growing in the Time of Trees, Lynden sculpture Garden, Milwaukee, WI, scheduled 2026
  • Charles, Jim. Artist talk, Some Thoughts on Professionalism, 2020, Edinboro University, Edinboro, Pennsylvania.
  • Charles, Jim. Visiting Artist Talk, 2018 and 2019, School of Art and Design, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, China.
  • Charles, Jim. Visiting Artist Talk, 2018, Huangjia Lake International Design and Art Forum, Wuhan Technology and Business University, Wuhan, China,
  • Charles, Jim. Visiting Artist Talk and Artist in Residence, 2016, Art Department, University of Oregon - Eugene, Eugene, Oregon.

Awards

  • Maker Tutor Award, School of Art and Design, Wuhan Technology and Business University, Wuhan China, 2018
  • mycollective (a multidisciplinary team). Slow Growing in the Time of Trees, 2024 – 25 Collaboratory Award, $7000, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for 21st Century Studies, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Publications

Charles, Jim. Everything Can Be Jewelry. Art+ One Peakculture Media, 2016