In the 1960s and 1970s a generation of young Americans rejected the promise of prosperity and
the suburban dream embraced by their parents. Furious about the war in Vietnam fighting for
civil rights at home and eagerly exploring the effects of psychedelic drugs the delights of
free love and the mystical teachings of eastern religions thousands followed the advice to
turn on tune in drop out bringing about a counterculture in the process. For many American
jewelers these events and values found their way into the studio as well as affecting how
they lived worked and loved. Jewelers like other studio craftspeople rode the wave of
popularity for the hand-made and authentic that was at the heart of the counterculture. In Flux
is the story of how their jewelry contributed to the raucous contradictory and enthusiastic
clamor for a new kind of society that made the 1960s and 1970s so extraordinary.
