Vieux Carre Jewelers Receives 2009 Best Independent Jeweler Award

The National Jeweler Association has selected R.E.Rourke , goldsmith, metalsmithing educator and studio jeweler as the 2009 Best Independent Jeweler from a field of over 1500 independents from across the USA and protectorates.R.E. has been making and teaching jewellery fabrication and related arts and crafts for over 20 years and producing custom and comissioned jewellery ,metal objects and mixed media pieces for more than 35. " this designation was wholly unexpected and quite a surprise", said Rourke in a recent interview for a trade publication article, " Artists In The Background" -about talented individuals that have been involved in their particular medium for many years who remain out of the spotlight by choice. Rourke began as a cultural anthropologist, ethnobotanist and folklorist travelling the world and the southeastern USA collecting information about Creole peoples in Louisiana and the Caribbean, plants and their by-products used for medicine, folk remedies, and magico-religious purposes. As a teacher Rourke began with traditional and Montessori certification and has taught students from primary age grades to university and graduate levels.Rourke's degrees are too numerous and diversified to list ranging from PhD in anthropology/ethnobotany ,B.S. in cultural geography to an MS combining cultural history,cultural geography and applied anthropology ,as Rourke says "from the first time around when I thought I wanted to be an academic for the rest of my life".Also holding specialised business degrees and MFA's in both Metal and Sculpture, to Masters degrees in art education and documentary film making and a JD in International Trade. Rourke has also entertained a career as a consultant assisting entrepreneurs considering organising small businesses to international corporations seeking solutions to jewelry and metals manufacturing problems to selecting locations and assessing human resources in a given locale or the impact a new business would have on communities around the proposed sites.Regarding the business of business as R.E. terms it " I have a wide range of skills and experiences that began with PEACE CORPS and VISTA volunteerism that affords clients an broad objective perspective in analysis and subsequent proposals that serve the cleints goals and the needs of the communities and people that those businesses and industries impact".Currently Rourke is organizing a micro-loan fund ( Great Divide Americas)that will provide small start-up and capital or expansion loans primarily to widows,single women and small collectives or cottage industries in fourth world countries living in rural areas to allow them to get the education they need in business management or skills that support whatever they are already involved in to further an individual or group's ability to market and deliver their products or services to distant buyers or taking their micro-enterprise to the world of e-commerce." this could mean money to put a roof over a structure where women meet , often miles from their homes, to produce crafts, or other salable items small scale agricultural and aquacultural products to enough money to make a one time trip to a large market area that will produce enough revenue in that one day to reinvest the profit to either expand or improve the venture towards a sustainable and self-supproting enterprise that has the capacity to grow with the group or individual's commitment.In my past experience on the boards of other micro-loan or micro-enterprise educational organizations these seemingly nominal amounts are perhaps a lower investment risk than any other form of financial investment as the people that apply for or are offered the assistance are self-governing and appreciate that repayment will only serve them further in supporting themselves and their households and in turn their larger communities. Rourke added," But what I really Love and am passionalte about is making and teaching jewelry making and metal arts, crafts and science!".All this from someone that remains "in the background". "R.E.[Rourke] is an individual capable of doing just aboout anything, anywhere", said Professor M.C.Ward about R.E. recently in an interview for an alumni publication after the NJA prize was announced on the heels of a substantial prize Rourke had just received from a philanthropic foundation recognizing the contribution of individual artisans to peace,philosophy or religiousity and their place in humankind."R.E. was nominated for a major (T.F.) prize in 1997, and I fully expect one day to hear from Geneva!" said Ward about Rourke's contributions to the betterment of humankind- through jewerly making! -originally published in 2010 by New Orleans Artists and Writers Guild, with excerpts fro the Lousiana Folklore Society's quarterly ( LSU Press )entitled: