ABOUT MAYA
Photo by Lydia Daniller
Maya Kini is a poet and goldsmith based in San Francisco, California. Her writing explores the intersections of craft, language, and the body—examining how making and materiality shape perception, memory, and repair. As a goldsmith, Maya reflects on material transformation, endurance, and loss, as well as the many ways gold has shaped history and carried stories across time. Part artist, part historian, her practice seeks to understand how materials perform both physically and poetically. She brings a love of research, a minimalist sensibility, and a sculptural approach to making. Her work emerges from the belief that no material is static, and that there is beauty to be found in the changing surfaces of objects as they are worn.
Maya was born in 1977 in Boston. She studied Spanish literature and sculpture before going on to receive a graduate degree in Metalsmithing in 2007 from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her jewelry and sculptural work have been exhibited nationally and internationally and featured in numerous publications. Maya has taught at Penland School of Craft, CSU Sacramento, and Sacramento City College. She is a 2025–26 Brown Handler Resident with the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library. Maya works out of a studio cooperative on the historic Sausalito waterfront.
EXHIBITIONS
2024 California Love Song, (two-person) Shibumi Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2023 WEAR Contemporary Jewelry Penland Gallery, Penland, NC
Friendly Tides, Marin Civic Center, San Rafael, CA
2022 Hope is Resiliency Maker’s Guild/Industry City, Brooklyn NY
2022 Reimagined Heirlooms (solo) Shibumi Gallery, Berkeley, CA
Hope is Resiliency, Maker's Guild/Industry City, Brooklyn, NY
2021 Raising Gold (solo), Slidespace123/Mills Oakland, CA
2019 Maya Kini, K. Beale, B. Katz, Studio Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Cast, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA
2018 Cut from the Same Cloth (solo) Shibumi Gallery, Berkeley, CA
Sculpture by Bay Area Women ,The Studio Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2017 Tiny The Studio Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2016 Enamel Exhibition Shibumi Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2015 All that Glitters Petaluma Art Center, Petaluma, CA
So Fine! Facere Jewelry Gallery, Seattle, WA
2013 Or.Iron (co-curator) Marrs Building, Sacramento, CA
Ferrous Velvet da Vinci Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Silk (solo) Shibumi Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2012 Maps and Mapping Tangent Gallery, Sacramento, CA
2011 Our House Galerie Louise Smit, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2010 Ju-Ju Magic Facere Jewelry Gallery, Seattle, WA
2009 500 Enameled Objects Velvet da Vinci Gallery, San Francisco, CA
American Enamels Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA
2008 Emerging Artists in Clay Oddfellows Gallery, Mendocino, CA
Equal Footing: materials + processes + concepts, Nat’l Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis, TN
New West Coast Design Velvet da Vinci Gallery, San Francisco, CA
SELECT PUBLICATIONS + READINGS + TALKS
LitCrawl [reading], Brown Handler Residents at Et. Al. Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2025
North Beach Public Library [reading], San Francisco, CA, 2025
Design Bay Area – Sausalito Edition, [talk], Sausalito, CA, 2024
Alluvial Deposits [poem], Metalsmith Magazine, Voice and Vision, Vol. 43 No. 2, 2023
How Do I Begin Again? [feature article], Metalsmith Magazine, Vol. 43 No.1, 2023
Coming To Terms, a BAYS (Bay Area Young Survivors) Anthology, [editor + contributor] Vol. 4, 2024
After the Fires, a Wild, Reckless Flowering [poem], River Heron Review, Poems for Now, 2022
Rip Curl [essay], Wildfire Magazine, 2022
Rip Curl [podcast], The Burn, September 28th, 2022
Mother-Love [poem], Bellevue Literary Review, Issue 41, 2021
Navaratna [poems], Mills College, Fall 2021
Gallery as Laboratory [lecture], Mills College, Fall 2021
Second Generation [poem], Crucible Magazine, 2021
Design and Community Practice [lecture] Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, Architecture and Design, 2021
The Necklace [poem], Wildfire Magazine, 2021
Cast [book], Schiffer Publishing, 2017
Silk [article], Art Jewelry Forum, 2013
500 Enameled Objects [book], Lark Books, 2009
New West Coast Design [book], Velvet Da Vinci Gallery, January 2008
500 Wedding Rings [book], Lark Books, August 2007
EDUCATION
CRANBROOK ACADEMY OF ART
Bloomfield Hills, MI
MFA in Metalsmithing, 2007.
2005-2006 studied with Gary Griffin. 2006-2007 studied with Iris Eichenberg
REED COLLEGE
Portland, OR
B.A. Spanish Literature, 12/2000.
Senior Thesis: “Painting Penance and Picturing Christ: the visual-verbal texts of New Spain”
SCUOLA LORENZO DI’MEDICI
Florence, ITALY
Coursework in printmaking, jewelry, sculpture and Renaissance and contemporary art theory, 1998-1999.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
INSTRUCTOR
Penland School of Crafts
Penland, NC
Hybrid forms casting class, 6/2023
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR
California State University Sacramento
Sacramento, CA
Beginning jewelry with a focus on fabrication and casting, 8/2015-1/2017.
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR
Sacramento City College
Sacramento, CA
Introductory and continuing projects in small metals and jewelry, 1/2014- 5/2017.
INSTRUCTOR
University of California Davis Craft Center
Davis, CA
Instructor for Lost Wax Casting for small-scale metal pieces, 6/2009-8/2013.
GRANTS & AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2026 Writers in Paradise with Major Jackson and Didi Jackson, St. Petersburg, FL,
2025-26 Brown Handler Writer in Residence Friends of the San Francisco Public Library
2022 Studio Assistant, Rebekah Frank Boxed/Unboxed, Penland School of Craft/Iron Studio
2021 Guest Lecturer, Gallery as Laboratory seminar, Mills College, Oakland, CA
2020 (2021) Summer Residency Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Deer Isle, ME
2020 Orion Magazine Environmental Writer’s Workshop
2018 Winter Residency Recipient, Penland School of Craft
2009 Emerging Artist Award, Sienna Gallery
2009 Searchlight Award from the American Craft Council
2006-2007 Ernest B. Toth Merit Scholarship, Cranbrook Academy of Art
2006 Bay Area Metal Arts Guild Student Grant
2006 Advancement in Craft Award Scholarship. Penland, North Carolina
2005-2006 Peggy De Salle Merit Scholarship, Cranbrook Academy of Art 2005-2006
1998 McGill Lawrence Grant for Social Service
MATERIALS
Maya uses recycled gold and silver to craft her pieces. Her studio will facilitate refining old jewelry using a sustainable process for credit toward the purchase of new jewelry. Maya Kini Jewelry supports the work of Ethical Metalsmiths and their efforts to ethically source both newly mined and recycled precious metals.