Ethical Metalsmiths is an artist-run nonprofit organization formed to bring about awareness of mining reform. They demand socially responsible sourced materials as an investment in the future. Co-founders, Susan Kingsley and Christina T. Miller, worked with Professor Susie Granch and Virgina Commonwealth University metalsmith students for the first Radical Jewelry Makeover. The exhibit was held at the Quirk Gallery in Richnond Virginia on March 2, 2007.

Radical Jewelry Makeover is a traveling community mining and recycling project which connects people with responsibly sourced materials and helps jewelers and metalsmiths gain experience producing innovative jewelry from recycled sources.

Currently they are staging the Radical Jewelry Makeover in the San Francisco Bay Area. According to Ethical Metalsmiths, as a result of hydraulic gold mining that took place over a century ago, several feet of sediment line the bay and dangerous levels of mercury contaminate the water.

The group has asked San Francisco Bay Area residents to mine their homes for unwanted gold, silver, and other jewelry of all types and materials, and drop off or mail the pieces to collection sites before September 11.

At schools and studios, volunteer jewelers, metalsmiths, and jewelry design students will work together to reconstruct and transform the donated pieces into repurposed jewelry.

The recycled jewelry will be exhibited and offered for sale to the public at Velvet da Vinci gallery from October 22–November 9. Donors receive discount coupons to buy the repurposed pieces. Sales ultimately help support Ethical Metalsmiths' mining reform efforts.

Wouldn't it be neat to hold a Radical Jewelry Makeover in your community? Have you ever been involved in a similar event?