To look at the watch designs of Eduardo Milieris is to be overcome with a barrage of cultural imagery and sensations. His all-metal timepieces are at once medieval and postmodern with hints towards Renaissance and Enlightenment ideals of form and efficiency. Their rough edges and found-object qualities are akin to the Urban Primitive creations of the New York City 1980's avante-garde art scene while dials and engraved patterns display a craftman's sense of purpose. The key to the ageless nature of Milieris' designs resides in the materials. Hard steel, bent copper and sterling silver, the raw materials on which our urban society is built and supported, and which have helped to bring western civilization out of the Dark Ages, align in the hands of a skilled technician to transcend traditional purposes of function or jewelry. The idiom they secure can easily be called functional art.

Just over a decade ago Eduardo Milieris visited New York on his honeymoon. Enraptured by the towering metropolis, he and his wife soon made the city their home. Previously a successful art photographer in his homeland of Uruguay, Milieris found that the pace of the city fostered a renewed interest in time. This childhood passion for time took the form of a creative process with the creation of clock sculptures in his Queens apartment. Like others before him, the Uruguayan artist saw the raw beauty in the discarded components of an industrial society and sought to place them in a context of their own. Working as proficiently with junkyard objects and rail yard refuse as he once did with a camera, Milieris established Watchcraft in 1994 and soon took a studio in Long Island City where he now employs seven craftsmen in combining his art and interest in time. He is the American dream come true, am immigrant who nurtured an aesthetic impulse into a fruitful independent business.

The Watchcraft timepieces, metallic and skeletal, have obvious traits of their urban primitive ancestry but with the evolved functionality of the genus wristwatch. In the context of watchmaking, Milieris contributes his knowledge of Old World tradition through stylistic embellishments and thematic names. Since all the pieces are powered by Japanese quartz movements the variations in the watchcraft line are by style. Each of the styles has sizes for both sexes, hand-painted dials and a generous amount of bracelet options.

While all styles come distressed, oxidized, and patterned in either copper, silver, or brass, the "Minstrel" has round dials ringed by Roman numerals. The "Cloister" in a rectangular case with round metal indexes. The "Full Moon" conveys its name in the full round bezel bearing arabic numerals. In a square case is the "Florence", also featuring round metal indexes. Named for the city of Milieris' birth, the "Montevideo" has a tonneau-shaped case with small round metal indexes and a larger one at the twelve o'clock position.

THe final and most distinct of the Watchcraft offerings is the "Gates of Time" which illustrates its name in a case adorned with two doors that open by a simple spring release button. The design was inspired by the dream of time travel and within the doors lies a simple dial with no indexes-just hands. The "Gates of Time" is the only style with a second hand.

Eduardo Milieris is a creator with his mind on the styles of the past, his hands on the materials of the present, and his eye on the future of art. His vision and insight into the future of functional art brand the pieces in the Watchcraft collection as must haves for watch and art connoisseurs alike. The Watchcraft watches retail for between $250-$400.