In the late 1990s, artists working in glass, ceramics, and jewelry began to reject the word “craft,” sometimes referring to it as the “c-word.” Their chosen media were often used in traditional crafts, but their works’ sophistication had more in common with abstract art. A decade later, however, they still struggle in describing their work. Is it fine art, design, or something else altogether?

Event organizer Mark Lyman, who had previously created the annual Chicago International New Art Forms Exposition, founded the “post-craft” fair SOFA, which stands for Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art in response to that dilemma. The original fair, which takes place in Chicago, is in its 14th year, and the New York fair celebrated its 10th anniversary last weekend at the Park Avenue Armory. At this year’s SOFA New York, collectors and enthusiasts peered at ceramic vessels that resembled metal, glass that resembled ceramic, and metal that resembled glass. They tried on wooden necklaces with the girth of a fireman’s hose, and contemplated the glass bust of a sneering sock-capped man.

One of the highlights was the opportunity to check out the burgeoning art jewelry scene. SOFA is the only major event where most of the public can take a peek at what many art jewelers are up to.

Wider exposure is on the way. The Museum of Arts and Design, the beneficiary of SOFA’s opening night gala, will include a gallery devoted to art jewelry next year when the museum’s new building opens at Columbus Circle. The gallery will exhibit the collection the museum has built over the last 50 years, he first permanent collection of its kind in the country.

“When people find out about contemporary jewelry they get excited, but unless you come to this show, the average person hasn’t had access,” the director of the museum, Holly Hotchner, said. “They begin to understand that you don’t have to have a Van Cleef necklace to have something special.”

Over the last decade at SOFA, the amount of jewelry on display has increased from five galleries showing jewelry in 1997, of which only two were conceptual, to 24 this year, with seven of the galleries specializing in conceptual work. This is in large part due to a tribe of young gallery owners who exclusively show jewelry, including Sienna Patti of Sienna in Lenox, Mass., and the husband-and-wife team Stefan Friedemann and Laura Lapachin of Ornamentum in Hudson, N.Y.

“Contemporary art jewelry” is a highly contested term by the artists who make it. Some prefer “contemporary jewelry,” to distinguish the work temporally, others “art jewelry” to distinguish it from fashion jewelry, and still others the simple “jeweler.”

“You don’t call a painter an ‘art painter,'” jeweler Thomas Gentille, who has been making this type of work for more than 50 years and is represented by Ornamentum, said.

A younger group prefers the term “materialsmiths.” They generally use offbeat materials such as plastic foam and steel, instead of the precious metals and gemstones associated with jewelry.

The Sienna Gallery booth displayed Melanie Bilenker’s brooch made from piano key laminate inlaid with the shape of a woman’s face made from the artist’s hair. Ornamentum’s booth had a large fabric pendant that glistened with sewn on scales. There were brooches made of pig intestine and steel at the David Collection booth.

Art jewelers are like sculptors making one-of-a-kind work. But they have the added challenge of factoring in the human body — though many interpret the notion of wearability differently. Some of the younger artists, represented by the new galleries on the scene, are making smaller, more delicate work.

“I represent a lot of younger artists whose work is more wearable,” Ms. Patti said. “Right now there is a trend with playing off of Victorian concepts, which are much more intimate.”

Galleries such as Charom Kransen, a veteran on the art jewelry scene, offer a wide selection of pieces that challenge their wearers with size. “Are you wearing high heels?” Mr. Kransen, whose gallery is in Chelsea and is open by appointment only, asked at his booth at SOFA. “Wearable is relative. People can get used to anything.”

One of his clients, Chris Rifkin, who has been collecting jewelry “forever,” seeks out these larger scale works. Wearing a necklace by the German artist Hilde Janich made from parchment paper and wire that spread out over her shoulders, she explained her passion for art jewelry.

“It’s like sculpture, but you go beyond and get to wear it,” Ms. Rifkin said, “though this isn’t something you would wear to the movies.”