Chestnut animal

There is some thing about fall that seems to cross the border of countries, languages and traditions. Children everywhere love the magic of chestnuts. My sons have come home with so many this fall, they could hardly carry the load. I also remember collecting them as a child, taking them everywhere, comparing mine to the ones my friends had collected and, of course, making little animals out of them.
Now I have found proof of it happening in places far away from Antwerp and the tiny Dutch village I grew up in. It has come in the shape of this very cute pin ‘Chestnut animal’ by Estonian jeweler Ketli Titsar. Her fond childhood memories of the things she did with chestnuts have led to her creating this jewel. It is part of the collection ‘Homesickness’, but with so many chestnuts around, the lucky girl doesn’t have to be homesick anywhere!

Ketli Titsar is one of the European jewelry artists selected for ‘Walking the gray area’, an international jewelry project. For this project, 20 European and 20 Latin American jewelry artists have been coupled, to work on a collective exhibition. In order to bring everybody together, the ‘Walking the gray area’ blog has started. It is an interesting way for the artists to communicate, and, at the same time, share their story with the rest of the world. The exhibition will be presented at the Gray Area symposium, taking place in Mexico City in April 2010. To be continued……..

Walking the gray area’ is also featured on Klimt02.

08Brooch 2009

I was really surprised how attracted I was to the work of Austrian jeweler Petra Zimmermann. The brooch is made of sparkles and gold embedded in a handmade plastic background. The image gives you a good idea of what her work is like, but although it is a great photograph, the brooch is not nearly as attractive as it is in reality. The shape of the brooch has a sensuality that very much comes to life ‘for real’. Also, all the crushed pearls, rhinestones, amethysts, gold leaf and fine gold catch light. This makes the whole brooch shine at you, following you, from every side you look at it. It is a good sort of shine, not a blinding one, but a multi-colored attracting one. It was evening-time when I saw the piece, so spotlights were directed at it, possibly partly responsible for the magic. The bright colors of the plastic, ties the piece together. Another background for all the glitter may have been plain kitsch, but the use of these colors takes it to a new level.

This brooch was one of the pieces displayed in Petra Zimmermann’s exhibition, ‘New Work’ at Gallery Caroline Van Hoek. All the pieces were nicely spaced out, and the gallery was well lit. Looking around felt like being in a candy shop. For a day-time impression, click here, and just wait until you get to the fourth to seventh photo.

Gallery Caroline Van Hoek is a member of Klimt02.

Coffee & jewels

Another great project by Ana Cardim, who I have previously blogged about. This time, her social concept is on a very intimate scale, the artist and a stranger having coffee. Right now Ana is therefore looking for 15 strangers to have coffee with. Her goal is to meet with a cross-cut of people in society, and a jewel will be made following each individual meeting. This will result in an exhibition of 15 pieces, together with the documentation of the “coffee” they were based on.

The fantastic video above, made by Beatriz Cisneros, is showing the first coffee of the series. Watching this meeting makes me curious for the jewel to be. I also wonder who else is going to have a coffee with Ana. If you are going to Barcelona, you can contact her, and maybe she will design a jewel based on your conversation. If you do, it would be great to hear about your experience, so please leave a comment on this blog.

Coffee & jewels was first presented at Ana Cardims’ exhibition: “Device jewels”, which opened on September 17.
Its opening was simultaneous with JOYA-Barcelona Contemporary Jewelry Week, that consisted of several exhibitions, a small fair, awards handed out, and the start of a jewelry walk in Barcelona. I was very happy to be in the right place at the right time, and see it live! There was a very interesting jewelry-mix going on, all in one beautiful building.

The JOYA-Barcelona Contemporary Jewelry Week was largely organised by Klimt02, congratulations to you two!

Tools for beating

A ‘parure’ is a set of various items of matching jewelry. It is modular and can be disassembled into different parts. ‘Tools for beating’ is such a parure, made by American Seth Papac. It consists of 5 individual pieces that can be worn separately or all together in their tool bracket around the waist:

‘White knuckle’, a necklace, to me refers to boxing, a western fight sport. At the two ends of the necklace hang oval silver strips, possibly meant to harden the contestants’ hands.
‘Strike’, also a necklace, looks like a pair of nunchaku’s, used in eastern fighting. To stay true to the tools theme, they are made out of steel and wood.
The brooch ‘Club’, a very long, stiff square tube, when worn, starts beating by itself. This is also the case when is attached to the tool bracket.
‘Clench’, a ring, has to be clenched to be worn on the fingers, so the hand forms a fist (for beating).
The last part of this parure is the ‘Empty tool bracket’, which is not actually empty. The leather belt holds a very well made, smooth, spatula- like, wooden shape. Just like the brooch club, it starts beating when worn, but ‘gives’ a totally different, more gentle, kind of beating.

To have a jewel committed to beating is one thing, but 5, even though they can be assembled into one, is a bit much. But the way these pieces are made, with carefully chosen materials and incredible skill, pushes the violent nature of the work to the background. For example, the necklace ‘White knuckle’, consists of white tape, used to tie tight around the contestants’ hands, but it is tied together and carelessly draped around one’s neck. And the material of the top plate of the ring ‘Clench’, steel, could refer to real knuckledusters, or to actual tools. On top of that, its’ shape does not remind of fighting at all. This is obviously also the case with ‘Club’, the brooch.

On top of this, the artist states that this toolset is meant for beating, a fictitious job or ritual to deal with the metaphorical cleansing of his body and not someone else’s! So a very personal piece this week.

Lucky me got to experience this work in reality at Gallery Caroline Van Hoek (member of Klimt02). It is exhibited there, with 2 more parures, until October 24th.

Camée de lait

The most bizarre jewel for this post, in material and in concept.

One of the very first plastics were made out of cow’s milk, so when in 2008 the design team of Duende collective, led by Anthony van den Bossche, were asked to create something around ‘eating together’ by “La Cuisine”, they knew what to do. The plastic pendant ‘Camée de lait’ in this picture is made out of maternel milk. This is what Cécile Fricker came up with: a pendant with your own baby’s face made out of your maternel milk plastic.

Normally you would consider plastic as one of the most ordinary, unnatural materials. Plastic is often associated with cheap, single–use items (i.e. crap), Dropping off a bottle of breast milk, to be made into plastic seems unreal. Casting the plastic-milk in a 3 dimensional mold, the same shape of the baby’s head that the milk was meant for, makes it priceless. Not only is this ‘Camée de lait’ turning the natural into unnatural, it is also turning the ordinary into something luxurious.

To me, this is the ultimate jewel to keep the memory of breastfeeding your baby alive; it is made out of breast milk and has the shape of your own child. Finally, when you wear it, judging from this photograph, it dangles happily where it came from, your breasts!

How to become an elephant

Sometimes a jewel can make you curious for its’ story, and sometimes a story can seduce you to love a jewel even more. The last is the case for me with this jewel ‘How to become an elephant’ by Portugese Manuel Vilhena. Of course now I’ll let you in on the story he wrote with the jewel:

And which flower is the most delicious? - asked the man. The one on the left, of course replied the elephant. How do you know that? First, you grow a long trunk. Then, you grow large ears like mine and a, hum, quite short tail. Ah!, and you forget nothing. Is that how one becomes an elephant? The elephant looked the man in the eye, then looked down, gently picked up the flower and said - You need patience...
in „How to become an Elephant“, M.V. 2009

A very sweet story, about how to become a jewel, by Manuel Vilhena. Starting by slowly growing all the trivial bits, without losing sensitivity towards certain areas, and not forgetting anything, to make a fully finished piece.

I can totally see the elephant in this brooch look people in the eye, while it is telling the most wonderful stories. It gets my fantasy going about great, story-telling jewels to keep you company.

Luckily there is more in the exhibition ‘How to become an elephant and other fabulous and curious stories’. Opening on the 5th of September until the 27th at galerie S O, in Solothurn, Switserland. More about the exhibit on Klimt02.

Summer has been great and now I am very happy to be blogging again!

Bright red cluster 2009

There is lots of ‘recycled’ jewelry around, and to continue with the previous garbage-theme, here is one piece that really stands out for me.

Bright red cluster 2009, a brooch by New Zealand/Australian jeweler Roseanne Bartley, incorporates some of our typical bits of waste in a great way.
The red plastic bottle caps are still very recognizable, even though they have been made to look worn. Keeping their round shape, they have been cut into pieces, to become something completely different, almost floral (which is good since garbage usually is not one of the nicest smelling things;). Also, a cluster of caps is used like the way we collect our waste, before it is discarded permanently. Silver settings have been made for the invaluable bottle caps, so they are treated as semi-precious stones. The silver has been patinated black, to really set off the bright red color of the plastic. It all has been incredibly well done and thought out!

Since blogging has been hard for me these last few weeks, you now have to hurry to catch a glimpse of this wonderful piece since it is part of the exhibition ‘Winter brooches’ at Studio 20/17 in Sidney, Australia until July 11th! There is more to read about the exhibition on Klimt02.

With summer holidays fully kicking in I won’t be posting for a while. But I will be totally refreshed and ready to blog beginning of September!