Ivory pets

In a flash these beauties may look like they were mass-produced, but they are most certainly not! Made from quality materials such as mammoth ivory and red laquer, the brooches were carefully designed by German Christoph Straube. They look very sleek, with their 'faces' in off-white and an alarmingly bright red colour used for their eyes. Every pet has its own unique expression, some more obvious animal-like, some almost human, and all incredibly cute.

Straube himself states on Klimt02: there is no object that exists purely on its own, it is always a part of a complex system. He regards aesthetics as a product of convention and evolution - the meaning of every object we look at is processed by our culture and perception.
I surely agree with him, and it is the reason why I am not the only one who thinks that they are cute.

The Ivory pets are part of the exhibition “Rare animals are the missing link” to be seen at ‘Galery Metal’ in Copenhagen, Denmark until the 4th of July.

Waiter, there's a fly in my soup!

When I first saw this brooch, it made me smile. ‘Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup’ is the start of so many jokes. At the moment my boys love to tell jokes, to anyone who’d like to hear them, over and over again. Then I started thinking: is this a really a soup spoon? No, it must be smaller, more like a teaspoon. And is that really a fly? Well…..Yes, it is!
The Finnish jeweller Eero Lintusaari cast a dead fly into acrylic to be on display in this brooch. In real life, the fly, along with the rest of the soup, would be discarded very quickly, but Eero Lintusaari became intrigued by it. He loves the delicacy and fragility of the fly, which normally would hardly tolerate to be touched without decomposing. The fly gets magnified by the acrylic and at the same time the artist uses a smaller spoon, so the proportions are a bit off and the fly gets even more emphasized. This way, the wearer is drawn to the fly to get a better look at it’s delicate beauty. It looks like a gigantic fly in a little bit of soup.
I love a joke, but I would have reservations to wearing this one, since there is still a dead fly in there!

Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup!
Yes sir, this fly really knows good soup.

Eero Lintusaari is a member of Klimt02.

Sonya's scar jewel

A special jewel this week. Maybe a bit strange, but also very meaningful. When people experience something traumatic, the physical signs may show on their, or their loved-ones body. These scars are all different and very personal, just like the stories they tell. Even though they are not always visible, scars become part of them. It is their personal adornment, and it is now possible to transfer it into a golden jewel.

Artists Rachel Murawski and Liz Lessner got together with their friend Francesca who had overcome thyroid cancer, bearing the scar on her neck as a result. She was proud of the scar, a reminder of the positive outcome, but it started to fade. The creative artists decided to do something, not only to make their friend feel better, but also to help her deal with it. So, together they made the first scar-jewel.

Another example of such a scar-jewel is Sonya’s. Her personal story involves her brother who had surgery as a two-week-old baby. She says: “This scar represents pain and hope for my family and me. I wear it with pride.”
As you can see, the enormous scar across her brothers’ body was transferred into an elegant, almost botanical, but definitely recognizable, golden pendant.

The scarring experience can be hard to talk about, but when wearing a jewel like this, it becomes a lot easier. It gracefully stands out from other gold jewelry, evoking conversation. And unlike with the real scar, it is now the owners’ choice to wear it or not.

Let's melt together/ Lass uns verschmeltzen

Recently I was asked to make weddingrings. While this was on my mind, the exhibition shown on the Klimt02 website, “Yes, I do! –partnerrings” (originally in German: “Ja, ich will! –partnerringe”), caught my eye. The idea behind the work ‘Let’s melt together/ Lass uns verschmelzen’ by the Swiss Claudia Stebler, really appealed to me.
At their engagement, the happy couple is given a wooden container with 2 solid gold little boxes. The boxes contain 2 solid silver rings, one for each partner, and a solid copper plate with the promise ‘LET’S MELT TOGETHER’ engraved on it. The gold, silver and copper, add up to form 18 karat gold (750 parts gold, 125 parts silver and 125 parts copper).
Both partners get to literally ‘wear’ the solid silver ring during their engagement period, marking it with their personality. Every scratch on the silver will be proof of their daily activities. Close to the actual wedding the silver rings, golden boxes and copper plates are returned to Claudia Stebler, who melts everything into 18 karat gold. I assume both rings are then made from one piece of gold based on the worn silver rings. The engagement period is therefore melted into the final wedding rings. I really like the way the original promise on the copper plate melts together with the couples’ actual life, symbolized by the worn silver rings. The two metals melt together with the beautiful 24 karat gold boxes, like the silver engagement gets melted together into a golden future.

The exhibition "Ja, ich wil -partnerringe" is on until the 4th of May at the Beatrice Lang galerie für Schmuck in Bern, Switzerland.

Golden Fruit

Raisins, named the golden fruit by their sellers, are a sweet, fast and healthy snack. The box shows a cowboy-like figure, and jeweler Aline Vandeplas associates him with a gold-digger looking for a quick buck. He is someone relying on fast nutrition for survival, therefore the snack has to be easy to carry around, and always ready for consumption. This makes the snack as valuable as the gold he is after. To Aline Vandeplas there is no such thing as easy money and a penny saved is a penny earned. Most of the time it wasn’t the gold-digger who struck gold, but their wily suppliers. This is why she exhibits the Golden Fruit boxes in the same way gold bars normally are stacked.
Aline’s fascination with the word gold on the package, and the story behind it, does not stop there. She transformed the ‘golden fruit’ into jewelry, a necklace with a cast silver raisin as a pendant. The choice of silver, as material to work with, fits well with the raisins. Looking at its market value, silver is the snack version of metals traditionally used in jewelry. The golden fruit is taken out of its box and made into something easy to carry around and always ready to wear.

For several years Belgium’s’ Aline Vandeplas has been collecting everything on her path referring to the word ‘gold’. She created stories around her finds and like the work described above, she managed to turn it into something completely new. This resulted into the exhibition 'Gold-up'.
The exhibition lasts until April 25th at Silke&theGallery, in Antwerp, Belgium, which is also featured at Klimt02.