June 24th, 2010 09:06
I have many times visited the question, ‘why jewelry?’ The choice to make small, wearable, durable objects rather than large, impermanent, edible, inhabitable or otherwise different objects is one I think about a lot. The impulse to go up in scale has been stronger and stronger recently, and having finally made the shift in this collection to including wall pieces, I find a refreshing new question appears: ‘which jewelry?’ And, ‘what else?’. If I eliminate the requirement that everything I make must be small and wearable, an interesting thing happens to all the ideas: some of them naturally stay in the category of jewelry because they are entirely appropriate to that category, and the rest find their way to other categories, the overall effect being a feeling of space and possibility (in the jewelry and everywhere else) that I’ve never experienced before.
I’m reminded of a swimming area roped off on the surface of a lake. The rope sits on the surface telling people how to think about the water, but the water itself moves according to its own natural laws. I have always experienced categories as dams . . . but I think they’re really ropes.
The pieces in this group fall mainly in two directions. Half are driven almost entirely by flat images in black and white and are minimally constructed. The small features in gold and enamel added to these came with the choice to make these into jewelry and not something else, like small leashes to prevent them from running off. The rest of the pieces are dense, heavy faceted and stacked objects in wood whose surface interest exists mainly in relation to their structure. I worked on both series at the same time, going back and forth and using the contrast in process to lead me to each next step.
The flat pieces are made by scratching through white industrial paint down to black oxidized steel underneath. The feeling of drawing with sandpaper and a knife is totally different from that of drawing with a pen. It takes both arms, it makes a sound, it creates dust. The slight distraction of the physical work involved is just enough to keep me from overthinking what I’m doing – it’s the perfect way of tricking myself into drawing from my actual present experience rather than trying to corner distinct images and get them ‘right’. These start as large panels which I work on in all directions, and I know when I begin that they will get chopped up according to the feelings of a different day, when I skim them with a small frame looking for places where a small interaction of shape and line suggests a tension or excitement or sadness that fits what’s on my mind. For me, this secondary extraction feels like something between photography and cartography. The full frame implies something partially captured, rather than created to fill a space, and the choice of which areas to magnify and set apart takes a judgment on my part similar to that of a mapmaker deciding what gets an insert: which parts of this city do people care about the most?
The wall pieces made with this same drawing process are constructed exactly the same way as the brooches (minus the pin mechanism) and they occupy the wall in much the same way as the brooch sits on the shirt. I’m finding it fascinating to consider what changes, and what doesn’t, in that migration to the wall.
The evolution of the wood pieces is similar to that of the drawings. I begin from a table full of forms, some of which have gone through some transformation outside my studio (sawmill, construction, fire) and some of which I have altered with my own tools. I select and trim and paint and combine, registering my own response as I add and subtract parts to arrive at the small ‘situations’ which I eventually pin together and fasten with steel.
When talking with people about my work the conversations almost always revolve around suggestion and interpretation. The compositions are resolved but the narratives are open-ended, left so intentionally. Every viewer has a different story, a different perception of the scale, the subject and the emotional content; I listen for these responses and am continually surprised by them and by the range and intensity of their expression. Each of these new observations adds a layer to the content of the piece. Though the memory of my own impulse in creating it will always be there, I rely on that impulse only as long as it takes to finish the making, after which I would rather talk about someone else and something new. I am not interested in creating a vehicle for one idea or in bolting a single story into place. I am curious about perception and other people and am describing my own experience as a starting point. From there, the conversation is the reason for the piece.
June 23rd, 2010 07:06
‘For the Love of God is an amazing piece by Damien Hirst that consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8.601 diamonds including a massive pear- shaped one on the forehead. It cost 14 million pounds to produce. This is the ultimate contemporary piece of art that everyone wants to display in their home.
Now, with iHIRST you will be able to create your very own replica. We have included a real size plastic skull and and all the crystals you need to create your copy (Yes! Each one of the 8.601 crystals at an incredible price!). Even the glue and the tweezers are included; patience is the only thing you need. It´s a challenge!! You can even customize your design by adding crystals with different colours if you prefer. Choose your tools. With iHIRST you can create an entirely new design or stick to the original one. Enjoy a piece of art that´s as entirely individual as you are yourself.’
June 22nd, 2010 10:06
Turquoise: True, blue or both?
If you really want the scoop on your favorite gemstone, start by asking a miner! Dayton Simmons, a miner and dealer from Santa Fe, who has been in the business since he was 12, set the record straight recently when he talked about turquoise to the San Francisco Metal Arts Guild (23 May, 2010).
It was news to me that only 5% of all mined turquoise is gem quality, meaning it is relatively hard, with a Moh rating of 5.5-6.5. As for everything else, well it’s softer and more fragile, often to the point of being chalky.
Native craftspeople have always had their own favorite ways of improving the color and relative porosity of this lovely stone – remedies including soaking in water or rubbing on body oils. Commercial stabilization – impregnation with plastic – began in 1950, followed by reconstitution, enhancement, and a brand new (secret) process called Eljen that substantially hardens the material.
There’s still turquoise mining in the southwest, but you’d better check the credentials of any dealer you patronise. ‘Tibetan’ turquoise? Forget it – most of the lower cost turquoise comes from China, of course. ‘White Buffalo’? A nice material, but it shouldn’t be called turquoise.
How about the pieces you inherited from your family? If they’re older than 1950, the stones are almost certainly gem quality. Modern look-alikes? The pieces Simmons showed us looked old but weren’t. He’d had local craftspeople create new ‘old style’ pieces with gem quality stones. Full marks for disclosure!
If a piece in your collection needs repair, talk to Simmons. (Silver Day Trading Co., PO Box 22716, Santa Fe, NM. 87502, 505 982-3310.)
June 19th, 2010 11:06
While we here at AJF like to think of ourselves as particularly contemporary in our jewelry tastes, we can’t help but admit to a weakness for the well-presented antique jewel. Our enjoyment of The Tudors on DVD has certainly been enhanced by all the jewels that adorn the heaving bosoms of King Henry’s court, and more than once we have felt a warm glow as the jewelry on Antiques Roadshow is identified by the experts as worth a small fortune. The past, as someone once said, is another country, and historic jewelry represents a diverting holiday from the usual gems that are the focus of our attention on the AJF blog and website.
In light of all this, we were pleased to discover that Historic New England, which is dedicated to preserving the heritage of New England in the United States, has recently created an online exhibition which explores the rich history of jewelry in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Prosaically titled Jewelry at Historic New England, the exhibition features some of the more than 2500 pieces of personal adornment that the organization now holds in its collection. (To visit the online exhibition, click here.)
The exhibition is accessible through two portals, one of which divides the objects into a ‘Style & Design Timeline’, and the other which explores the collection through a variety of ‘Themes’. Whichever way you choose to access it, the exhibition is both lively and rich with historical detail. Here, for example, is what you discover in the section titled ‘Seen but not heard: Jewelry for children’:
Or this, from the style guide to the period 1850 to 1890:
Well illustrated with a range of historic and contextual images, as well as photographs of the jewelry itself, this is an impressive resource that is well-worth a visit for anyone with an interest in historic gems, and a good introduction to the history from which contemporary jewelry emerges – and to which it reacts in various ways.
June 18th, 2010 10:06
Blah, Blah, Blah. Do you ever tire of words? It seems that we are inundated with them from the time we wake until we finally escape them in sleep. What to do short of exile? Relax, take a deep breath, and use your eyes for seeing, not reading! As children, we saw with wonder before we read with understanding. Let’s recapture that wonder and open a ‘picture book’.
Lark Books has created a unique niche in the craft world by offering their 500 series. The satisfaction of a visual feast unencumbered by wordy scholarship is a refreshing respite when the world is too much with you. Do you read War and Peace at the beach? God, I hope not. So why lumber yourself with heavy wordy art jewelry tomes when what you may need is a quick fix of purely visual stimuli?
Lark presents 500 pendants, earrings, bracelets, etc. (the list goes on and on) on glossy paper, in full color, and with just enough words. So unload your senses a little, make a pitcher of iced tea (plain or Long Island), lounge and look. Every contemporary jewelry library needs some or all of these. Trust me, although I just used 209 words to tell you to escape words!
June 16th, 2010 10:06
A late night last October doesn’t feel so long ago. In the studio, burning the midnight oil, polishing off my online submission for Talente. At the time it felt like one of those lotteries – ‘gotta be in to win’. I had only recently realized I was actually eligible (you have to be 30 and under). Little did I imagine that five months later I’d be walking the snowy streets of Munich.
As an emerging jeweler, being selected for Talente is a tremendous encouragement and endorsement. It suggests someone somewhere thinks you might have an inkling of promise. So I was incredibly grateful for the opportunity, from Creative New Zealand, the national arts funding body, to attend the show in person and experience this jewelry pilgrimage. The week of events was one of exhilarating (and slightly dizzying) full jewelry immersion. Aside from Schmuck and Talente there was a multitude of satelite exhibitions, showcasing a work from many countries. As a result people had journeyed from all over Europe, the UK, USA, Australia and our six-strong contingent all the way from New Zealand.
Talente was naturally our first stop in the week of events. To provide a bit of background, Talente is organised annually alongside Schmuck by the Handwerkskammer für München und Oberbayern. Both are part of Munich’s International Trade Fair. Located at the outskirts of Munich, the trade fair occupies a sprawling former airport and includes everything from plumbingware to specialty sausage. Needless to say most of us never left Trade Hall A (the handcrafts hall).
Unlike Schmuck, Talente focuses on young and emerging talent from a range of craft and design fields. This includes jewelry (which always has a strong presence), ceramics, glass, furniture, lighting design, textiles, fashion, product design and technology. This year 99 entries were selected from the 400 submissions, representing 24 countries. The diversity of work in itself is impressive – from vessels, lamps and furniture, to a boat, a burial urn and almost everything in between. I would estimate close to half was jewelry.
Memorable examples included the hyper-realistic fake flower corsages of Jihye Lee (South Korea), the tack-a-rama fake nail and LED flower ensembles of Lisa Juen (Germany/China), the subtler stone and photograph assemblages of Berta Riera (Spain), and the lightweight realistic boulder brooches of Barbara Schrobenhauser (Germany). In truth, there was so much to see in Talente alone (not to mention the neighboring Schmuck, Exemplar and gallery shows) that it was a little overwhelming. Despite visiting three times, I was relieved to have the color catalogue to go back to at a later date.
With the week’s packed lineup, I was keen to see different approaches to exhibiting jewelry. In Talente and Schmuck, the challenge of displaying such variety understandably meant the exhibition design was fairly innocuous. The works were laid out in well-lit glass and steel cabinets, or hung from the steel partition system – tidy industrial design but more in the spirit of the trade show it was part of.
Many of the satellite exhibitions, however, were sited in more unusual locations or featured inventive displays. One of the most experimental shows was Eternal Shine – it’s not a Pony, by four current and former students at the Academy. This was a kaleidoscopic treat with mirror plexiglass display boxes hung on the grungy walls of a painting studio. These boxes were arranged at various heights that forced you on your our tippy-toes or demanded you squat down for a good look. Their entertaining optical effects certainly held people’s attention but, surprisingly, without detriment to the jewelry. Melanie Isverding’s enameled structures and Nicole Beck’s stitched body-part assemblages were particularly memorable. The mirrors were quite pragmatic, offering 360-degree view of the pieces, and, if anything, the ambient visual noise moved you in to focus on the pieces.
The overall jewelry highlight was Karl Fritsch’s revival of the Pinakothek der Moderne’s contemporary jewelry collection. (To read more about this exhibition, click here.) The collection itself was awe-inspiring – certainly a contemporary jewelry hall of fame – and I admired the fact that Fritsch curated this volume of work without resorting to museum conventions of logical groupings and labels. Arranging works into meandering lines in a seemingly random order, Fritsch successfully put the works into dialogue with one another (reflecting, I like to think, the vibrant diversity of the contemporary jewelry field). Rather than focusing on individual works, their close proximity drew attention to the connections between them. The lack of labels deemphasized who-made-what, though it was still fun to play a guessing game wrestling with the oversized list of works.
Other memorable shows included the Dialogue 8 show (UK) in an old foundry, spatialPalace (Estontia) in a cemetery, and the walls of shirts in Nicht dass du mir von der bluse fällst. Interestingly, the work I enjoyed most the often was part of more conventional displays.
Glancing back through my journal, I see I went to twenty-two exhibitions that week, and many of them twice. This meant I was shifted from my usual role of maker/wearer to the full-time role of jewelry viewer. On one level, seeing the jewelry in person (without the texts to dictate our response) permitted appreciation of craft for craft’s sake – enjoyment of the material and formal possibilities of jewelry. On another level, it made aware of the particular kinds of interaction a viewer has with jewelry. Within the tight schedule, many works were consumed at a glance while others stood out because they demanded prolonged attention. Pieces that commanded a second look, included Fabrizio Tridenti’s complex structures (in the Pinakothek der Moderne), Bettina Dittlmann’s intricate wire works (at Galerie Isabelle Hund and Danner-Rotunde) and Mirjam Hiller’s intriguing folded constructions (at Galerie Stühler). For me, these tended to be complex forms that resisted a quick glance. They somehow confused my eye, forcing me spend time, running over their surfaces and structures with a visual sense of touch. It made me wonder how jewelry (or an exhibition such as Eternal Shine) might intentionally prompt this haptic way of looking to slow a viewer down, and hopefully compelling them to wear it.
Exhibitions were not the only places to see jewelry. Teeming as Munich was with jewelry devotees, the week was equally a spectacle of jewelry wearing. Each morning in the hotel we would anticipate what the collectors and critics might be wearing while doing our own jewelry swaps for the day. Over the week, Fran Allison (New Zealand jeweler and Talente mentor) and I documented some of this jewelry-in-action which you can see on our photo blog Moveable Feasts. (To visit this blog, click here, and feel free to contribute more photographs.) Being surrounded for a week by other jewelers, students, gallerists, critics and collectors made you really feel part of a larger international community.
So, how does one cope with seeing so much great jewelry in one week? For a start, it prompted a bit of soul searching. Mike Crawford, a fellow New Zealand Talente participant and glass artist, raised this issue. At the Pinakothek der Moderne he poignantly asked, ‘How does it make you feel, seeing so much amazing work? Is it totally discouraging – does it make you want to give up?’ He had an important point. At the beginning of our careers, how do we position ourselves in relation to these pinnacles of the field? Do we aim to attract the attention of European institutions and collectors, striving to have work shown alongside the grand masters? Do we succumb to Munich’s magnetic pull and try for the Academy? What are the alternatives?
A heartening answer seemed to lie in the radical exhibition of students from Maastricht. Their portable ‘jewelry in a bag’ format enabled the group to piggyback on the opening at the Pinakothek, usurping an audience in the process. This was echoed by Willy Van De Velde, a jeweler who drove his van over from Belgium and parked outside another show as a mobile gallery. These actions seemed an inspiring message for emerging jewelers: You don’t need to rely on institutions for public exposure. Do it your own way! It really drove home that our practices must extend beyond the production of jewelry to the production of wearer/audiences.
Otherwise, there comes a point when seeing so much jewelry simply makes you SICK OF SCHMUCK. The remedy, care of the students of the Munich Fine Arts Academy? A night of drunken jewelers dancing to German techno.
Surprisingly, after this marathon week, I wasn’t completely sick of schmuck. I still had stamina to visit the Amsterdam galleries and Galerie Marzee and was itching to get back to the bench.
June 15th, 2010 08:06
AJF was started by a bunch of contemporary jewelry collectors with more dollars than sense – according to the perspective of husbands, wives, friends, children, accountants and the fine arts world. Amidst the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, our plucky founders refused to suffer in silence and answered their critics by letting their billfolds follow their beliefs, and buying jewelry that did more than twinkle prettily and make spurious claims to value. Given that history, we were pleased to come across this paen to the patron by The Guardian‘s columnist Jonathan Jones, who exhorts us to ‘remember that most of the world’s great works of art are the fruit of spendaholic patronage by magnificos who knew how to tell the accountants where to go’. (To read the column, click here.) And should you lack the resources of a Medici prince or a Guggenheim heiress, then remember that you can become a bonafide patron of contemporary jewelry by becoming a member of AJF. We take your modest but valuable donation and turn it into elaborate and beautiful programs that support makers, and all the people who support them. (To take your first step on the stairway to the heaven of helping the less-fortunate yet artistically gifted jewelers of the world, click here.)
June 14th, 2010 10:06
If you are looking for excellent ceramics you will find lots to admire at the British Crafts Council’s COLLECT art fair. But really the reason to go to London in May is the jewelry. Dodging volcanic ash spewing from Iceland, Art Jewelry Forum made its first international trip. For many, it was the first time to see the high end craft fair that is now housed in the beautiful light filled rooms of the Saatchi Gallery in West London. Twenty of the thirty six galleries at COLLECT exhibited jewelry, many of them exclusively. To give an idea of what COLLECT feels like I took photos of many of the galleries showing jewelry.
The exhibiting galleries were given a lot of space to display the work, with most of the Saatchi’s large rooms having only three stands per room. Some galleries such as Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon (not pictured) built a room within a room to show small precious objects such as Giovanni Corvaja’s gold fur pieces. The Scottish Gallery had a pavilion with silver work and a single rare piece of jewelry by Peter Chang (sold). But most galleries took a minimal (sometimes austere) stance with display. Galerie Marzee’s awesome collection was shown in an enormous double row of steel and glass tables that required glass installer suction handles in order to remove the pieces. This provided great drama when looking at work and admirable upper body strength in the sales staff.
A few of the galleries displayed mini-exhibitions of a single artist such as Wendy Ramshaw at Lesley Craze Gallery, Kevin Coates at Ruthin Craft Centre, and Iris Eichenberg’s wonderful pink pieces at Galerie Louise Smit. Rome-based Alternatives Gallery showed an especially strong group including terrific jewelry and objects by Fabrizio Tridenti.
Two of the oldest jewelry galleries showed why they are at the top of the field with Galerie Ra (est. 1976) from Amsterdam showing beautiful new pieces by New Zealander Warwick Freeman made of laminated slabs of precious colored stones, and also a great selection of international artists. Electrum Gallery (est. 1971) had a large stand with established artists such as Gerda Flockinger, Charlotte de Syllas, and Bryan Illsley, and colorful paper work by youngish Angela O’Kelly.
Two of the newer galleries were Galerie SO from Switzerland (and also a great new space in London) and Amsterdam based Galerie Rob Kouldijs. Koudijs showed an installation by Alexander Blank called The Gathering of beautiful (and large!) black lacquered brooches of stylized animal heads. Galerie SO, in a minimal and elegant display, showed a combination of jewelry and objects. There were good challenging pieces by Bernard Schobinger and Manuel Vilhena as well as new work by silversmith Simone ten Hompel and metalsmith bad boy David Clarke. There were also a few non-gallery organizations exhibiting at COLLECT. Craft Scotland showed all craft media with strong jewelry by Stacey Bentley, Leah Black and Misun Won. Cockpit Arts, who house two large artist studio centers in London, featured good work by studio members Ruth Tomlinson and Kelvin Berk.
In contrast to the prevailing modernist architecture of most of the stands at COLLECT Galerie Sofie Lachaert built a witty (and all very white) display of wooden tables and wall mounted dress shirts in boxes with the jewelry neatly displayed on well starched white shirts. Mostly jewelry, Lachaert featured terrific work by David Bielander, Flora Vagi, John Iversen and Giampaolo Babetto and many others. Rosemarie Jager had a long table with a casually displayed array of ceramic and metal cups and vessels looking like the most amazing jumble sale ever. It was a fresh contrast to the everything-is-very-precious-object-on-plinth mentality of most of COLLECT. She had amazing new pieces from Bettina Dittelmann and Annamaria Zanella. Norwegian Galleri Format showed some of the most adventurous jewelry at the fair in the work of Anna Talbot, Hedda Bjerkeli and Elise Hatlø. Format also exhibited intriguing ceramics by Heidi Bjørgan.
It was hard to see all the great work at COLLECT. Even going every day of the run of the fair there was lots to miss. The galleries exhibiting jewelry moved things around and pulled new pieces from drawers so that the stands seemed to have new things you wanted each time you passed by. Add to this the many artists that attended COLLECT, it was a rich and exhausting experience. If you haven’t been, you should go. If you have been, I’ll see you there next year!
June 13th, 2010 08:06
There was a lovely chill in the air as the AJF London trip got off to an appropriate start with a tea and scones event at the traditional Draycott Hotel. Most of the participants had not been to the COLLECT fair before and so we asked Liesbeth den Besten, a writer and curator from Amsterdam to give a talk about the galleries and jewelers we were about to meet. She had done her research well and not only talked about what we might see but also showed a number of pieces of jewelry that we actually saw at the show.
Then it was off to the event itself. The Saatchi gallery is in a beautiful stately building just off King’s Road near Sloane Square. As we entered the high ceilinged rooms a beautifully diffused light illuminated it all. It was evident that these spaces were made to show off artwork in a particular way. This light was very much of a presence and perhaps even a distraction in viewing the displays but of course that didn’t stop anyone one from looking. We all scattered to look at the fantastic jewelry and make our decisions about what to add to our collections. There was lots of excitement expressed about our discoveries.
Then we were on to Tom’s Kitchen for dinner in a large private room. We were joined by a British couple Jacqueline and Jonathon Gestetner, who livened up the evening by asking us questions about the group and about our collections. It was a dinner filled with laughter and important transatlantic exchange and by the end of the evening we were all completely worn out.
On the second day of the trip we were invited back to COLLECT for a VIP Breakfast and most of the group found that they needed a second look. We met for an early Italian lunch across the street from the Victoria & Albert Museum and were subjected to the Italian sense of timing so arrived late for our appointment with Beatriz Chadour, David Watkins and Wendy Ramshaw. Once back on track we were taken through the permanently installed William and Judith Bollinger Jewelry Center and the temporary retrospective of David Watkins. The V&A is an overwhelming visual experience and jewelry is intense enough in it’s own right but when there are 35,000 pieces in one display it literally takes your breath away. Beatriz tried to orient us to the historical things in particular which was helpful but only served to make us wish we had the whole week to learn more. The David Watkins display was located in the midst of a long, long hall of silver work and stained glass windows from throughout the ages. It was actually shocking to come upon the very cool and minimalist aesthetic of his jewelry amidst all the fancy ornamentation. He was a lovely and patient host along with Wendy Ramshaw, who answered all our questions about their lives together and his jewelry.
Next we met Hans Stofer at the entrance to the V&A and walked over to the Royal College of Art to visit his class of students. He told us a bit about the program there over tea and coffee. The program is only for graduate level students and everyone is encouraged to pursue their own interests on a deep level. This program was under the guidance of David Watkins for several decades and Hans has just been there for the past three years. Then we went into the student spaces and spent an hour or more talking with the students. We were completely won over by the variety of imaginative and thoughtful work being done. It was the highlight of the trip for many.
Back at the Saatchi Gallery Mark Lyman and Anne Mesko from SOFA, the American equivalent of COLLECT, arranged a classy cocktail reception to announce their new grant. The first ever New Voices Grant for International Decorative Arts and Design Discourse was given to Art Jewelry Forum. It was the first grant we have ever received, and we were honored to be recognized. As AJF chair, I had the pleasure of announcing that Damian Skinner would receive this £3500 award to come to COLLECT next year to review the work on display and report back in the fall at SOFA Chicago. The rest of the evening was free.
The third day of the trip started in the early afternoon at Electrum Gallery with a talk about the historical significance of the space to the development of contemporary jewelry. This is where Barbara Cartlidge and Ralph Turner displayed the most modern and exciting work of swinging London in the 1970s and beyond. Dorothy Hogg, former chair of the jewelry department at the University in Edinburgh was there to talk about the current show called Natural Beauty. Next we walked over to the Contemporary Applied Arts (CAA) space and had a thoughtful talk from Amanda Game about the work in a show there called Drawing with Objects, where she discussed the relationship between drawings and objects as she sees it.
Then we went downstairs to the shop where there were many temptations made by some of the 350 makers who belong to CAA as well as a grouping of necklaces and bracelets by David Watkins. David and Wendy, our new best friends were there as well. It was important for some of the group to be able to try on these to see what they looked like and how they felt. The new book about Wendy and David called David Watkins, Wendy Ramshaw: A Life’s Partnership by Graham Hughes was also there for purchase and autographs.
Our final visit of the day was a cab ride away at Galerie SO on Brick Lane. Hans Stofer was having a show here in Felix Flury’s beautiful new gallery space. Hans’s show was like no other jewelry show you have ever seen. His pieces were collages of doors, buckets, boxes, carts light bulbs, plywood and jewelry made from cast offs. It was imaginative, free flowing and about as different as it could be from David Watkins’s work. It made us wonder how the students at RCA that were caught in the transition from one teacher to the other survived. Despite that, Hans’s show was probably the one of the few exhibitions made by a jeweler that actually engages the contemporary art scene on its own terms. Quite good to see it is possible.
We ended the trip with a lovely dinner at Whitechapel Gallery dining room. It was a fantastic meal to end a fantastic and stimulating trip.
June 12th, 2010 09:06
Last call, everyone. The Emerging Artist Award, one of AJF’s grant schemes to support contemporary jewelers at the very beginning of their careers, is closing on Sunday 13th June 2010. You’ve heard us say it all before, so we aren’t going to offer anything other than this link and this link and this link to our previous posts, and a gallery of images by another of our lovely previous winners of the EAA, Masumi Kataoka, who was top dog in 2008. To those of you who have entered in 2010, we here at AJF salute you and hope you too will experience – to quote that great American Robin Leach – champagne wishes and caviar dreams.
