Interviews

Peter Schmid is the Atelier Zobel. Recently, he had a brief showing at de novo  fine contemporary jewelry in Palo Alto, California. We caught up with him to ask about his evolution and the jewelry he creates with his team. In a side note to the interview, he told me that he is very fond of de novo, not only because it is a great place, but also because it is where he met his wife Sue nine years ago. It was her second day on the job. They have been married for six years and have two kids now. Nice story to go along with the interview. 

Susan Cummins: Peter, what is your role at Atelier Zobel?

Peter Schmid: I am the new face of Atelier Zobel. I worked for Atelier Zobel for 11 years before taking over the studio in 2005. 

Please describe how the atelier works. How many people do you employ? What are their specialties?

Peter Schmid: Mathias Morgenstern started the year before I did, in 1993. We celebrated his twentieth anniversary this fall. Mathias is the leader of our workshop, an extremely talented goldsmith, and a great friend. It’s hard to think of our team as employees. It is more like family. We are a family of ten. Ten characters, including at least three divas, but I’m not naming any names. Everyone has his or her own flair. 

Yevgeniya Kaganovich is a very diversified and articulate artist. Her show at Heidi Lowe Gallery called Function Fictions is a continuation of an investigation of her fascination with pearls. She has some interesting thoughts about them and a new process for using them in the making of her necklaces. I also asked her about some of her earlier work, which veers out of the jewelry realm but stays in the land of the body.

Susan Cummins: Pearls have been your thing for a long time. What kind of hold do they have on you?

Yevgeniya Kaganovich: I am fascinated by the distance between “pearl” the object and “pearl” the cultural contract. Pearls have come to have so many different, sometimes diametrically opposing connotations: status, wealth, power, glamour, celebrity, purity, innocence, corruption, and seduction. The pearl operates as a signifier of these cultural constructs. But in reality, the pearl is this very unlikely object. Considering its origin, a pearl is a scar, an imperfection that has been glorified, elevated to a status of preciousness, and ascribed a high monetary value. For all of its cultural conditions, prestige, and historical statue, a pearl has a meager beginning as a mere irritation, an anomaly. It gets even more complicated with cultured pearls. They are deliberate intrusions into live organisms—hybrids, mutants. And then there is nacre, the iridescent outer coating of pearls, which is a bit magical, because its formation is not fully understood scientifically. It is secreted by a mollusk. Its function is to smooth the shell surface and protect the soft tissues from debris/future pearls. A mollusk deposits successive layers of nacre onto a pearl all its life. We value the pearl based on how thick and lustrous its nacre is. In my pearl work, I attempt to think through some of these dichotomies. 

Simon Cottrell’s show Surface Depths at Klimt02 Gallery offered an occasion to question this articulate and verbose jeweler. He uses an unusual material called Monel and has a lot to say about improvisation, fingerprints, and the depth of surfaces. He is a deep thinker, indeed.

Susan Cummins: Before we start with the more in-depth questions, please tell me how you came to be where you are, doing what you are doing.

Simon Cottrell: In 1997, I completed a bachelors degree in fine arts with honors, majoring in gold and silversmithing at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). During my early years at RMIT, Carlier Makigawa and Robert Baines were teachers of the greatest influence.

From 1997 to 2008, I also worked with Robert as his assistant on his own work. This was a remarkably valuable experience through which I learned more than I knew was even possible about working with metal. Making your own work is very different from working with another artist on their work. It forces you to work in ways that are both conceptually and technically outside of your personal logic. It is the best way to learn while working.  

Suzanne Klemm studies nature, and specifically in this show at Galerie Ra  called Oceanum, she is paying attention to deep-sea life. The mysterious world of sea creatures has inspired many jewelers over the centuries. However, Suzanne doesn’t claim to be interested in any precursors and finds her own way to a translation from the deep blue sea to wearable jewelry. 

Susan Cummins: Can you tell the story of how you got interested in making jewelry?

Karen Gilbert is a designer, jeweler, mother, wife, partner in a glass business, and gallery owner. I don’t think she can fit one more thing on her plate. She is having a show with Shibumi Gallery, where owner April Higashi is pretty much in the same boat. How do these women do it…and do it so well? In this show called Shift, Karen has shifted the look of her jewelry to a simpler, more colorful style.

Susan Cummins: What is the story of your journey to becoming a jeweler?

Karen Gilbert: I became a jeweler by accident. I was a student at California College of Arts and Crafts in the painting department when I took an elective in the metals department and became mesmerized by the material of metal. I loved drilling it, sculpting it, torching it—all the tactile qualities appealed to me. I switched my major, and at the same time, became involved in the glass department. The two materials had the immediacy that I needed. I love to work quickly and to respond to my materials as I am working. After school, I worked for numerous jewelers, and that led me into creating wearable pieces. I loved that people actually wanted to buy and wear what I created, and that the relationship of maker and collector really gives meaning to art.

Ruudt Peters is a force. He is everywhere, it seems, with an irrepressible energy. He lives in Amsterdam, but you can find him in Mexico, India, Sweden, China, and numerous other places on a regular basis. You could even find him on the AJF jury recently for the Artist Award. Over the years, he has made it a habit to investigate cultures unfamiliar to him when he was ready to start a new series of jewelry. His curiosity drives him to learn about the spiritual inclinations of each place and come up with a way to express it. He is adventuresome, and with each series he changes the idea, the medium, and the technique he uses to make his jewelry. It is a bold way to work. This new show at Galerie Rob Koudijs is a result of his trip to China and his research about Qi.

Susan Cummins: Please explain the Qi project.

Ruudt Peters: Qi is the energy of life. It is Chinese alchemistic knowledge. I traveled through China for three months in order to be in touch with the Chinese alchemy of Qi. During my stay, I found out that there is a big difference between the East and the West in their approach to life. The Chinese are more holistic in their view of life/health and the mind/body relationships. Chinese alchemy is a mixture of Taoism, herbal medicine, acupuncture, and tai chi. It is based on real life. I tried to get all these influences and ideas into my work. I got crazy about it, and so in the end, I decided to make a blind drawing daily. It was a way to keep the memories alive. 

For two months, I traveled around the country researching, and then for the last month, I stayed in Xiamen at the Chinese European Art Center (CEAC). During that time, I worked with ceramicists and stonecutters who took the blind drawings and began to laser cut and etch the stone into brooches. By the time I left, the project was halfway finished, but I continued to work on them from Amsterdam through emails and translations. Also after I came home, I worked out how to treat the 99 individual ceramic men who represented the body experiences of acupuncture, cupping, stone massage, goose bumps, anxiety, crying, craziness, affection, and other feelings. Then, I went back to China for four days to work on the figures to make each one feel like an individual. Then, I had all the work shipped back to me, and when they came, I was even surprised by how they looked.

Henriette Schuster is a quiet jeweler, and the title of her show at Gallery Funaki Almost Invisible is perfect. She makes simple pieces with delicate domestic references or pure abstractions. There is nothing big or boisterous about her or her work. It is just humble, quiet poetry.

Susan Cummins: Henriette, what is your story? What compelled you to become a jeweler, and what was your path to learning how to do it?

Henriette Schuster: I have known I wanted to be jeweler since the age of six or seven. My grandfather built pianos, and I used to watch him at work when he handmade the keys using ivory, ebony, felt, bone, glue, and shellac. He didn’t say much, but one day he handed me a pair of his working pliers and a piece of wire. It was here that I began making jewelry.

I went against my parents’ wishes by dropping out of my studies in architecture and following the recommendation of Hermann Jünger to take up training in gold- and silversmithing at the renowned Neugablonz Fachschule für Glas und Schmuck (Neugablonz College for Glass and Jewelry). After completing my degree, I was accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich as one of Otto Künzli’s first students in 1991. I graduated in 2000. Simultaneously, I have worked in my own studio in Munich since 1988.