Interviews

Therese Hilbert

Therese HilbertMaurer-Zilioli Contemporary Arts has set up an exhibition space in Munich, Germany, in addition to its space in Italy, and the gallery recently showed the work of Swiss-born Therese Hilbert. This is a rare opportunity for us to interview her for the blog. Hilbert’s interest in volcanic landscapes has lasted for many years, and this body of work is no exception. Her work is minimal and clean, but beneath the surface is possibility of the churning lava flow. This is a powerful feeling if you can capture it.

Susan Cummins: Therese, can you tell me the story of the moment when you knew you were going to be an artist?

Therese Hilbert: Already, at the age of 15-years-old, I knew that I would like to do something creative in the future. It was actually a high school teacher who suggested that I should apply to the Kunstgewerbe Schule in Zurich. This turned out to be the first and most important step on my long way to become an artist.

Who were the professors that had the most influence on you?

Therese Hilbert: The Swiss gold- and silversmith Max Fröhlich (1908–1997), as the dean of the metal department at the Kunstgewerbe Schule and my teacher from 1965 until 1969, had the most influence. The entire school was based on the ideas of the Bauhaus and the Ulmer Schule. Hermann Jünger was a great example for all of us on how to live a real artist’s life as a goldsmith. However, as my professor from 1972 until 1978 at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, his advice was not particularly suitable or helpful for my own work.

 

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Joyce Scott

Joyce ScottJoyce Scott is a very special jeweler to me since she made the pieces that provided my first clue that jewelry could have something to say. In 1981, four of her brooches were included in an exhibition called The Eloquent Object. The brooches were based on the 1978 suicide of 909 people in Guyana on the direction of Jim Jones, their cult leader. These four brooches, dated 1980, gave you a clear picture of the horror of it all. Many of the followers of Jones were African Americans, and Joyce, who is also African American, clearly felt the tragedy deeply. She has continued to pursue political themes and narratives in her jewelry over the years, and she has added sculpture and performance to her creative forms as well. Her current show at Mobilia Gallery includes a variety of necklaces, some of which continue to be politically motivated.

Susan Cummins: Joyce, when did you first know you were going to be an artist?

Joyce Scott: In vitro. I was born with one of the best-decorated placenta.

I know you have repeated the story of your mother and her influence on you many times, but would you mind repeating it for us once more?

Joyce Scott: I wrote this for Harriet Tubman, but I believe the same for my mom.

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Marian Hosking: greetings from …

Marian Hosking, photo: Greg Wallis and Claudia TerstappenMarian Hosking is currently having an exhibition titled greetings from … at Gallery Funaki in Melbourne, Australia, where Marian is also based. As Kevin Murray has pointed out, “The basis for Marian’s artistic vision seems laid partly at her birth. Her parents’ marriage combined the two main elements that characterize her work. The mother was a passionate conservationist and the father was a Methodist metallurgist. The work that Marian has come to make seems to marry the bounty of nature with the discipline of matter.” In 2007, she was named a Living Treasure: Master of Australian Craft and has had numerous international shows over the years.

Susan Cummins: Please tell the story of when you knew you wanted to make jewelry.

Marian Hosking: While at high school, I was interested in architecture, Le Corbusier and the Modern movement. I started an architecture degree at Melbourne University, only for a few weeks, in 1967. I believed I could be studying for six years and end up working in a drafting office. I knew it was difficult to build buildings that pushed boundaries, and so I decided to go to art school. My sister had studied painting, and I did not want to study painting. Gold and silversmithing was my choice, so I unenrolled from university and applied to RMIT. I made the right decision for me.

 

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Gabrielle Desmarais and Anne-Marie Rébillard: Ce qui n’est pas là

Anne-Marie RébillardCe qui n’est pas là was on display at Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h, located in Montreal, Canada, from October 4 to October 20, 2013. The artists included in this exhibition were Gabrielle Desmarais and Anne-Marie Rébillard. In this interview, Gabrielle and Anne-Marie both discuss their process and how their work developed for this exhibition.

Missy Graff: Please tell me about your background. How did you become interested in making jewelry? 

Gabrielle Desmarais: When I first began college, I studied administration while making fashion jewelry for small shops in town. It took some time to realize that jewelry making was an option for me. After giving birth to my first child, I decided to go back to school to complete the jewelry program at the Montreal Jewellery School.

Anne-Marie Rébillard: I felt the need to learn how to work with my hands after I tried a different program of study where I was unsatisfied. I applied to the École de joaillerie de Québec, and I knew quickly after I started that I had found the training I was looking for. I realized that I could express myself through jewelry. For me, jewelery was slowly becoming an artistic medium, just as painting or sculpture can be.

 

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Atelier Zobel

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. 

 

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Yevgeniya Kaganovich: Function Fictions

Yevgeniya KaganovichYevgeniya 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. 

 

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Simon Cotrell: Surface Depths

Simon CottrellSimon 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.  

 

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Susanne Klemm: Oceanum

Susanne KlemmSusanne Klemm

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?

 

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Raissa Bump and Amy Tavern: Parallel Constellations

Raïssa Bump and Amy TavernParallel Constellations is on display through October 5, 2013, at Gallery Lulo in Healdsburg, California, USA. This exhibition features collaborations between artists Raïssa Bump and Amy Tavern. In this interview, both Amy and Raïssa describe the concept and process of the exhibition from their perspective. 

Missy Graff: Please tell me about your background. Have you always had an interest in making jewelry? 

Amy Tavern: I began metalsmithing in 1998. Before that, I was interested in music and went to college to study opera. I switched majors early on and got a degree in arts administration instead. In my senior year, I took a series of visual art classes and began to discover a different kind of creativity, especially through my ceramics and sculpture classes. I had been curious about jewelry for a long time, and I had been making beaded jewelry in my free time since high school.

 

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