Interviews

We have added a new gallery to our community from Wellington, New Zealand. Quoil Gallery, opened by Belinda Hager in 1997, shows only New Zealand jewelers. Phillipa Gee took over the management and ownership in 2007, and today the gallery represents about 37 jewelers from all levels of achievement. The recent show Kohatu by Keri-Mei Zagrobelna reveals the connections this artist has with her Maori background.

Susan Cummins: How did you discover you wanted to make jewelry?

Keri-Mei Zagrobelna: I am not sure if I discovered that I wanted to be a jeweler, or if jewelry discovered me. Growing up in an environment of artifact, object, and art, it seemed normal that I should naturally fall into it. I spent a while in my youth travelling throughout New Zealand and dabbling in art and craft, but I avoided taking it seriously due to a lack of confidence and courage. It wasn’t until my mother passed away that I had the epiphany that I had to go to art school and make it happen and that life was too short to have regrets or avoid things. It was also a creative outlet for my emotions at the time. Jewelry was my silent ambassador. It was always there for me and taught me new things. Then, I started to see potential in myself and the others around me. I could use the language of jewelry to relate to others, and not only did it help me, but I could use it to help heal others.

Maurer-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.

Joyce 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.

Marian 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.

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.