Interviews

Galerie Spektrum in Munich, Germany, is showing the well-known jeweler and professor Ramón Puig Cuyàs from Barcelona, Spain. Ramón and his students have been an active part of the jewelry scene for many years, so it is a wonderful opportunity to hear more about his background and reasons for making.

Susan Cummins: Ramon, please tell us the story of how you became a jeweler?

Ramón Puig Cuyàs: I think I’ve always been a lucky person. When I was young, I had three ideas of what I wanted to be when I grew up—devote myself to science, in particular, biology or astronomy, or like my father, who was a ship captain in the merchant marines, I wanted to be a sailor and travel to exotic lands. The third option was art. It’s a bit hard to explain why I decided against the first two options, and I have already discussed this at length in previous interviews. I feel I could have become almost any type of artist except a musician. I had no clue what jewelry was or any interest in it. My grandmother was an opera singer, my uncle was a cartoonist and illustrator, and I’ve always liked to draw and to build things with my hands. I’ve always been very curious about the world around me, and I try to understand how it works, to discover new horizons, and to always see a bit beyond the obvious.

Galerie Ra opened in 1976 in Amsterdam and is one of the oldest galleries showing contemporary jewelry in the world. Owner Paul Derrez is a knowledgeable dealer and a jeweler himself, so when he chooses a young jeweler such as Réka Fekete for a solo show, you have to pay attention.

Susan Cummins: Réka Fekete, you are Hungarian by birth, and I understand that you moved to Amsterdam in 2004 when you were 22 years old. Do you think you brought something particularly Hungarian to your studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy?

Réka Fekete: I think it is rather my family and the environment my parents created in Hungary that most influenced my way of experiencing everything as being either fascinating, beautiful, ugly, or something else. My grandfather was a painter while my grandmother worked as a goldsmith and as a ceramicist. They had a huge studio in the basement of the house where I grew up where they worked with several other artists. The house was built in the 1930s in the Bauhaus style, and their work hung on our walls. These aspects were not particularly Hungarian, but they are what remain most present for me. I am certain that the impact of this environment left me with impressions and aesthetics I carry with me wherever I go.

Ivan Barnett from Patina Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has known Lilly Fitzgerald and Judith Kaufman for many years, but they have never shown in his gallery. Although both jewelers have made a habit of showing on their own at craft fairs and in private showings, Ivan convinced them to present work with him during the opening of the opera season in Santa Fe. It is an exciting time of the year for the city, and Lilly and Judith will be attending the opening at the end of June. It is an experiment on everyone’s part to see if the gallery system can work for these two independent makers. 

Susan Cummins: Can you tell me the story of how you discovered that you wanted to be a jeweler? Where did you learn to make jewelry?

Lilly Fitzgerald: While in school at the Worcester Art Museum I studied painting, but we were required to take introduction classes in all media. Metal was a material I connected to immediately. So I started making work on my own, started selling things, and then I left school and worked for myself making jewelry and selling it.

Judith Kaufman: Becoming a jeweler was not on my radar. At 16, I was kind of a shy kid and had no passion for anything in particular. My mother had a friend who made silver jewelry. She asked if she could “borrow me” for a six-week class as an experiment to see if teaching jewelry would be something she would enjoy. It was a very basic class held every Wednesday for six weeks. I learned the usual basics of piercing, soldering, filing, polishing, etc.
I really enjoyed the hands-on experience, which led me to find a bench job at a retail jewelry store followed by a job working at a wholesale manufacturing venue. On weekends, I would exhibit my work at craft shows all over New England. In 1973, I opened my own studio, located in an old dynamite factory, with 27 other artists. While there, I enjoyed building my own collection as well as taking commission work and meeting the public. The environment was ripe with talent and filled with creative energy. 


Jose Marín  is a master jeweler from Valencia, Spain, who is having a one- person show at Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His exhibit is up until June 22, 2013, and so we tried to slip in this interview before it came down.

Susan Cummins: Can you tell me the story of how you discovered that you wanted to be a jeweler?

Jose Marín: My father was a goldsmith. In my childhood, at 10 or 12 years old, I used to play in his workshop, which was in our house. That is how he woke up my love for this craft.

Where did you learn to make jewelry?

Jose Marín: At 13 years old, after school and in the early evenings, I went to a jewelry school at the Jewelers Guild in Valencia, Spain. Here, I studied jewelry making for five years, and after that, then four years of engravings and setting.

I have had 3 teachers. My father, until his death in 2006, taught me the jewelry style of Valencia, which is a jewel of floral inspiration and very baroque. It is made with platinum and gold leaves with a very traditional technique unique to this geographical area in Spain. I also learned the art of forging solid gold from him.

Pascua Auñon l was my first boss from 1981 to 1986. He had worked for 15 years in Germany. He taught me to do rivière necklaces and bracelets and all kinds of jewelry made with wire.

Recently, Kobi Bosshard was honored as part of an ongoing series at New Zealand’s Object Space called “Master of Craft.” It celebrates the achievements of outstanding New Zealand practitioners working at the highest level. The show and catalogue are the work of AJF’s former editor Damian Skinner. In the mid-twentieth century, Kobi brought his jewelry skills to New Zealand and provided a link from the old world to the new. In this show at The National in Christchurch, he is looking back at his heritage and to his grandfather Jacob Bosshard for new ideas.

Susan Cummins: You are the third generation in a line of Swiss goldsmiths. Why does this seem important for you to explore in this exhibition?

Kobi Bosshard: I like to remind myself, and others, that the world did not begin with me. That our forebears, for example my grandfather and my father, were highly skilled goldsmiths, and that I am at the very present edge of a very long tradition.

Alexander Blank studied jewelry from 1997 to 2010 at a variety of different schools and finished as a graduate of Munich’s Academy of Fine Arts where he was a student of Otto Künzli’s. In a recent AJF blog, Blank answered questions about his experience of studying with Künzli, but this interview is about his first solo show in the United States. Ornamentum, a gallery located in Hudson, New York, invited Blank to present a retrospective of his work from 2006 to the present. It is an opportunity to see the development of his thinking and understand the recurring themes told through his passionate interest in storytelling. Blank is clearly a smart and talented maker with a youthful zest for life.

Susan Cummins: Alexander, you recently answered some questions for this blog about working with Otto Künzli at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, so I won’t ask you about your academic training, but can you tell us the story of how you became interested in being a jeweler?

Alexander Blank: Actually, I was not very interested in nor was I planning to become a jeweler when I started it. I wanted to become a photographer, but the one I chose to study with already had an apprentice, so I just simply inquired in the next shop down which happened to be a goldsmith. They took me as an apprentice, but I really was more interested in my friends, sports, and just hanging out at the time. I have to say that I was still quite immature.

Jewelry became much more interesting to me when I was in the advanced technical college in Hanau, Germany. There, I began to get an idea of what jewelry could be beyond well-crafted pieces, good selling ideas, and old school tradition. I felt there was more potential and other values beyond the material based intentions in the jewelry making. Suddenly I noticed that it was possible approach a jewelry piece to criticize, comment, use, and narrate everything I can imagine. That made me very curious, and I continued to study in Munich. To make it short, not much has changed from the younger version of me, but now I feel like jewelry has turned into my playground, and I have begun to love that game.

Klimt02 Gallery, in Barcelona, Spain, is having an exhibition this month with Mari Ishikawa. Mari is Japanese but trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and now lives there. She was a Herbert Hofmann awardee in 2000 and the Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder Prize winner last year. Mari has shown far and wide and brings her special point of view to the jewelry she makes. Her show Landscape became an opportunity for an interview this month.

Susan Cummins: Can you tell me the story of how you discovered that you wanted to be a jeweler?

Mari Ishikawa: I worked as an interior designer in Japan. It was quite interesting, but the range was too limited. Jewelry gives me more artistic freedom. At the same time, the relationship that exists between the object, the person who wears it, and me is more personal and more intense in jewelry.