Some of the Fingers members, from left to right: Alan Preston, Ruth Baird, Andrea Daly, Roy Mason. Damian Skinner: Next year Fingers will be celebrating 40 years, which possibly makes you the oldest gallery of contemporary jewelry in the world. What is the secret of such longevity? Alan Preston: I am not sure what the […]
Fingers, Auckland, New Zealand Read More »
Mobilia Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, has been exclusively representing Mariko Kusumoto for many years. The gallery is owned and run by the sisters Joanne and Libby Cooper. They represent many major craft artists in a variety of media but jewelry has always had a strong presence. Mariko exists on the edge of jewelry making. In other words she sometimes makes jewelry but she mainly makes magical boxes and sometimes they contain jewelry. Her fertile imagination and unusual background have lead to some wonderful pieces, which we will discuss in this interview.
Susan Cummins: You have told the story many times that you were raised in Japan in a Buddhist temple and then moved to the United States. How old were you when you moved?
Mariko Kusumoto: I was 23 years old.
Did you study jewelry and metal work here or in Japan? Tell us about your training.
Mariko Kusumoto: I attended a high school that offered a fine art major, where I learned the basic skills of drawing, sculpture, design and painting. After that I went to Musashino Art College in Tokyo. For the first two years, my major was oil painting and then I transferred to printmaking, focusing on etching. I moved to San Francisco and attended the Academy of Art University, where I pursued printmaking. However right before I graduated, I took a book art class and also beginner and intermediate jewelry and small metal art sculpture classes, which completely changed my direction from two-dimensional work to three-dimensional. I’m not a printmaker anymore but I use etching techniques for much of my work. When I was into printmaking, I was always fascinated by etched metal more than by the printed images on the paper.
Galerie Spektrum in Munich, Germany, is having an exhibition this month with Nanna Melland. For the second interview in his series, Aaron Decker talks with Nanna and so, with a bit of synchronicity, we will post this interview to accompany her show. Nanna is a Norwegian jeweler of real intensity. And Aaron is a recent graduate who is using a CCCD (Center for Craft, Creativity and Design) grant to travel in Europe and interview artists.
Aaron Decker: Where did you grow up?
Nanna Melland: I grew up in Norway, Oslo, a country of natural extremes. From extreme cold and darkness to extreme brightness and almost extreme heat. As a child, I lived two years in Spain with my family.
Were you introduced to jewelry early on?
Nanna Melland: My father was a painter. He made his living from it. I grew up with that as a possibility. Tone Vigeland, the jewelry artist, was a friend of my parents and she liked my fathers painting, so they swapped. She would get a painting and my mother would get a piece of jewelry from her. From a very early age, I would recognize my mothers whereabouts from the sound of her Tone Vigeland bracelets. Tone Vigeland was my first encounter with contemporary jewelry. She started in the field of craft and now she has ended up in sculpture. Without that link, I do not think I would have gone into contemporary jewelry myself. When I decided to go into the arts, it was difficult to start painting because my father was a painter, so I began with jewelry and it felt very familiar.
Where did you study?
Nanna Melland: Well, many places. Do you mean jewelry school?
Yes.
Nanna Melland: I first started in a craft school in Oslo and finished a journeyman exam. Then I continued with jewelry design at a school in Copenhagen, Denmark –which by the way I didn’t finish. I only stayed for one year and discovered that I was not a designer. Finally I finished my studies at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, where I studied with Professor Otto Künzli for six and a half years.
Exterior Shot of Heidi Lowe Gallery Damian Skinner: How long have you been running a gallery? Heidi Lowe: It will be seven years on July 31, 2012. Your building looks kind of special. What is its history, and how did you come to occupy it? It’s a cute 500 square foot cottage from the 1940s. It
Heide Lowe Gallery, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware Read More »
Galleries exhibiting jewelry are an important part of our community and the people who run them have interesting backgrounds and stories to tell. In this interview Rosemarie Jaeger from Galerie Rosemarie Jaeger in Hochheim, Germany answered some questions posed by Damian Skinner. Galerie Rosemarie Jaeger Rosemarie Jaeger: The house and adjoining buildings date from 1742,
Galerie Rosemarie Jaeger, Hochheim, Germany Read More »
Atinuj Atty Tantivit Damian Skinner: How long have you been running a gallery? Atty Tantivit: Just about a year. We opened our doors at the end of August 2010 but had an official opening on November 11, 2010. Where did your interest in contemporary jewelry come from? I have always loved wearing jewelry. Growing up
Atta Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand Read More »
Aaron Decker recently approached AJF to publish some interviews with jewelers on the blog. He is a recent graduate of Maine College of Art where he received a BFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing. During his final year he was selected as one of ten Windgate Fellowship Grant recipients for 2012. This award is sponsored by the Center for Craft, Creativity and Design and given to outstanding emerging artists in the field of craft. The Award allows young artists to establish a studio practice and expand their work after school. With the grant, Aaron hopes to experience the diversity of jewelers working in Europe by researching their work, practices and environments within which the work is made. He has chosen to concentrate mainly on Portugal, but also on jewelers he meets during his study. The research manifests itself as interviews with artists and organizations that we have elected to publish on the AJF blog. This interview with Leonor Hipolito from Lisbon, Portugal is the first that we will post during the next few months.
Aaron Decker: When did you start studying jewelry?
Leonor Hipolito: 1994. I started studying sculpture in Lisbon, Portugal at Ar.Co (School of Art and Visual Communication) and had a technical education at School Contacto Directo. I wanted to continue with sculpture, but then I switched to jewelry. I was very focused on the relationship of the objects towards the body and jewelry deals with both, the scale and portability. I find it interesting that an idea disseminates through an object that travels, while larger sculptures often are static and may only work in a specific environment. Jewelry is an art form that is in a constant clash with different environments.
Galerie Pont en Plas is owned and run by Nicole Thienpont and last April the AJF blog featured an interview with Gesine Hackenberg, who was having a show with her at that time. This month, Malvine Marichal’s strange and wonderful work is in the gallery. There was a bit of a language barrier with this interview but I hope I have correctly translated their thoughts.
Susan Cummins: Nicole, what is your background and what led you to start a gallery?
Nicole Thienpont: My first degree was in chemistry at the University of Gent. In my language the degree is called ‘licentiate in chemistry.’ So for me the melting of metals and the experience in laboratories is very familiar. In 2002 I decided to start the gallery Pont & Plas in Gent, Belgium, with an emphasis on contemporary jewelry. My decision to begin the gallery was based on several things. In 1987 I graduated from the Academy of Art in Antwerp with a degree in art jewelry. In 2002 a dream space in Gent became free. It was just below my studio. I had been thinking that we urgently needed more places to exhibit the new jewelry young people were making. So it didn’t take too long to come to the conclusion that I should grab the space.
I understand from your website that you show many different art forms. How does jewelry fit in?
Nicole Thienpont: The emphasis lies on jewelry. There are about 30 people showing contemporary jewelry, national and international. Four times a year there is a special exhibition of glass, ceramics, paintings, drawings, photography and mixed media, designed to interact with the permanent presence of jewelry.
Malvine Marichal: Pro-Forma Read More »
Quirk Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, is showing the work of two wonderfully unique makers named Kim Overstreet and Robin Kranitzky. They have worked together for years and I have always wondered how they got together and how they think about the stories they tell with their jewelry. This show was an opportunity to ask them some questions and find out. Maggie Smith who is the Exhibitions Director at Quirk Gallery also gave us some insight into the beginnings of the gallery.
Susan Cummins: Tell me the story of how Quirk Gallery got started.
Maggie Smith: Katie Ukrop opened Quirk in 2005 in an upcoming section of Richmond’s downtown area. There were a few galleries already located in our neighborhood. The area has continued to grow and recently became recognized as the Richmond’s Arts & Culture District. I joined Katie and the Quirk gang in 2007. Being a Richmond native I have felt very lucky to be a part of the cultural growth that is happening in our city.
Can you describe your space?
Quirk is a unique space in that we have three designated exhibition areas, as well as a shop and Quirk Represents. Quirk Represents is an area reserved specifically for art jewelry. Our exhibition areas are The Shop Wall, The Main Gallery and The Vault. Throughout the year we show jewelry in all three spaces. The Vault is tiny little brick room with a lovely weathered fire door. There are several stories as to what the Vault used to be. My personal favorite is that it stored hops during the building’s brewery days.
Robin Kranitzky and Kim Overstreet Read More »
Last October 2012, at the time of the opening of the Rita J and Stanley H Kaplan Family Foundation Gallery at the Boston MFA, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Yvonne Markowitz, the museum’s curator of jewelry. (You can read a review of the Kaplan gallery’s first exhibition, Jewels, Gems, and
Yvonne Markowitz, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Read More »
Platina in Stockholm, Sweden, is owned and run by Sofia Björkman, who was educated as a jeweler. Her choice of artists includes jewelers from Sweden but also a very select group from other countries. For the past couple of months the gallery has been showing Iris Eichenberg’s exhibition Sense Mapping. Iris is a force on the jewelry scene and a hard one to pin down. Have a look at Gabriel Craig’s interview with her that was published on the AJF website a few months ago and continue reading to find out more about Platina and Eichenberg’s new exhibition.
Susan Cummins: Please tell us the story of how you became a gallery owner in Stockholm.
Sofia Björkman: I took my MFA 1998 as a jewelry maker. At that time there were no galleries in Stockholm that supported graduating students and we knew very little about the international jewelry world. We learned how to make things but not what was waiting for us after graduation. So I had to start up something I believed in and where I felt free. In 1999, one year after graduation, I started up PLATINA together with two friends. Today I run it myself. After the studies we needed income. So we asked some interior designers to make a shop. We sold our jewelry and we asked artists we liked if we could sell their work too. A month later we did our first exhibition. PLATINA became a gallery, a shop and a studio but we did everything under the name PLATINA.
Iris Eichenberg: Sense Mapping Read More »
Envision a four-storey high jewelry gallery. It seems mythological and is hard to imagine but Galerie Marzee is proof that it can exist. The owner, Marie-Jose van den Hout, has an ambitious vision for her gallery. It was founded in 1978, moved into the current building in 1995 and since then has specialized in presenting contemporary jewelry at the highest levels. While sipping on her beloved Illy espresso she answered some questions for the AJF blog. She often runs several solo shows at once and in July I picked out the artist Antje Bräuer from Germany to interview. Her work was especially mysterious.
Susan Cummins: Marie- Jose, what led you to create a four-storey high jewelry gallery in a smallish town in the middle of the Netherlands?
Marie Jose Van Den Hout: Well, I started my gallery in Nijmegen. This is my second move and my third building. The Town Council of Nijmegen wanted to create a cultural destination for this building and asked me if I was interested. I would never be able to get a building like this anywhere else in Holland. Actually, the original intent for the building was for it to be demolished and sold to Holiday Inn to build a hotel, but the Town Council decided otherwise. When I bought the space it was a mere skeleton. Bert Dirrix, the architect I hired to shape the gallery, designed some museums. We chose simple materials – concrete, glass and steel – and kept the original walls. Traces of its former life as a grain warehouse still remain in the building today. Above all, I wanted to give the jewelry room to breathe, in the same way that any fine art gallery would display their works of art. With Marzee, my original intention was to display jewelry alongside the different disciplines of art and design. But I found that people tend to take you more seriously if you specialize. Now that I have made a name for myself, I collaborate with the largest fine arts gallery in Holland, Nouvelles Images. We exchange exhibitions – I receive work from, say, a sculptor and they receive work by a jeweler – so that in the end I am able to achieve the diversity I always aspired to represent.
Antje Bräuer, Jewelry Read More »
