Lisette Colijn: (Take a) Look at Me
Amsterdam must have more jewelry galleries per capita than any other place on earth and some of them, like Galerie Louise Smit, have been around for more than 25 years. This gallery helped to create an audience for contemporary jewelry both locally and internationally. Luckily for us, Monika Zampa has kept the gallery alive as Louise Smit retired. Best wishes to Louise and Robert Smit and may you enjoy the less frantic pace of your retired lives. In the meantime I wanted to know more about what Monika was planning.
Susan Cummins: You are a fairly new owner of a very old gallery. Can you tell us about how the transition took place between you and Louise Smit?
Monika Zampa: In the past I used to work in London as an investment banker, project manager and a deputy director for medium size company. Then I moved to Amsterdam, changed my life and started to study conceptual jewelry at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. In my last years of the studies, I realized that my combination of financial/organizational skills and passion for conceptual jewelry was rather unique. I thought that it could be perfectly applied in running the gallery. I approached Louise and offered my skills and knowledge if she would consider having a business partner. We started to talk, got to know each other and had lots of good times. Our cooperation began in September 2010 with the idea that I would be able to run the gallery on my own by 2011.
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