[video:https://youtu.be/KrJYpActs7g width:750 height:422 autoplay:0] In her recent piece for The Atlantic, Victoria Clayton refers to the “problem” of needlessly complex writing in academia. But this complexity is only a problem for those who don’t see a need for it. And nobody needs complexity more than academics. Big ideas need big words to express them. Concepts must […]
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Dushko Petrovich and Roger White, eds., Draw It with Your Eyes Closed: The Art of the Art Assignment. New York: Paper Monument, 2012. ISBN: 978-0979757549 Dushko Petrovich and Roger White, eds., Draw It with Your Eyes Closed: The Art of the Art Assignment (New York: Paper Monument, 2012). Draw It with Your Eyes Closed: The Art
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On May 15, the Jewellery Department of the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam hosted a one-day AJF event. Monica Gaspar and Suska Mackert were invited to give lectures. Afterward, both guests joined forces with the students in a collective brainstorm. The initial question, “What is the attitude that lies at the base of jewelry?” functioned as
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Damian Skinner and Kevin Murray, Place and Adornment: A History of Contemporary Jewellery in Australia and New Zealand. Auckland: David Bateman Ltd, 2014. ISBN: 0824846877 After seven years of collaborative research, Place and Adornment: A History of Contemporary Jewellery in Australia and New Zealand is now published, written by Damian Skinner from Aotearoa New
For the past 27 years, Galerie Marzee has held an annual show of graduate work from jewelry departments around the world. This year, 33 schools are represented. The amount of work Marie-José van den Hout, owner of the gallery, puts into assembling the show—year after year—is astonishing. She sees all the work in person and, when she can, actually visits each school to make her choices. This translates very little in the way of sales. Now, that is either very foolish, or an extremely passionate conviction about the need to show young jewelers’ work. She obviously believes that she is providing an important service to the whole field by assembling this show. Thank you, Marie-José, for your tireless efforts.
Susan Cummins: How long have you been doing the graduate show at your gallery?
Marie-José van den Hout: I began organizing the graduate show in 1987, when the gallery was still in the building on Ganzenheuvel. I started by showing graduate work from the departments of silversmithing, 3D design, and jewelry from only a few Dutch academies: Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Arnhem, and Maastricht’s Stadsacademie voor Toegepaste Kunsten. The exhibition has now grown into a major event and this year we are showing jewelry and some vessels by 74 students from 33 schools in 18 countries around the world.
Who received your Marzee prize this year? Where are they from?
Marie-José van den Hout: This year six graduates were awarded the Marzee Graduate Prize 2014. Their work really stood out to all of us here at Galerie Marzee, and we look forward to seeing how their work continues to develop as they begin their careers in the field of contemporary jewelry. As Marzee Graduate Prize winners, they will each be invited to participate in a workshop, Atelier Ravary, at the Ravary Estate in Belgium.
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As part of a new partnership with KLIMT02, this article has been publicized on their website under the label ‘the AJF feed’. Three more articles on the subject of criticality are being published this summer under this collaborative umbrella (the first one, by Moyra Elliott, is already out). —Benjamin Lignel In What Is a Good
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Matthieu Cheminée, a Canadian jeweler, focuses on the fundamental metalsmithing techniques that are practiced across the world today, with a focus on stamping and casting. From his early start learning from Native American silversmiths to studying with jewelers in West Africa to learning traditional jewelry-making techniques in Montreal, Matthieu is passionate about facilitating a collaboration of learning and teaching between jewelers. His recent show at L. A. Pai Gallery in Ottawa, Canada, called Stampclastic, coincides with the launch of his new book, Legacy: Jewelry Techniques of West Africa. Here Matthieu shares more about his background, career, and work in Africa.
Bonnie Levine: How did you get started as a jewelry designer? Was there someone or an experience that inspired you?
Matthieu Cheminée: My mother had a beautiful jewelry collection from all around the world, pieces that my dad would bring back from trips. She had bracelets from Afghanistan, crosses from Ethiopia, pendants from Peru, and more. I had always been attracted to them but my passion for the trade really started when I went to Taos, New Mexico, to visit an aunt when I was 17. I fell in love with all the Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni jewelry. Just before I turned 19, I moved to Taos from Paris to learn English and ended up learning jewelry making with great artisans. For almost seven years I made stamped bracelets and concho belts and I learned inlay and overlay.
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Exhibition view, hands and machines, installation, Mikiko Minewaki, 2007, H.P. FRANCE, Tokyo, photo: Otto Künzli Makiko Akiyama: Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up, where did you train, what is your current occupation? Mikiko Minewaki: I was born in Akita prefecture in 1967 and grew up in Kitaakita, a
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Teng Fei, In That Summer, 2007, necklace, silver, lacquer, 100 mm diameter, photo: Yao Lu Art and Jewelry, A Journey from Beijing to Berlin Teng Fei received a BA degree from CAFA in 1987, majoring in woodcuts, and afterward worked at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. In 1990, she went to Germany and completed
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Sarah Rhodes has been researching the role that practice plays in collaboration between designers and African grassroots craft producers, examining how craft and design practices can act as tools for communication and exchange. Exploring collaboration through making with two grassroots, Cape Town-based craft businesses—Imiso Ceramics and Kunye—a co-creation methodology for practice has developed, capitalizing on the differing
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In the wake of AJF Asia correspondent Anja Eichler’s profiles of Ubi Gallery and of professor Shannon Guo, we are happy to publish Eichler’s analysis of Professor Guo’s work. The author got access to the booming Chinese scene, and she is profiling for AJF those movers and shakers who are practically building it from the
Griddle Incense Ass—or—Lost in Translation Read More »
In 2013, Rutger Emmelkamp took over the direction of the jewelry department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. The success of the academy’s alumni, on the one hand, and the glowing reputation of the department’s former directors—Ruudt Peters, Iris Eichenberg, Manon van Kouswijk, and Suska Mackert—on the other, has made the “succession” a matter of
