catching up on the last days of the trip-Pforzheim

After a great train trip into the country we arrived at Pforzheim to see the only museum in the world dedicated to jewellery. It covered a great range of work from 2400BC to the present day as well as tools and techniques, jewellery from non-western cultures and the history of jewellery making in Pforzheim.
To see such a great breath of styles and making was a real treat for me as pictures in books are good but never quite capture everything no matter how close up you get.
Highlights for me were seeing the pre-medieval and medieval jewellery sections, the monumental papal and Jewish wedding rings, memento mori rings especially the snake ring made out of human hair and other hair jewellery, and the mosaic jewellery.
I really like rings as you just probably gathered from that last line but I have a feeling that my work for this project will not be based around a ring form but from something I had seen at the Treasury.
After getting a photo in front of the most amazing tool collection ever seen,  we went off and actually bought a few from Carl Fischer and another store in town.
Clare

catching up on the last days of the trip-Munich

Since we had nothing planned as such on Tuesday I took myself to see where the royalty of Bavaria used to live-The Residence. Here you can view both the rooms where various rulers once lived and conducted their business and in a separate area some of the amazing workmanship of The Treasury. After days of viewing contemporary jewellery it was great to then go back and see where jewellery and object originated from. As the people chosen to create these pieces were the some of the best in regards to quality of  workmanship to observe this was great as especially in Australia work of this quality is a little thin on the ground.
To give an example of the workmanship shown, there was a rosary betnuss which was a round box that when opened had about four panels folded inside of it and which was carved in minute detail with scenes taken from the bible in boxwood. Further information given stated that the time taken to carve it all was approximately fifteen years! That is dedication to your craft.
The jewellery and regalia were no less impressive but were of the time that they created in, using gold and beautiful stones. I preferred the look  of the medieval-based jewellery as it has both the mark of the marker on the pieces and also they didn't try to make everything in perfect symmetry but worked with a stones natural shape as opposed to say jewellery from the 19th century where stones were faceted and of more regular shape and size. This reminded me of a kind of homogenised, go-anywhere-look that could be found in any court in Europe, H&M of their day perhaps?
While many people going through seemed only seemed interested in the shiny, pretty and sparkly stuff, there were other items that were just as interesting for me. There was a room that showed off an impressive collection of rock crystal carved tableware that had been etched and engraved, and also tableware craved out of stone such as malachite. Some pieces were so thin that you wondered how many had been broken so just one could be created.
The Residence itself was no less impressive and the room that stood out was the reliquary, where from centuries of collecting there was pieces of bodies and items belonging to saints and people from the bible. The work for housing the items was no less impressive than that in the Treasury but I guess in our more secular times also a little disturbing especially the coffin displayed in the middle of the room that housed an infants body. For me it was sad as well for it felt as though these people, whoever they were, hadn't been given a chance to rest in peace.
Clare

All images taken from The Treasury, Munich.

A Thankyou

Over the time we have been travelling, we have met some amazing people, both artists and gallery owners and seen some amazing works. We have had some amazing experiences, not only did we get to meet these people we had previously only read or heard about but many of them also invited us into their studios and galleries, into their world, to share their knowledge with us. I would like to thank all of those people who we met overseas who contributed to the success of our trip. We have been provided with valuable experiences and knowledge that we can now use in our own development and making.

Of course none of this would have been possible without Karin. Thank you so much for all of the work you put into organising this trip. It has been amazing and we have all learnt so much! I hope that other studios and other years can learn from our trip and use it to base other trips on. This was a fantastic oppertunity to learn in a totally new and foregin environment. I am astounded by the amount of information I have been exposed to, the amount I have absorbed and the amount I am yet to still process.

Hannah

Catching up with my past few days.

Monday we have visited Helen Britton, David Beilander.

David Beilander is originally from Switzerland, having goldsmith trained and studied at the Munich academy, He has explained about his making and there were a lot of interesting points have been mentioned.

What’s interest me was that when he describe his process of making, he think of the idea first and then look for the material for it, for example his sausage neck piece made out of the back of Thonet bentwood chair. How would you think this! Sorry for my terrible assumption that I thought that was some sort of already made plastic toy! his work is very  tricky and an element of humor. He describe that how European history of ornamentation is more and more and too much of detail so there for he reduced element through the process of making, how he transform the material by process of making but keep how simple it can be without loosing the detail, in comparison Helen’s work which is s intricate and detailed, more like constriction which is very different approach to David. Both have very different approaches to contemporary jewellery making but at the same time the most important things for them is that the importance of wearability. Jewellery have to be wearable and then it not a jewellery.

Their works are coming to gallery Funaki in later this year; I would like to see the show very much.

Wednesday Pforzheim, visiting real schmuck museum!

We have caught a train about 3 hours. My experience of schmuck museum was amazing.

Was so lucky to be able to see old jewellery, collections, so many amazing craftsmanship, so many details, was just so mind-blowing… baroque of jewellery, rococo, medieval, mourning jewels. All of them were stunning. I love the color of rich orange gold and the combination of colorful precious stones…. I also enjoyed seeing very old Egyptian jewels too.

I was just mind-blowing to see what human can create these delicate and finest tiny details,

It was very interesting to see the technique and ornamentation of jewellery after seeing new different approach to jewellery. But yet I believe something is same, the somebody spend time to produce something so beautiful for somebody, is such a beautiful things.

I had wonderful trip for two weeks and I am very looking forward to going back to my bench.

 s

The end

We come to an end of a wonderful journey filled with laughter, intrigue, culture and of course jewellery. Have been awe struck by the works and talent of these contemporary jewellers, I have been pushed to broaden myself as a jeweller, and have been given the hope that the possibilities are endless when it comes to the creative mind. I am a dreamer, this journey has been my dream, an other world of experience, fantasy, imagination, absorbing itself into my mind, to be released throughout my life when it is needed, a bottled history of knowledge just waiting to be shared! Can not wait to see where this dream will lead me.....

Some unforgettable highlights:

Some Photo highlights.

I love taking photos and I am constantly running to catch up to the group after pausing to take a photo of something. After reviewing some of the photos I have taken I realised just how many I had taken of nature. Maybe its because its constantly surrounding us or perhaps its because of its vast difference from home, I don't feel the need to work out why. Here are some of my favorites.

In the Flower Market, Amsterdam

A bird in the Albert Cuypstraat, Amsterdam

A duck in the English Gardens, Munich

Small bird in the English Gardens, Munich

A swan lands on the lake in the English Gardens

Daffodils in Pforzheim

Munich Sunset

A market flower in Munich

Schmuck Museum Pforzheim

Today we travelled to Pforzheim by train, which took about  3 hours, to visit the Schmuck Museum. I was really looking forward to see antique and traditional jewellery because I was little bit overwhelmed by observing contemporary jewellery over the past 2 weeks. Once I got into the museum, I was surprised and extremely excited to see all different jewellery tools in one place which was displayed on a wall. In front of it, different collection of contemporary jewellery and then Art deco, Art Nourvo, Jugendstil movement, renaissance, baroque of jewellery and ornamental watches were collected with a huge display and each explanation of its collection. It was a shame that we couldn’t get the photos of it which it was painful to remember each one of historical collections. The pieces were amazing. I was fascinated by their finest element of details and exquisite handwork with figurative ornamentation, especially on precious stone setting, enamelling on precious metals, and also their designs by each different periods of time. It was interesting to see the development and transformation of design and techniques of jewellery, which somehow became more complex and feminist idea in some way. I compared myself between historic and contemporary jewellery which are that firstly historical and antique jewelleries were made in different purpose and idea, to expressed cultural, religious, feminism, mourning, self-beauty and wealth of their family etc, whereas, as the technology development have changed the whole idea of purpose of making, it became more broad and gave spaces to express certain concepts of our own characteristics and ideas. Where precious metals such as silver and gold, and precious stones were easy to obtain at that time, these days the high price in precious metals affected in some way to buy them, therefore part of jeweller artists began to create and seek for their own kinds to make jewellery. It is hardly to find jewellery with finest ornamentation and details engraved on pieces these days and see less technical expression on ornaments than previous jewellery. Even if there was, mostly are done by the machine or use the power of technology to create pieces. It may some point that we are becoming inactive of making of jewellery that requires finest detail or whatever that is in techniques and finding easy way of making i.e. for example mass-production. However, using technology in contemporary or non-contemporary field doesn’t mean it is bad thing and I think of this as one part of the development in jewellery field, where we are in 21^st century. I hope this won’t get excessive on applying technology into jewellery and sometimes it is easy and better to think in mind of craftsmanship of the past because contemporary jewellery movement wouldn’t be exist without development from historic jewellery, which has a beginning and an end.  

It was pleasant to see huge collections of them which reminded me to think back of the origin of jewellery, and look back of its history.