Category Archives: Style

Nora Rochel

I discovered the artist as one might discover an unusual flower taking a walk through the woods.  Towering and obscuring the sunlight, the pillars of our man-made world tap deep into the soil and drink up surface resources until all that remains are smooth clearings, lightly carpeted with the needles begrudgingly sprinkled by the monarchy above.  In this setting, with eyes wide open, it is hard to miss the sparkling white flower of the smaller parts that are defiant in their scarcity, but homogenous in their rest upon the substrate that supports all structures great and small.  This is how I encountered her work, for its working, its inventive handling of the metal (such as the whitening of the silver, and the depthening of the brass), the organic order/disorder and delicacy that is described by her manipulation of the metals… these were both obvious and rewarding, true treasures to find.

Not surprising, then, to read Rochel’s statement and discover that she is motivated by the medicinal and the philosophical in the natural world.  She gives a nod to the medicinal for both its storied traditions and its implied references to time, “with its roots at the very beginning of human history or even before.”  The artist works with organic form the way one might work with abstract painting – to disturb the smoothness, to disturb the square – not for the sake of obliteration but to unveil further distrbutions of ordering concealed in the vitality of things a stage before their manufacture into tools.  Her pieces are not instruments or possessions, but distillations of essentials alive in the saps and flowers of her subjects.

The artist adventures across mediums in her pursuit.  When her metalsmithing strikes the chord she is after, the tone reaches ears and is picked up.  We can only hope these successes drive her further into her investigation.

Artist’s Website:  nora-rochel.de

Bernard Instone

A jeweler who found his way through the ordinary channels of the English school system, who scholar-shipped his way directly to his occupation. At the age of 22 he was already teaching and making his own commissions. His practice was interrupted during which he fought in the Great War. It was said his character was steely, that he would challenge his sons to duels if they disagreed with him, and that he was prone to stand on his head at 70 to prove his stoutness. He ran two shops later in his life, which sold both paintings and jewelry.

Doves

Taxco the Magic Town

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Now a legend among collectors and a destination for Mexico’s wealthy and jewelry enthusiasts, the town of Taxco has made a name for itself in the world of silver, weaving past and present through the imagination of artisans.

The town is referred to as one of Mexico’s ‘magic towns’. Taxco is small city in the state of Guerrero, built near Atatzin Mountain. Its name in Nahuatl (the Aztec language) means Place of the Ballgame, referring to the spectator sport enjoyed throughout the pre-Columbian civilizations, likely played there as it was a seat for the local Aztec governor.  A silver mine, now nearly depleted, has operated continuously since that time, with the working of the metal traditionally taking place in the vicinity as well. The new town built by Cortez closer to the mine is rugged and steep, twisting roads paved with darks and light stones to form mosaics including images from the zodiac. It is a place with a continuous line into the past: despite government intervention, the locals still practice an array of local customs, including a fondness for penitent processions.  Wearing hoods they conduct various activities involving chains, rosaries with sharp spikes, thorns, whipping, or the carrying of heavy objects.  It’s said they are carried on for their affinity to the regular blood rituals of the Aztecs.

In the late 1920′s, on a recommendation from a friend at the embassy, an American named William Spratling arrived in Taxco with the express purpose of setting up a jewelry workshop to revive the native reputation for silver in the area. A renaissance man, he had practiced architecture, participated in southern literary circles counting among his friends William Faulkner, and later became a champion of Mexican artists, Diego Rivera in particular, arranging most of the important New York shows for them. Hiring a local goldsmith and using Mesoamerican design principles, Spratling’s venture in Taxco far surpassed his wildest expectations. What originally was conceived as a modest jewelry shop in a picturesque mountain town became a massive apprenticeship system drawing and training talent from throughout the region. Essentially part of the same wave of economy and popular interest that fueled Arts and Crafts and similar movements in other parts of the world, an additional boost arrived when the European war interrupted supplies and placed Mexico in the spotlight for producing luxury goods. Trying to capitalize on this Spratling made a public offering and wound up losing control of his company. Nevertheless the system held, and many of his artisans went on to found workshops and design houses of their own that remain in operation. Their work and imitations of the unique regional style developed in Taxco can be found in antique shops throughout the Americas. It is denoted by sets of full, heavy repousse work, especially cuffs and bracelets and broad expressive necklaces, or as flat patterned enamel or mosaic inlay pieces. The work runs a spectrum between modern style and direct Mesoamerican reference, and generally features elaborate maker’s and quality marks, and the town’s name.

The Signet

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Seal of Roman Emperor Augustus (the Imperial “Whelping Sphinx”)

One of my favorite subjects of jewelry, the signet or intaglio ring can act like a time-capsule of personal identity.  They were once so common they are like the signatures of ghosts left to sprinkle ancient dwelling houses.  Like a stone fingerprint, like the 3-digit security code on the back of your cards, these rings were used to seal documents or sign them by pressing their mark into a patch of wax.  Their designs were usually carved intaglio into the ring’s stone, so their impressions left a raised relief design.  Later, as they fell into disuse, their metal would be melted down or reused, the little carved stones tossed aside having little value, to be discovered in abundance by archaeologists or traded endlessly as pocket curios of the Classical world.

These seals were often worn as rings, in order to conduct routine business, and are remembered today as the signet ring.  The contemporary signet frequently bears an inscription or a seal of some significance – though rarely in modern times are they a reverse imprint designed for wax, and if so purely nostalgic.  Signet rings still retain the suggestion of authority, whether a masonic ring, a class ring or a family crest,  or at its most minimal describes a heavy ring with a large flat stone.

Minoan Signet Ring

The origins of the signature seal are very ancient, many thousands of years.  Ancient Mesopotamia preferred a cylinder seal that pressed or unrolled a small vignette onto wax and clay plates.  Historians describe an ancient Babylon where not a person was without a cylinder seal on a ring or hanging around their neck.

Assortment of early seals.

In ancient Egypt, a glittering example of their characteristic design sense, scarabs served the same purpose.  A scarab, a symbol of the heart and the sun, served as one face, the other served for carved intaglio writing and was typically flat.  Perhaps this served some religious significance – there was a strong belief that one’s name, ren, was a sacred thing to be protected – maybe the rotating scarab-heart served to ‘cover’ the name.  They are so abundant each of has likely seen one.  A person can find these small signatory scarabs in any history museum, while little cast replicas in colored glass and simulated blue faience are easily found in bead shops all over the world.

Egyptian Scarab Rings

The signature stones were widespread among many cultures, from Persia to Phoenicia, Greece to Egypt, while seals in general were in use throughout the world.  Their function in business affairs create specialty shops, with gem carver being an encountered occupation in the Classics  A skilled carver’s quality and style enhances the security by being easier to authenticate visually.  The best seals were elaborate works of art, but many were cut in glass.  Roman glassmaking was at one time traded throughout the known world, including seals, introducing waves of generic counterfeits and intaglio stones that were purely decorative for trade.

Assorted Roman gold signet rings.

 

Silver Roman signet ring

Signet rings then can provide a more personal glimpse of economic activity that coins alone can provide.  They show that during the same period of heightened trade, a variety of amulet stones also appear, and this is where the story grows interesting.  During the syncretic time period of Alexandrian Egypt, where many cultures lived side by side, familiar cultural motifs of writing and themes of religion and myth began to take on colloquial, magical and cult themes.  We see numerous soft stones that are crudely cut with incantations, symbols that display chimeras and magic diagrams, incantations and palindromes.  There were also symbols of newly forming religions, and hybrids of converging cultures, including Christianity.  It is as though the intaglio signet had for many become a kind of personalized charm or amulet, while also serving as a statement of membership to a group.  Or it may simply be the continuation of an Egyptian customary identity.

Typical Greek-Egyptian fusion, here of Anubis and Hermes with incantations.

Early Christian Intaglio

One of the greatest mysteries of antiquity is the multitude of Alexandrian signet stones that bear the unusual word ‘abrasax’, sometimes ‘abraxas’.  Its origin remains unclear, and frequently it depicts an array of unusual characters that do not directly tie to any modern religious context.  From the inscription the word ‘Abracadabra’ still lingers, and the large numbers of these mysterious stones were scattered across the world, and into the ring fittings and curio cabinets of many fascinated admirers who had heard the legend that they bestowed supernatural powers.  Stones with this word have some of decorative art’s most mysterious characters engraved on them: a rooster headed figure with a flail and snakes for legs,  or the lion or Apollo headed snake (‘the good spirit’), or Harpocrates, the child-god of silence and secrecy, later confused with and immortalized as the common garden cherub.  Scholars group these together as Gnostic gems after a religious movement that has largely vanished from historic record.   Perhaps they relate to the legendary libraries and schools, the orpheums and museums, which were destroyed repeatedly.  The Abraxas stones are uncanny and unique, and mixed in with their contemporaries comprise such a magical pile of jewels they have attracted ages of mystique and curiosity for the time they were created.

The signet stones continued to be in use for centuries longer.  At the end of the Sassanid empire, the rule of Islam produced its own abundance of carved rings using Arabic script, which is well suited to ornamental gemstone carving.  Among these stones carnelian was especially favored from Mughal India to North Africa.  The Mughals took gemstone carving seriously, most famously with the enormous 5×4 cm ‘Moghul Emerald’.

Islamic Signet Rings

 

Through the middle ages elaborate seals continued to be used in by nobles and clergy but generally declined in regular trade use in the form of signet rings.  Beginning in the renaissance ancient intaglios, which were widely collected as curiosities, became an enduring fad in jewelry, strung together in necklaces, remounted in rings, and put together as ‘charm’ bracelets.  Collectors also traded plaster imprints of the stones from their elaborate cabinets.

Intaglio collection remounted

Even as professional habits and modes of expression changed, the signet ring’s mystique, suggestion of antiquity, and air of importance has retained a certain validity in use.  It lives on as the well known style of ring with its broad flat face, often still serving as a stock engraving blank or bearing a suggestive yet anonymous seal design, or a trophy of membership.

Contemporary Onyx Signet by Stephen Einhorn

The popular black onyx blank slate has its own curious place in the story, apparently inspired in some way by Victorian mourning jewelry.  It is a multi-cultural survivor carrying on a 4,000 year place among ornaments.

When an insignia is used today, etching directly into the metal is the preferred signet, leaving the lost ancient trade of cutting intaglio gemstones to be practiced strictly as a preservationist art.

Adone T Pozzobon hand engraved masonic caduceus ring

· Miel-Margarita Paredes ·

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The irrepressable Miel-Margarita Paredes is a gift to us all, hailing from Wisconson.  Her repousse and fabrication ingenuity have resulted in pieces that are as suited to gallers walls as they are to craft museum displays.  Anyone familiar with repousse will instantly note the quality, skill and difficulty of the projects gives have life to – what we are observing here is a prodigy, able to produce work that takes many years of practice for others.  In particular, her functional items are displays of skillfully finding the imaginative plasticity of the metal, such as her “Ruminant Pillbox”,  her exquisite bird and octopus teapots, her toys, and her “Luna Moth Tea Infuser”.  Fortunately, this artist’s career is just beginning, and her energy (a vital component of a metal worker) promises much more to come.

Artist’s Website:  http://www.mielmargarita.com

Huguenin

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I have yet to uncover any biographical details of this Swiss family name, other than to discern that during the turn of the 20th century medal sculpting must have been a family affair. Henri-Édouard seems to be the most productive. I primarily wished to share this work for their purpose is today rather novel – these are awards for accomplishments of basic living, decorated with humanistic deities and nymphs – the progress and mere existence of modern living standards would appear to have reached near spiritual proportions of celebration. It was a peculiar combination of social-realism and erotic tokens that somehow describes the marketing zeitgeist of the burgeoning industrial age.

In artwork, the rise of science and technology was frequently paired with fanciful illustations of ancient metaphor; this neo-classical rendering was perhaps an emphasis of Newtonian triumph.  The early scientists worked under significant repression from the church, something that was freshly in mind during these times, leading to a popular sense that science had uncovered a more authentic ‘divinity of nature’.  This created a cultural connection between the wisdom of ancient, previously suppressed philosophers, their myth-making imagery, and modern progress.  A curious juxtaposition that captures the sense of excitement during a brief window in history.  The wonder of human invention would lose much of its glamour as the world wars approached.

It just makes one contemplate how things have changed. This was spurred by my mother discovering in a box of things a little gold medal I had won once for extemporaneous speaking. I admired the coarse ‘realness’ that it had compared to computer drafted engraving goods these days, and the little blank ribbon waiting for my engraved initials. As with this family of medalists, in addition to commissions for governments and institutions the artists regularly produced blank trophy items – agricultural scenes for market shows, family scenes to celebrate weddings and childbirth. These items would be hand engraved with names, inscriptions and dates. Hand engraving was an art, and a few decades before this period comprised a major part of independent jeweling.

 

Students graduating from the Marseille School of Decorative Arts were awarded with a medal of a woman removing her blouse ribbon.

 

Electricity, a common medallic theme in this time period, here celebrated with a floating nymph whose diaphanous shroud is pulled away, entangled in the new power lines.

A flowing toga on a victorious goddess is used to illustrate prudence.

I am guessing this is a brewery.

Here a goddess of progress, indicated by her Amazonian height, is showing the scientists around the labratory.

The hydroelectric dam.

Hospitals, symbolized by a goddess of health in scanty nightwear with a dish of fresh fruit.

Neptune himself attended the ceremony for stormdrain installation in Bern.

Pre-Columbian Columbian Gold

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It is staggering to imagine what treasures were lost during the centuries of Spanish colonization of the Americas, during which they thoroughly reworked the cultural makeup of an entire continent, destroying most evidence of what came before.  We know from the few remaining documents that there were once libraries of poetry, science and philosophical writings.  It is not much of a stretch to consider the previously eroded Maya to be at an equal development with Ancient Greece, while in the time of Cortez the Aztecs were beginning a sweeping consolidation that could resemble the rise of the Roman Empire.  It was said that the galleons were filled with gold ingots, anything shiny being melted down, the complexity of workmanship clumsily described by a few sailors.  We will never know, which is of course much the same with the treasures of past cultures throughout – Vikings and Romans raided Celt gold, melted it down to make their own artifacts, and like the remnants of gold-work in Latin America, we are left to imagine the full scope through survivor pieces, generally found in graves and sacred places that miraculously escaped centuries of potential looters.

What I’ve found looking at the gold-work thus far, is that two regions that appear to have been the most exceptional, one in Costa Rica, the other in Columbia.  Gold is actually a wonderful material to work with for a tribal setting – unlike other metals, it can be hammered endlessly into a fine foil without it growing brittle and cracking.  It was used a sacred artisan supply and not as a currency.  With the Columbian work, we even have the privilege of differentiating tribal styles, and comparing them to existing tribes that have surviving comparable work.   As you might expect, the scope of distinction and style is broad and wonderful.  The Calima and Tolima work stands out as advanced as a direct result of a thriving trade system that rewarded their style.  Some have guessed that part of this dynamis results in coming from the ‘hot lands’, where the fruit is sweet and strong, the water plentiful, and the shamanic substances are particularly effective.  The gold work comes from along a river where the boulders are covered in carved glyphs for miles.  I will write more on this area of gold shortly.  For now, have a look at their marvelous renderings of rainforest life, and consider that this is but a small taste of what once was.

Peer Smed

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One can get a sense of how the lives of artisans have changed in a few generations time through little suggestive windows left from the turn of the century. Candid home snapshots start appearing, indexed documents are more easily found. Without too much information, the life or Peer Smed was a successful one. The son of a blacksmith, he moved to New York from Copenhagen, where the silversmith guilds would help promising artisans emigrate for fear of having a surplus in their countries. He occupied one studio and never left it, having five children several of whom grew up working with him. His work was held in museums during his lifetime, and he contributed architectural elements throughout the city. He lost a daughter when she was 18.

Dragon Triskelion

What is striking to me is the stability (standard of living) for the memorable metal artists of this time – from residency, to commission, to family and home. By contrast, a modern metal artisan may choose their trade arbitrarily out of interest, is very briefly trained at great personal expense, and is left to seek their fortune as an entrepreneur. Their skills frequently have little outlet among modern products (Peer Smed would make silverware and table services, for instance). For contemporaries the establishment of a permanent studio and a family is often delayed for a long period of time. This is not to say that every metalsmith of his day was of the calibre of Peer Smed, but one can see a distinction between a recent history of holistic cultural integration in the trade, and the literally radical and novel market based challenges today. Which is to say, an individual that understakes the approach of fine craft today, especially as an adult, is possessed of a good measure of courage.

Repousse

Repousse

Ring

Squirrel

Most of these images as you can see, are from a site that has an interesting bio page including photographs, I recommend you take a look and perhaps reflect on similar things: Peer Smed

Into The Brooch

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Everyone knows what a brooch pin is.  But what is it?  For the jeweler, it’s the closest one can come to making a free-standing sculptural piece.  It can be shallow relief or three dimensions, and is often the fate of any object that is created without a clear idea of its use beforehand.  All it requires is a pin of some kind to affix it to the front of a wearer’s garment.

Truth be told, the brooch has come pretty far, from its purely ornamental role today the namesake describes a typically hefty style of pin used to fasten one’s cloak or robe.  A few thousand years ago, these were more common than a pair of shoes. Not to be mistaken with a fibula, which is the exact same thing, but describes a slightly different mechanism that was favored by the Romans.  The brooch was popular among the other tribes, the Celts and such, and curiously we have opposing names for cloak pins between old enemies – empire and tribe.  We don’t use either word today for ‘fastener’, but the brooch pin does survive in a symbolic sense.  Jewelers will also be familiar with the word broach, which is a sharpened needle-like tool used to bore out the inside of rings and tubing.  It comes from the Old (Celt) French word for pin.

Here are a few images of the original brooch pins; to the sympathetic eye they provide rarified glimpses at a long and continent wide vocabulary of ornament that was largely chopped up (hacksilver is an archaeological term) and melted down by empires, invaders and inheritors.  From the looks of it, the brooches are distinct, personal items, perhaps once known for different tribal touches, or clan marks that are long gone.  At the same time, for design enthusiasts there is something peculiarly uniform,  a cultural aesthetic, that distinguishes the Celtic remnants – something like a philosophy that keeps the common thread of ornament informed, from Anatolia to Ireland. Fans of history are familiar with the mystery of this culture, who gave us many of the place-names of Europe, stories of King Arthur and Merlin, and legends of the bards travelling from tribe to tribe spreading the news in song, and the incredible survival of some of the language within the reaches of the British Isles. The old culture that used no writing left almost no record except their obsessive aesthetic of spirals and knots, an intent to abstraction that makes them all the more compelling.

· Jennifer Trask ·

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A living artisan that completely bridges the divide between sculptor and jeweler, and whose work crackles with intelligence. After working for several years, she started gaining notice and has become justifiably successful. With her growing acclaim, she shows complete independence. Rather than devolving into a designer’s role creating redundant wealth-objects of increasing expense, she demonstrates a continued devotion to working the materials personally. Her latest series, Vestige, is breathtaking, and instead of gold she creates complicated formulations out of ordinary bone. Eclectic carvings are fused with the metaphoric bones of antique picture frames. The mark of a brilliant materials handler, the essence of gold retains its contemporary spare inkling through the remnants of gold leafing on old wood; the wealth on display is skill and the devotion of time. It generates a feeling of gratitude in me that the artist has chosen to direct her success towards a deeper pursuit of artistry, providing us with a living example of real creative integrity.

Something that comes to mind: for an artist who has reached the level of magazine articles and museum collections, you’d think she was ready to start her own design house. This is the curious place of an artist and creative labor in today’s economy. It’s simply not enough, even with full recognition. Trask’s name should be well known and collected among people who enjoy jewelry, as was Lalique, Tiffany or Jensen in their day. Trask should be raking it in and changing the way we look at ornament.  However, any sensible placement as top market and the pride of the region where she works is prevented by the mean average of the global market.  Though she should be able to ask anything she likes for her work, the scale of the market – its ability to import matching manufacturing but from a differing relative economy – controls the ceiling of prices, limiting recognition and reward for artistry in jewelry.  Today top market jewelry, regardless of genius, is based primarily on the raw value of materials and somewhat in the perceived value of branding.  In order to see natural innovation and real creativity surround our lives again, we would start choosing our local artisans for every service possible, a priority shift of buying less and paying higher prices for better goods. This would transform the way work is done overseas as well. Encouraging regional development – anywhere in the world – is accomplished by using one’s good taste and sensibility to choose goods that exhibit the human touch and essentially benefit the growth of culture.

One of her artist statements, for ‘Unnatural Histories’:

“This work arose from my unending fascination with the material world.
Deliberate arrangements of flora and fauna, mineral and vegetal, side by side, delineate multiple subjective taxonomies. One defines a personal aesthetic; catalogs texture, color, and light in a formal and intuitive manner.

Another system, one of sly, unnatural histories, is derived from a curiosity about the material world and conceptual relationships; associative meanings and actual elemental materiality. By abstracting particular materials my intent is to create an impulse to pause, and look again. To consider. The results are oddly metaphoric arrangements on an intimate scale that invite examination.

In that moment of engagement, perhaps one might reclaim a sense of wonder, visceral delight, or simply curiosity as to the purpose of such meticulous arrangements.”

Artist’s Website: http://www.jennifertrask.com/

Dorrie Nossiter

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I have a number of these artisans archived, that I’ll post over time. I intend to intersperse them with living artisans, who deserve twice the attention.  Jewelers are especially hard to track down, given the frequency for which they worked anonymously for houses, and a general lack of documentation.

England, Arts and Crafts / Stil Liberty.  The use of cabochons contains a reference to historic metalsmithing that was part of the unique appeal of the English A&C movement.   The riot of colors was her signature touch.  A comprehensive site about her, including biography is here: http://www.dorrienossiter.co.uk/

Elizabeth Bonte

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Like many artisans of her time, Bonte took a shine to René Lalique’s work. Only in her case she specialized in one area of the master’s ouvre, carved horn jewelry, and did fair justice to the style, eventually merging workshops with her rival George Pierre until 1936.

Cicada Comb

Dragonfly Necklace

Art Nouveau Prophecy with Samurai Swords

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It is well understood that there is a direct cause and effect relationship between the rise of industrialization in Japan and the explosion of an international philosophy of ‘New Art’.  By looking at the mechanisms of this influence, I hope to demonstrate the New Art was much more like a prophetic vision than an ephemeral moment to enrich antique collectors.

In the accounts of Art Nouveau and its related movements (Arts & Crafts, Craftsman, il Liberte, Jugendstil, Secession, Arte Joven, Art Nova and Stile Liberty) one is apt to run across claims that it is a spontaneous development that marked a transition period between classical academicism and modernism. But this stand-alone islander perspective hardly accounts for its genesis or its end. The genesis came with the arrival of photography and access of the West’s artists to the finer crafts of Asia, especially Japan. Previously, Chinese porcelain had long been traded, but the style was vernacular and limited to like items. The arrival of documentation relating to supremely technical metalworking methods, sophisticated print and painting techniques, and essentially an entirely different cultural take on both universal design principles and representation of the natural world set off an inevitable alchemical reaction.

Artists I’ve spoken to about the subject explain that there is a root distinction in the composition of academic European and traditional Asian art. After the rediscovery of proportion during the Renaissance, the West had until the New Art period essentially pursued rules of symmetry – especially with regards to a horizon line, with the primary divisions of fore, middle and background. The history of western art has very specific reasons for this development, and essentially it revealed the collective psyche of a broad pan-culture. The approach to composition was both taught and essentially instinctual. When it came to decorative items, we find the same absolute principles: symmetry, relief and depth.

The shockwave of cultural confluence stems from a truly novel introduction within Eastern art: the concept of “infinite space”, which essentially allows elements of fore or background to interact with void. This had also developed to an instinctual level in that pan-culture, and is found mirrored in their philosophy and calligraphy. In fact, one reason speculated for this key element of composition is the use of pictographs for writing, developing an ancient practice of ‘floating’ pictures over the top of other pictures, creating a conceptual intuition for layering that was independent of relativistic proportion.

Once Western artists became exposed to the successful break in symmetry a new dialect of visual language spread like wildfire, transforming every aspect of art. Curiously, though so distinct and widely embraced it is easily identified today, this paradigm shift was short lived, and like the swing of a pendulum modernism rose with a hard return to symmetry, replacing decoration with line and simple geometry. It was as though nature was erased completely from vernacular language.

There are many discussions on this, which make for good reading. In a nutshell, the fine craft epidemic was made possible by the last generation of traditional apprenticed craftsmen, who were widely being displaced by the rise of industry. Essentially, young inspired artists and designers found at their disposal droves of highly skilled master craftsmen, who happened to be unemployed. Little did they know they were living in a fantastic, singular moment in time. Beautiful dreams sprang up in the form of cooperate workshops, intentional artisan communities, and free schools staffed by true experts in design and the arts. This was the last generation of its kind in the West, and is the reason why the housing, furniture and countless other items are unsurpassed even today in their quality and appeal. They are haunting, specific to a time, a place, and a lineage of authorship – they are downright talismanic.

One can hardly blame the hopes many had that it seemed possible for revolutionizing and improving the quality of life in every home for the founders of the various New Art movements. Unfortunately the economy of scale would make its presence known just as quickly, particularly at its apogee of unrestrained, nearly viral transformation of life in an opposite direction – the prolific outpouring of weapons of war that came to occupy the awareness and industry of that same, once hopeful world.

Following the global wars manufacturing had completely disconnected from skilled hand-crafting, its mechanisms actually unable to incorporate it even if it wanted to. Modernism took an even more severe turn, moving from streamlined to simple, and was embraced, as Corbusier put, as a way to ‘clean’ cities and lives of the madness and ruin of revolutions. Modernism represented a desire to turn away from the past’s hopes and nightmares, and erase if possible all grandiose discussion of the big picture. It was successful, to a degree, though ask anyone about the terms ‘marketing’ or ‘branding’ and you will hear a crystalline linguistic litany that is truly global, and discover what you already knew – that the predilection for living by a totalistic view has never departed.

The New Art appeared to our most creative thinkers to be the obvious direction for a new, international visual language and they threw themselves towards it with magnificent energy. That their prediction was shut down so abruptly should not be regarded as failure. They were absolutely right about the most critical of concerns:

1. The viewpoint of New Art was genuinely better. It was altruistic and holistic – a model that provided meaningful, enriching work for laborers, a clear and signature identity for artists, and affordable works of art for the everyday home.

2. The connection between tradition and technology was possible, and even likely. The only thing the model requires is an abundance of free time that was once standard in agrarian life, and the related family-community basis of living that integrates work, leisure, social belonging, house living, cultural distinctiveness, and allows for lifetime learning.

This possibility was prevented with considerable effort; it required tremendous, long-term outside manipulation by highly concentrated wealth through institutional education, economy and force.

3. The motivation of holistic artistry is infectious and inspiring.  Life is better when the things we do, make and own have something we can relate to and enjoy. Inspiration from holistic sources generates tremendous energy. The evidence is in the record of New Art – for just a few decades time, their artifacts are everywhere, and are still repeated throughout the diaspora of information.

As with point no.2, this energizing behaviour that is the birthright of most anyone with enough free time is for now bottled up in trained specialists such as artists and designers. A broader scale of creativity is also prevented at considerable cost by “tremendous, long-term outside manipulation by highly concentrated wealth through institutional education, economy and force.”

Don’t write off the century-old visionaries of New Art just yet, not that their outstanding contributions ever could be forgotten. They may prove to have served as avant garde after all.

For your enjoyment, and as an aid to reflect on the impact and prophetic properties of visual language, I give you a few of the innumerable sword hilts of the Japanese samurai, called tsuba. Each instrument of death is the record of the love and life of a village metalsmith.  Japan is an archipelago whose transformation from feudal life by the sword to nuclear accident in less than a century can help us create a clearer model of modernity. It can help to reconsider the Western spaghetti soup story of industrial transformation that leads to all manner of complicated and unfortunate conclusions. For all the talk, well, just look at these sword hilts and decide if we’re doing our best today. These are functional instruments, but they reveal much more, they reveal human life. True talismans, perhaps mixed in among these cultural arrivals in the West is the wordless incantation that led to the prophetic pronouncements and new iconography of the New Arts fever.

The Treasure of Sutton Hoo

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The Sutton Hoo Burial Ground

This is a story about humility.   And the glory of a long-dead clan of Old English ancestors – so old they still wrote in runes.  I have always had a particular leaning towards self-education – entirely due to the pace and way that I ingest information.  This hasn’t been the best approach with regards to craft, a hard lesson – there are simply ways to do things right the first time that are so effective at shaving off unnecessary experimentation time… well, you get the picture.  Fortunately I had a mentor for the larger areas of metalwork, but for technical aspects of jewelry I could not bring myself to find one in person.

Picture me pouring through catalogs and big comprehensive books, searching for a solution to a problem.  Unbelievably, I was beginning to realize that what I was missing must have been so unthinking it was just overlooked in the writing of one book after another.  It was unbelievable.   Finally I reached for a trade-paperback sized book, a Dover to top all, something I had picked up for a few dollars and had basicly ignored in favor of costlier hard-bound books with photographs.  I had glanced through it initially, and mentally registered it as a reprint of antique methods I might one day enjoy for leisure.

Herbert Maryon Metalwork & Enamelling

 

In frustration I gave it a crack and behold, the very instructions I was seeking were there… written so lucidly and thoughtfully you could almost hear the teacher’s voice.  Herbert Maryon, Metalwork & Enamelling.  I learned quite a lesson from the little book on many levels.  I realized much of the jewelry equipment I was gradually accumulating were items I merely believed were essential.  Maryon didn’t fuss around with too many gadgets – his instruction was essential – rather, it was behavioral –  as though one could make anything with fire, metal, and sticks.

Sutton Hoo Ship Burial

Ship Burial - Not Much Stuff, All of it Excellent

This wasn’t far from the truth.  Maryon was the lead conservator of the Sutton Hoo treasure, the most sophisticated collection of Celtic metalwork ever discovered.  The key pieces amount to a few items from a chieftan’s ship burial, of such workmanship that the techniques would be a real challenge for a craftsman of today – no matter how much of the tool catalog they owned.  One gets the picture from Roman legend that the Celts were barbarians, foaming at the mouth.  Taking a close look at this treasure makes them appear just as sophisticated as the empire that fell upon them.  Like the earliest poems, the sword reveals masterful fold-lines, and is signed by its smith.  The gold work is expertly enameled  in a champleve manner.  In all, precision, control and long tradition are evident here.

Sword

Sword, signed "Scott"

This is now the book I recommend to anyone interested in metalsmithing.  As a place to start, it begins with common sense… the why precedes the how.  Maryon reverse engineered every method with which the ancient smiths were able to accomplish their work.  In this way he returns to write a teaching guide that requires the crafter, not the tools, to be sophisticated and sufficiently sharp.  It’s a refreshing realization in a time when so much is ready-made that grown adults may experience the childlike frustration of not having fully developed skills for making necessities on our own.  Maryon demonstrates that much of what constitutes an equipped and trained professional today is quite extraneous – as though the finest work may be produced outdoors, beside a fire, with a tree-stump, a bowl of tar and a hammer.  Indeed, Maryon helped realign my priorities, and place my start-up investment into my hands rather than the tools.  And I look forward this spring to following a few of his ‘recipes’ outside in the fresh air.

Thanks to archaeology, we now know for certain they wore mustaches.  Barbarians?  Hardly.

The Great Buckle

Shoulder Clasp

 How about the fineness of that enameled knotwork?

Purse

How about that checkerboard enamel inlay effect?

Brooke Stone’s Totems

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A hero of mine, this jewel sculptor works out of Eugene, OR.  She uses the lost wax method and is a wax carver; her mature style is a breathtaking combination of nature and contemporary, experimental composition and rendering.  Using the metals as a palette her work stands on the strength of its artistry, distinguishing it from so much manufactured work that relies on metal content and stones to create value. In addition, her animal themes (regarded as totemic) speak of a close involvement between her imagination and the natural world, and so describe the artisan behind the pieces.  To top it off, Stone is alive, and deserves recognition, for she is true maker of talismans.

Her website is full of personal care, and includes an excellent photo overview of the lost wax process.

Brooke Stone Jewelry

 

McClelland Barclay

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Among jewelers Barclay lived an interesting, though somewhat short life.  His jewelry was informed by the times, with Arts and Crafts principles, introducing affordable items with the modern decorative style of natural subjects and asymmetrical composition that was known elsewhere as Art Nouveau, il Liberte, Jugenstil and other variations on the theme of a new approach.  Taking a page from Georg Jensen’s style and working approach,  his silver jewelry frequently revolved around nature, with workshops using high-relief repousse dies to produce stamped serial units for matching sets of bracelets, necklaces, brooches and earrings.  He also created rhinestone pieces that bore a striking similarity to Cartier’s famous art deco emerald works.

He was industrious – the graduate from the Art Institute of Chicago branched into jewelry and decorative home items after success with his pin-up art, especially in commercial art.  The war interrupted his jewelry when he was appointed by the Navy to develop maritime camoflauge schemes in the pacific theatre, and shortly after Pearl Harbor he began to paint recruiting posters.  At the age of 52, on assignment near the Solomon Islands, his boat was torpedoed.

Wings

 

Pinecone

Pinecone

Swan

Swan

Pear

Maurice Delannoy – Medalist

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The first in a series of select art medals in the Art Noveau and Deco styles.  Fortunate to have a shot of Delannoy here woking his trade, sculpting directly into a large plaster disk that will later be reduced by a pantograph (reducing machine).  The plaster sculpting method was used for all manner of precision modeling for metalwork, from industry to jewelry, until the mid 20th century.

Award

Agriculture

Ceres

Family

La Chaleur du Soleil

Artemis

Mater Dolorosa

Marc Newson’s Fractal Necklace

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Behold “Julia”, the stunning interface of science, beauty and intense labor.  In an era where luxury goods are so paradoxically mass produced they are defined solely by their label, this one of a kind necklace has no comparison.

Marc Newson Julia

Julia

It’s named after Gaston Julia, a mathematician in the 1900′s who created a formula that, when graphed, produced a self-repeating structure at endless smaller scales, an infinity complex expressed in a formula.  It contains over 2,000 diamonds and blue sapphires, selected for the precision of their color and cut, and set in three-pronged mounts that make each gem appear to float.

The piece took over 1,500 hours to craft.  Such high-level craft items attract particularly adventurous types, and if history is any indication, a showpiece of wealth on such a scale is likely to intrinsically include a statement about the owner.  Welcome to the 21st Century, where the technocrats are opulently adorned with the science behind their ascent.

Boucheron Julia

Julia Close Up

You won’t see me posting too many broad spreads of arranged gemstones.  I can’t really see in them much that inspires my work, nor do they speak of a craftsman, the voice of the creator, nearly so much as they paint pictures of several specialist workshops.

This piece brings up a factor of interest in production of any kind today – transparency.  The labor factor of 1,500 hours they have provided is seriously questionable.  Hard stones like these are usually cut by trained professionals, at at least 2-3 hours per piece.  At over 2,000 stones we’ve already hit a minimum of say 6,000 hours.  This does not consider the time involved in mining, sorting and preparing the rough, heat treating, grading and handling.  So I’m assuming the 1,500 hours mentioned are limited to stone selection, smithing the platinum and stonesetter’s time.  In all, the piece may as well have 10,000 hours of time in it.  Which is fitting, like the fractal… the closer you look, the more there is to it.

And this is also where it begins to lose its charm, its talismanic properties.  The essence of the mathematician is lightly in there, like a sketch, but the layout was executed by computer like most modern jewelry, and the designer’s presence rapidly begins to fade from the piece.  The vast majority of crafting under the ‘house’ Boucheron was not conducted in-house at all, but through a buying of finished materials; they seem to have casually failed to state the lion’s share of the actual crafting involved here – the expert faceting of the stones.  Why decide to understate the hours?  Would a true number have been too decadent even for a design house that specializes in this practice?  Is there a professional curtain for high grade work, behind which only certain professions’ hours qualify as labor?

It’s amusing, and why I am never terribly impressed with this sort of work… it is less likely to reveal anyone’s essence than to resemble something more inanimate and collectively made, like a tall skyscraper.  It is eminently imperial in its manifestation.  Marc Newson becomes something more like a civil engineer or architect here, but unlike a finished building with most of its infrastructure concealed, peering closely at the piece reveals nothing but stones, with the real work laid bare.  They may not have been accounted for in time, and it is likely not the implicit intent of the designers, but one may get a taste of true craftsmanship laid bare by peering inward to every detail.

That said, if you want to kick up the crazy a notch, what about that full-sized diamond skull by Damien Hirst back in 2007?

Victoire de Castellane’s Dead Royal

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With a touch that is either sarcastic or ironic, the live created by de Castellane for her Dior line ‘Reines et Rois’ in 2010 made a curious statement.  The ‘Kings’ are skull pendants elaborately festooned with diamonds, while the ‘Queens’ are similar rings.   Presumably, the King is to be worn like a badge on one’s chest, while Queen is wrappedThe skulls are carved of semiprecious stones, with names matching the stones, such as Reine d’ Opalie, Reine de Chrysoprasie, or Roi de Jaspe.  While ex-votos are not a new phenomenon in jewelry, these pieces are clearly for the amusement of the wearer, and perhaps in the vein of artist Damien Hirst, who produced a diamond-encrusted platinum skull at a cost of nearly £10 million, this is the designer’s way of  producing objects that mock death as a way of coming to terms with it.

Reines et Roi 1

 

 

One reviewer caught on to the curiosity of the line… in plastic or even silver these rings would be ordinary street kitsch, but the elaboration makes a statement about what we might regard as ‘elevated taste’, which is to observe that there seems to be no distinction within the classes between kitsch and ‘luxury’ at this point.  The unfortunately anonymous reviewer (perhaps a marketer of the design house) was poignant to note that ‘the line’s success indicates a strong morbid desire that has developed today, one that makes people clearly prefer skulls over hearts or symbols of love’.  Indeed mystery reviewer, the movement away from symbols of love and sentiment is a phenomenon across the arts and culture in general that arrived with modernism, and historically can be traced back to the onset of the crazy wars that shattered in the ‘New Arts’ ascendancy in the early 20th century.  It would appear that the door to morbidity is the only symbolic door that seems to have been left open in this post-modern, sentiment cleansed world.  That this is deeply embedded in our culture is well illustrated by luxury goods that bear no real distinction from the playthings of adolescents save their price.

Reines et Roi 3

At the same time, perhaps these might be regarded as simply high-end kitsch, and not an indicator of elite tastes.  The pavé diamonds are not terribly costly, and the skulls require so much material it is not a surprise that they are low quality and muddy in color.  It may be better to view this line as kitsch with a nice label, as most of luxury goods have become.  With the material factor out of the way, we can look with fresh eyes at the work of the designer, which shines through.  The care and fluidity of her crowns, feathers and collars are clearly graceful, and each is instantly distinguishable from each other.

Here, in a time when we have an essentially inverted culture – when luxury goods are cheap mass-productions and well-crafted artisan goods as valueless without a luxury label, or if you prefer, a time when skulls are preferred love tokens, it is always refreshing to see the touch of an engaged designer, even if they are nearly anonymous within a production house.

Philippe Wolfers

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Philippe Wolfers

Enamel and Gold Choker - Click to Zoom

Born into a prominent Belgian silversmithing family, Philippe entered his father’s shop to apprentice at 17.  He clearly was a rebel son, embracing the “new art” that resulted from the revitalizing impact of Japanese aesthetic on European culture.  Pieces that he created outside the family shop’s aesthetic are fairly rare, and clearly imitating the master Lalique.  His early works in jewelry and smithing do not quite possess the harmony of other artists, but in these mature works the result of his enterprise are plain.

"Japanese Style"