Peter - Day Two - Tram, Frugal and to be a Child again

Day two, jet lagged was not a serve as it could have been since my roommate and I all woke at five o'clock in the morning . But instead of getting out of bed, we stayed in them, while hoping we won't wake anyone else up as we played on our smartphone or tablets.

Few hours later, after breakfast, we started our way to visit Ela Bauer, Gallerie Ra, and Ted Noten. This was where we experienced Karin's walking pace, which some would consider fast and yet she doesn't. It wasn't long till we soon learnt what she considers fast walking.

In order to get around to the places we need to get to, we took a few of the many trams that roamed  Amsterdam streets. The trams here a quite unique in the sense that it was a fusion of a bus and train. Also, one notable thing with all this public transport is the fact that if you want to get off at a stop, you need to press the button to open the door. This was a very interesting perspective as, in the places that I've lived in, you usually press the button to stop at a station an all the doors open.

In the morning and afternoon, we meet with Ela Bauer and Paul of Gallerie Ra and saw their work and that of others. Then in the late afternoon, we visited Ted Noten and his studio. However, since we were a bit early, Karin decided to teach us her, rather amusing, warm up dance. Now, like many other have done, Ted started with a his presentation. He first started off with his life and how he was from bricklayer background with both family and personally, and how he got fired from changing the brick pattern because he was bored. It was at this point he started to make some very interesting and arguable points.

One strong point that Noton made which made us all chuckle at was the fact you should be like that of child, and not to adhere to these academic question as why you chose this material or colour or blah... and simple reply back because you wanted to. Admittedly, we've all had that moment when we simply wanted to "Because I wanted to." However, in this stage for us to develop, we are not at that stage when we can simply do that. It is important to be asked these question as it helps develop our thought as young artist.

Secondly, another point he made are that jewellers are cheap/frugal and really don't think big or grand. This does seem to be an issue with contemporary jewellery, as it was also pointed out by Susan Cohn with Unexpected Pleasures. During her selection process, she noted that the she could have made a section base alone on similarity in size, as jeweller didn't push the boundaries. So on this point, it could be agreed that we should act like children and not be afraid to push the limits other artist of other medians do.

After a few more point, Noton continued on to discuss his best, worst and different project he had done in the past. We were shown around the studio, his works and then we were off, thanking him for the gift we'd received from him.  

Off we went to dinner and then to bed.