Peter - Day Fifteen and Sixteen - Trains, Snow and Old Cities

Bruuur, it's cold today, cold enough for it to snow overnight!

For next two days, before we all leave to go back to Sydney, we'll be traveling to both Pforzheim to see Schmuck Museum, and to Nuremberg to see Helen Britton's exhibition at the Neues Museum.

After having our breakfast, we started onto our train trips to Pforzheim.

I have to say, I always found taking a long train rides interesting, since it a different from the usual type of traveling I have experience. In my whole life, including these two trips, I have taken a total of five times. It's always to interesting to see how "life" actually passes you by, and in trains, you get to see it more up close and personal rather than flying and seeing minuscule dots that are moving. It's also interesting to see how life changes from town to town to countryside. It one of the best ways to become an observer on how style of life changes geographically.

One of the many views from the train. 

Then we arrived Pforzheim, rushing to the museum due to the freezing cold. Seriously, the city went from looking like it was the end of winter to a winter wonderland in a couple of hours of being there. It was great to go to see the Schmuck Museum and see the progress and history of jewellery, and the development of jewellery in the the last century.

A Leuchterwiebchen!

After we were done with the Schmuck Museum, we then ventured off to catch our next 3 hour train to Nuremberg. By the time we got there, it was night, and we were hungry. So we all went to a local restaurant. My god, I almost flipped when I as Leuchterwiebchen (a women carved chandelier with dear antlers attached to them) because here was an decorative ornament, that I was barely able find anything about it, that was the bases of one of artist Jane Dodd's jewellery series.

The Beautiful view of Nuremberg' Cathedral 

Then, it was our last whole day in Germany finally arrived, what a shame. After we went to see Helen Britton's exhibition, we had some free time before we all went back on the train to Munich, so we did some walking around this Medieval city. I can't wait for the warm weather.

Peter - Day Fourteen - My Boots as Jewellery?

Tuesday, by now we were all brains were about to burst with all the amount of jewellery we have seen in the last few days.

But we were all invited to go back to the back and see Handshake presentation at the Schmuck convention.

By now, my boots, the ones I normally travel with either when flying or cold winter places, or really anywhere, were basically dead. Big scuffs, a couple of holes where my big toes push agains the leather, and no matter how much you polished it, the leather looked tired. It's about time to let them go.

The reason why I brought this was the fact on the train ride back from the Schmuck, Chris pointed out the hole in my right boot, which I pointed out that I knew, and after the trip I was going to let them go. However, since our group knew that I am considering to do travel as a concept for the project for this trip, I should use them as the material for a jewellery piece since these boots have travelled everywhere.

This was an interesting comment, I mean, this is true, these boots have travelled with my everywhere. But does it relate to this trip? I suppose it could and the name of the piece might be "The Death of my Boot," not sure. To argue though, it would relate to the travel of this trip since most of the serve damage that was done to these boots was done in mainly Germany.

The only problem that is racking around in my brain is the fact how is the viewer going to read the piece? Time to experiment.

Peter - Day 11 - I got to meet Shari Pierce

One of Manilla's miserable hearts.

Another hectic day of gallery viewings, and we still got quite a large amount to see. Good luck to us.

Since today was the last day that her exhibition, I made it quite clear that day we must see Shari Pierce's exhibition as she is one of my favourite jewellery artist. In Pierce's work, when is always able to put a strong political message behind her work, which including having a necklace with 300 sex offenders in a 5 mile radius of the show.

So we arrived at "Te mato por que te amo," the due exhibition of Jorge Manilla and Shari Pierce. I look at Manilla's work before I went to look at Pierce's, and it was an interesting and dark series of necklaces that look like rotting miserable hearts. Then it was time to look at Pierce's work, which was very simple and a calm contrast to that of Manilla's.

"He loves me he loves me not" bed sheet.

The cut out flowers.

On one wall stood at huge floral bed sheet with all the flowers cut out it and laid on the floor, then opposite, a necklace with the Orange skins in the shape in middle of the dripping honey frame. Then, hidden away a corner next to a heater was this blue picture covered with, what I presumed was, muslin. To me, knowing of Pierce's work on sex offenders, I interpreted as a continuation of that them of sexual abuse, that a women lost her childhood to an awful situation, taking away the fruit of life with in her.

The bare orange necklace with the dripping honey frame

I then asked Pierce if she would mind explaining her work, and I explained to her my interpretation of her work and the reason behind it. Pierce seemed to be happy that I, a student from Sydney, knew of her work and explain that it could have been what I interpreted but that it was more about the relationship for a woman's perspective, so the bed sheet with the flowers cut was an installation piece playing on the old "he loves me, he loves me not," in which the necklace with the fruitless oranges and honeyed frame was the aftermath of the ending of the relationship, that you are left with nothing anymore. Then she points out the picture was simply a guy wearing some mandarins around his neck, maybe the ex lover?

The photo with the cut out face.

After that, I repeatedly said thanks you so much and left with the other to continue on a ways of seeing exhibitions, giddy with excitement of meeting one of your favourite artists. But on a serious note, it was an interesting exhibition, both the artist complimenting in balance. Yet it was also quite interesting with my reaction to Pierce's work of this show, how my interpretation was different from her original intention.


Does this mean it that if the artist's work is too well known, does it affect the meaning of their work, even if they tried to branch off and do something else? I mean, of course some artists over the years can have their original style change, but once their work is know, is the art society restricting them to do that type of work? As far as I can see, this is a problem for the young artist because of they want to try and making a living from being makers. Whereas so the older and extremely well known, it not a problem for them because either their famous and they can do anything they want because it them, or they are simply bored of people liking this work.

It is also interesting what a huge society or culture can do to one's work.

Peter - Day Ten - Displaying your Progression and Akiko Kurihara

Friday, the day where the majority of galleries are opening, and the majority of us are sick. This should be fun.

However, unlike yesterday, it was the first two galleries that I were really interesting for me.

The first one was "tafelbesteck outiles de table table tools", which was a shop of a silversmith displaying cutlery and vessels with other silversmiths.

It was the work of Konstatin Grcic, along with few others, that really caught my attention. This was due to the fact that along with with the finished product, they also displayed the paper models and the drawings that they made to conceptualise the piece. I was really intrigued by this, to demonstrate how your work came to the final product, a rare viewing. In my opinion, it seems to help explain the piece that bit more, to help strengthen the concept of the artist and guide the viewer to it. I am quite interested in this, to display my progress.

Demonstrating the process of the final piece.  

Valuing the model as much as the final piece.

After we said our thanks you and gather ourselves together, we then ventured onto the cluster of galleries.

It was around this time we wondering into a gallery display the work of Akiko Kurihara, and let me tell you, I found her work very interesting. In Kurihara's work, it was a combination of science fact, her perspective on things, and inquisitive pieces.

"1g Silver"

For example, two of her necklaces, "1g Silver" and "1g Gold" which the pendant being in the Times New Roman "g", each weighs exactly one gram of either silver or gold. Then, beside these two pendents is the "1000g" or 1kg necklace, a fifteen meter long chain of one thousand silver "g"s. As the Kurihara states on her plaque next to this piece, "...[by] trying this piece on, you [will] realise how heavy 1kg (1000g) is." Also a side note, having the plaque half explaining the work was interesting as it help understand the piece.

"1g Gold"

Part of the "1000g" necklace

The complete "1000g" necklace.

It was interesting how Kurihara was able to subtly bring the science, facts, and other types of subjects into the jewellery form. I think I will be keeping an eye on Kurihara's work in the future.

Peter - Day Nine - The begging of gallery openings!

Today only a few of the overall Schuck chosen galleries opened, the majority of them will instead open tomorrow.

However, it majority of theses gallery were in the east of the city and were far apart from each other, and we all agree to get those out of the way.

The day went by, the were the traditional talking to the artists and explaining their work, offerings of beverages and food. But nothing really caught my attention strongly though, I'm there were some interesting piece, but nothing that would stay in my memory for a long time.

It wasn't till we came to the last exhibition for the day that really caught my attention. It was Transit, a Contemporary Jewellery exhibition from Israel, showing Israel's contemporary jewellery scene.

Many of the artists work had something amazing techniques and created some intricate pieces, while other had some powerful messages behind them such as war or judgement.

One of the piece that really stood out to me though was this, what seems to be, broach that was a rock that has a small speaker in it saying, "Don't Judge by my appearance."

This piece really resonated with me. What it did to me was reminded of my earlier conversations early in the week with my good old teacher/friend and Andrea Wagner and the subject of the "Hidden Immigrant." It looked like a simply rock, but it wasn't, it was a jewellery piece, making different from any other rock. However, if you put in a pile of pebble rocks, it look exactly the say and you won't be able to tell the difference until you interacted with it. That was the "Hidden Immigrant" scenario is like. In my case, I look like a Australian, and may sound Australian at first, thus I blend in with everyone back in Australia. However, I am not an Australian, for the fact that for my whole life except for the last two years, I grew up overseas, making me have a difference cultural background to everyone else back in my "home" country. So when I did come "home", I was integrating back with my home culture, but no one knew, so it was "hidden". It way, I could be like this rock, something that looks simple but is more complex.

It's interesting how I am coming back to thinking about culture and travel.

Peter - Day Eight - First Day of Schmuck, Mari Ishikawa, Laura Deakin.

Today was the first of the Schmuck, in which we went to the Schmuck fair and had a look at around at the some work of well known artists. Unfortunately, the majority of the fair was more a trading situation rather than looking at the works.

So after a few hour of looking at the stalls, we moved on a way to to visit Laura Deakin and Mari Ishikawa at their studio.

Mari Ishikawa explaining her work and answering question for Stephanie

After presenting themselves and answering our question, we got look at Mari's work that was laid on one of her studio table. It was amazing to see Mari natured based work, and actually wear them and see how the look on the body, and how she interpreted forms of clouds or branches in jewellery form. I can't emphasise how important it was to get to wear the pieces and understand the pieces in relation to the body.

Chris wearing one of Mari's cloud inspired broaches. 

One thing that caught my attention in her presentation was the fact in her Parallel World, she took the negative image of her pieces by laying them on photo paper and exposing light to it. This was a very interesting mixed media piece, and another way to look at the piece.

Peter - Day Six - Early start, Flying, and SNOW!!!

Time to say to say goodbye to Amsterdam today. We did this at preciously at 4 o'clock in the morning as we were making our way for a 7:40 am flight to Munich for the Schmuck festival! So, the answer is yes, we did have an early night today.

We hoped on our flight, and 1 and 10 minutes later, we had arrived in Munich, with still quite a large amount of snow on ground. Which meant I had plans for a snowball fight!

"IT'S SNOW!!! In Munich!"

By 11:30am we arrived at the hostel, but our room were not ready, thus we dumped our bags in the luggage room and off we went exploring.

During our exploration of Munich, we arrived at a small park, that had plenty of snow. Chris, Steph, Emma, David, Jenny, and I all became children and started to create snowballs, leading to a great snow fight!

Look at this lovely snow!

Reflecting on this, it is quite curious how a material, such a snow or very small frozen water, can bring the child or the persona out of our normal selves and embodied the control of ourselves. So is it the material that can control us? Or is it our feeling or reactions to the materials that takes over us and act in a certain. I mean, as soon as we saw the snow, the inner child excitement in all us could not be restraint. What would happen in different situation? What would our reactions ben to a field of grass or pile of fresh mud? What about wearing these materials on our body? Snow had a chilling affect, of course, but because it was snow, we didn't seem to greatly mind as much as it it was ice, but rather that we would bend over and pick up more snow and take revenge.

What an interesting idea to research more into.

Sorry, you'll need to tilt your head to the right to see the major of the video.

Peter - Day Five - Our first and last day off in Amsterdam

Anne Frank's House, meeting an old teacher friend for lunch, and lastly off the once a month art market. That was my plan for my day off in Amsterdam.

So after breakfast, we paced ourselves so that we had time to take in the view of the Amsterdam canals and also to avoid the extremely long line that we previous saw the day before when the line was almost 300 meters long.

View of one of the canals in the streets behind our hostel.

Another view of one of the many canals in Amsterdam on the way to Anne Frank's House.

See the beautiful cold morning walking with the character of Amsterdam shining though.

We arrived at Anne Frank's House, payed our ticket and proceeded through the what was once the original entrance of the factory that Anne Frank, her family and another family hid in for two years. We got to see the original rooms, video interviews of the people who were involved with Anne Frank. Stories of being best friends, how they had help the families or Anne. But it was the rooms of the hidden house that strike me the most. You see, I had read Anne Frank's book, and I had an image of what the house was, and it was remarkable how close the image and the reality were. However, the one thing that I didn't imagine was the sadness. It really was powerful and sad once we came to the parts were they shown what happened once they got caught, sent of the camps, and the terrible death of Anne Frank.

The entrance to the Anne Frank's House Museum.

Then came her original diaries. The handwriting of this teenage girl who had to grow up quickly due to all the awful reality around her. It is hard to think that it was not that long ago that all of the is had happened. It got me thinking about the cultures again, but this time the dark side of them. In Anne Frank's time, she had to deal with the fact that the majority of the culture, a powerful Nazi culture, that she was living wanted to segregate, and eventually ended her, her all because of the fact of who she was, someone of a certain faith, the Jewish faith. She couldn't even be a child and play due this, all in the name to survive from the persecution that they would face if caught.

All the things in which, in a much less severe form, is still encountered in some cultures around the world.

The Homomonument.

Once we were done with with the tour, we took a little to walk toward the Westerkerk, which was next do the House, and visited another reminder of Anne Frank's past. The Homomonument, a monument that commemorates the prosecution of the gays and lesbians, especially those by the Nazis, and was also the spot were the Nazis sent of the Jewish, Gay and Lesbians off the camps. Here is a memorial, a reminder of the one who suffered because of how the were and that the majority of the culture rejected them.

Moving onto a positive route! I departed from my friends and went on my way back to hostel to meet with my good old teacher friend that I hadn't seen in years.

Few minutes after arriving to the hotel, she had arrived and we both greet each other with a hug and kiss on the cheek. Then we proceeded to a local cafe and had lunch. Over lunch, we started to talk about the good old days, people we knew off, and gossip. But then we started how were going our new "homes". It was interesting talk, because both stated even though we're both "home", it doesn't feel like "home". Since we've both have lived and moulded overseas, we were different from our "home" culture's population. But the people from our "home" culture expect us to act and think the same as them, but we can't. Suddenly, a term in my head popped up that I had remember learnt from when trying to put a name on this type of a situation.

The Hidden Immigrant. Simple means a person who looks and is from that culture or country, but is actually from a different cultural background or has lived overseas most, or all, of their life and has to adapt to the new culture/country of which they were born in, but no knows or see that they are different. Thus they are in a way an immigrant, but hidden due to due the fact that are from there originally.

This would be an interesting concept or idea to play and form with jewellery, to bring out these idea into a piece. But how?

Peter - Day Four - Ruudt Peters and Andrea Wagner

The view of an regualar Amsterdam street with it's briliant character.

Today was the day that we meet with Ruudt Peters, one of the most well international contemporary jewellers. Of course, once we arrived after a brisk cold walk through the streets of Amsterdam, he greeted us, we put our coat away, then he started his presentation.

The unique scenery of our walk to Ruudt Peters' studio.

One of the great things about this trip, as I noticed during Ruudt's presentation, is the fact that we get to actually meet this artists, and have them explain their thought process, approach to the work, and the reason behind the piece that you would not get from any book, article or post. Basically, information in a untampered form.

Couple hours later, we graciously thanked Ruudt for spending his time to talk with us and present himself, and took a tram to Andrea Wagner's home/studio.

Few minutes late, buzzed on Andrea's intercom, and we arrived. Andrea then proceeded to show us her work from graduate pieces to the most recent pieces. During her presentation, she said some that caught me off guard a bit.

"It take great courage to leave your mark on the culture."

This really resonated with me. For me, as a Third Cultured Kid (a child who hasn't live in their birth culture or either of their parents' birth cultures, thus developing their own unique culture, the third culture) this was an interesting comment. My fellow TCK friend and I have had many discussions about this before in which we've always had to mould to the home culture that we were taking residences in, and that we should NOT push our ways of thoughts and thinking because we are guess.

However, Andrea's comment made me really think about this subject. Should I be brave and push my ideas in front in centre of the culture I have lived in? Do I have the bravery to do such as thing? Should I go against the things I have learnt from being an expat and break the traditional customs?

"The brewery next to the windmill" 

After the tour, before we went back to the hostel, Karin surprised us by having a tour of a famous local brewery next door to a windmill.

Peter - Day Three - Connecting with the Jewellery.

Another brisk morning day in Amsterdam. In the morning we had some free time to go around and do some shopping or look at local monuments, but at 12 o'clock we all were at the Stedelijk Museum.

It was was was were I was able look through the Museum's general collection of jewellery and object piece of the years past.

In this collection were the work's of Warwick Freeman, Ruudt Peters, Robert Smit and so on. While of observing these piece, I notice myself connecting with these piece more than I would have looking from a picture on the internet or in a book.

I pondered on this for a while.

Continuing to browsing through the collection, I just kept on repeating this thought in my head until I came to a conclusion. The reason why there was a stronger connection and the understanding for the jewellery and with me that there was an interaction with them, one of the main core requirements of contemporary jewellery. In a book, it mores clinical, and you don't get the true understanding of the piece as you would in person. Even though people say that a picture is worth a thousand words, in jewellery, the interaction with the piece is priceless.

A couple hours after we finishing at the Stedelijk, we payed a visit to Galerie Rob Koudijs. We meet we Rob and explained how he ran his gallery, looking for new talent along with having the well known artists as well. Then, as he was presenting the work of Terhi Tolvanen, a couple of clients came in. It was at this point we started to have a ponder around the gallery. While we did this, Rob mention that we could actually interacting physically with the piece, evening wearing some, which at the price that were labeled next to them, was daunting to us.

However, the clients that came did try on some of the pieces. This was a wonderful situation for us young contemporary jewellers because we got to see who the jewellery piece interacted with the body of someone of the public rather than our own. Also to just see how the clients would interact with the pieces. Such as did the message come through? Why does the client like the pieces? Things that the artist don't normally think about if they would their piece to be art and not a production piece.

This was an important day for me to see the importance of interaction with jewellery.

Pete over and out

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.

Peter - Day One - Travel, Travel and Jetlag

Twenty five hours, that was the length of time it took us to travel to Amsterdam from Sydney. I am quite use to this type of travel by air since I was 2 months, however it is always a different feeling or experience when you are travel with a group of friends verses with travelling with family or by yourself. For me, I just became more aware of wanting to look out of the windows to see life below, observe the fellow travellers jammed with you in their seats, and wondering if your bum has gotten bigger or have the seats shrunk.

On the second length of the journey, I was sat in the window seat, which is quite unusual for me as I am normally an aisle person. But the experience I received from sitting in that seat was absolutely amazing. As I drifted in and out of my sleep, I would look out my window to see the world below, each moment a unique one. The first image I saw was this blanket of cotton fluff clouds, illuminated by the soft dull light of the moon and one cloud illuminated by it's lighting. Then at other time, within the last few hours of the flight, there were patches of city with their streetlights sparkly though the night as such of starfishes. Which lead me to recall of other time, as a child, of how these little airplane window hold behind them such many memories for me. As tacky as this sounds, these windows are "window into my memory."

Finally, we landed, got off, collected our luggage, and off we went to hostel. But not long after we arrived to our hostel did we turn around to a catch a train to Apeldoorn to visit CODA to see the exhibition "Un peu de terre sur la peau". By now it was close 9 'clock in the morning, everyone was out and about. This is nothing new to me, except for the fact that instead of looking out of large vehicle, such as cars, buses and trams, you have to watch out for the bicycles, and they're more dangerous! Never in my life have I seen bicycles be preferred to that of a car, it was truly intriguing. Then onto the the train for one hour to see our first exhibition.

"Un peu de terre sur la peau" was an interesting exhibition, showing the works of contemporary jewellery artist who worked with material that came from the earth, basically ceramics.

After seeing this exhibition, we continued onto another trained ride to Nijmegan to visit Galerie Marzee. The train rides were another point of interest for me, not only to for the views of the countryside but also for the people on train. Since we were wanting to stick together, we're sat in groups on the train, which often lead to someone being trapped by us. However, since we often to lead to subjects of amusement, they were quite happy to sit and blatantly listening in on our conversations, chuckling at some points.

We arrived at Nijmegan, at this point jetlag was starting to kick in, which was not a good thing when visiting Galerie Marzee. The reason was that Galeria Marzee's collection was amazing. It was huge, and had contemporary pieces that I only saw on the web or in books. So one word of advice, come to this gallery not tired and also give a few days to actually look to the pieces in detail rather than rushing it all in one day since it a truly unique experience to visit.

Off back to Amsterdam by train, then eating dinner at the public library, finally off to the hostel to bed. Night.