Author
Christel Trimborn
Website: http://www.gz-journal.de/welcome.cfm
Articles and Videos by Christel Trimborn:
Klaus Dupont: Joyous Compositions
The artist Klaus Dupont transforms old finds into new objects – seldom have these old pieces been more cheerfully staged than at his workshop in Berlin Maobit. The favorite place of passionate collector Klaus Dupont: at his Berlin workshop, everything…
Artistically Folded
Wrinkles may be undesirable on the face, yet folds are present in many different forms in art. Folds are created by “bending or crushing thin, plastic and/or flexible materials such as metal, paper or textiles or several layers of these…
Non-Dogmatic Approach: Imagine the Opposite
What an anniversary celebration: in 2008, the Munich Academy of Fine Arts celebrates its 200 year anniversary. The class for jewelry and equipment deserves particular mention. Here, the art of goldsmithing is taught using a multi-faceted, unconventional and non-dogmatic approach….
Merged Competence
Five designers, five different approaches in the perception of jewelry, five creative providers of ideas: this is the design group “Aspects and Friends” that demonstrates its collective standards with regard to the quality of applied goldsmith art in a joint…
John Cage: Seeing Sound
John Cage was a pioneer of modern sound art with his idea of incorporating complete silence and accidental everyday noise into his compositional concepts. He helped to shape a completely new direction in art, along with various other artists. Jaap…
Amber Treasuries
The sun-drenched yellow spectrum of archaic amber treasures lends its name to the trend topic. Rarities and curiosities of bygone ages such as knights armor, copperplate or precious tomes provide the ideas that are reinterpreted as sparkling elements. AMBER TREASURIES…
Urban Oasis
The borders between outside and inside are disappearing increasingly. Urban oasis in the form of roof and facade gardens permit city-dwellers to live a life ‘close to nature’. Outdoor furniture, reminiscent of natural sculptures, atmospheric fireplaces and light installations as…
Internationale Handwerksmesse: A Rendez-vous of Art
The fields of art, craft and design are becoming increasingly intertwined and the boundaries between them ever more fluid. The ‘Internationale Handwerksmesse’ (IHM) trade fair for craft-based enterprises, held in Munich, reflects this coming together of the various disciplines through…
Siamo Qui: We Are Here
Ten years after it was first established, the ‘Alchimia’ private School for Goldsmithing and Jewelry, together with the ‘Opera Rebis’ cultural association in Florence, is setting out on a real adventure: its exhibition with the ‘Siamo qui – we are…
Poul Beckmann: Crawling Jewels
Opinions are divided when it comes to beetles: while some people flee as soon as one of these six-legged creatures appears, others cannot hide their enthusiasm for their many varied shapes and colors. Danish photographer Poul Beckmann belongs to the…
The Hong Kong Design Institute
The new campus is still a building site and will most likely not be ready for opening until 2009. However, this hasn’t stopped the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI), newly founded this year, being home to 4,370 full-time and 200…
A Well-Devised Coincidence
Sam Tho Duong always springs to mind whenever I think of ginger. The spicy and stubbornly shaped condiments is inextricably linked with the work of this jewelry designer. And it’s all thanks to coincidence that he has been experimenting with…
Felieke Van Der Leest
The idea that she should become a goldsmith actually came from her biology teacher. Could this be the reason why in the jewelry created by the Dutch designer Felieke van der Leest little monkeys wear red dungarees and carry golden…
Dimensions: A Question of Space and Time
80 x 120 cm is the size of the sales space per product that finds its way from the ‘design:palette’ to the customer. The dimensions within which selected articles of daily use are presented with high levels of design match…
Students Photographing Jewelry
“The saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” could scarcely be more relevant that in the creative sector. Painters, illustrators, designers and photographers alike all view the things and beings around them with their own individual perception of…
Essentials Concentration
The married goldsmith and designer couple Sabine Brandenburg-Frank and Egon Frank have, after 23 years, released themselves from the obligations of having their own business with production, distribution and sales and are now focusing exclusively on the design of jewelry….
It’s Kinda Magic
The courageous works of gemstone cutters and designers Bernd and Tom Munsteiner continue to focus on a new direction. Brooch/necklace with tourmaline Ring with aquamarine and diamond Brooch/necklace with citrine Each and every design process comprises intensive and personal contact…
We Are Strong Together
The cliche is coming undone. Instead of laboriously asserting themselves on the market, as is apparently befitting of a genuine artist, young designers are joining forces in order to form loose partnerships. Pooling ideas, using joint infrastructure and ensuring professional…
Living Stones: Nature as the Artist
Where does nature end and art begin? This question is the subject of an exhibition that renders almost tangible the fascinating variety in the relationships between the world of forms found in nature and in art. Rock crystal group Rock…
Kalahari Pearls
His roots lie both in France, the land of Haute Couture, and also in Africa, the continent of tradition. Joining forces with bush women from South Africa, the inernationally lauded designer, Mickael Kra, has created a fascinating jewelry collection, uniting…
Colorful Voyage
The traditional arts and crafts of South and Latin America and the gripping colorfulness and wildly romantic symbolism of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo provide the ideas for this most colorful topic. Patchwork, painted wood, colored gemstones, hand-woven rugs, plastic…
Historic Kitsch
The unfettered joy of an eccentric mix of styles from historical epochs – with no consideration of rules of combination – forms the foundation for the sweet-kitsch topic. Some aspects draw on the golden pomp of the baroque era, while…
Human Touch
Clay spread by hand, bearing traces of fingerprints and diffuse structures in its moistness, dries to form a sculpted surface of mild colorfulness. The traces that human beings leave in nature and the ethnic influences, natural ornaments such as honeycombs,…
Girl Power Among Young Designers
Ten German jewelry designers are making a name for themselves by means of the wealth of innovative ideas and sheer quality embodied in their work. Together, they have joined forces to present themselves under the label “ZeitZeichen” (Sign of the…
Mother Nature In Her Inexhaustible
The creative potency of international designers, who will present their latest work during this year’s inhorgenta europe, apparently knows no bounds. What is noticeable: Mother Nature in her inexhaustible, rich variety plays a most significant role as a source of…
Svenja John: Technoid Handicrafts
Plastic is not a cheap, surrogate material for her jewelry art in the eyes of the Berlin-based designer Svenja John. Instead, for years now, she has teased out of the painfully thin foil a bizarre complexity and airy gracefulness, which…
Artists’ Jewelry in Galleries
What plan of action should jewelry designers follow if they wish to successfully promote their jewelry in galleries? Wait bashfully until their works of art might coincidentally be discovered by some famous gallery owner? Or would it be better to…
Sightseeing: Between Architecture and Jewelry
Anyone working in a creative field knows just how strong the influence between the direct environment and each individual’s work is. Almost entirely surrounded by houses, streets, residential blocks, bridges or places of worship for all different religious movements, i.e….
The World of Sevan Bicakci
The fact that the jewelry by Turkish designer Sevan Bicakci looks like they come straight from the legend of Ali Baba is not simply due to the environment in which the creative goldsmith grew up and still lives… The jewelry…
Andy Berck: The Slightly Different Gemstone Trader
Getting the best and not the most out of every stone – this is the motto employed by the gemstone trader Andy Berck. Success proves him right – Berckwerk, the gemstone trader Andy Berck. Success proves him right – Berckwerk,…
Aninka Harms: The Closure of Circles
In her 20th year of creating jewelry, Aninka Harms has returned to the place where her training as a designer began: Stellen-bosch in South Africa. Anina Harms in front of her new gallery Ornament in Stellenbosch Inspiration snails: jewelry made…
Gold: Here Comes the Sun
Whether in ancient Greece or in China, in Peru or India, gold has not only been appreciated due to its beauty and value, but also because of its warmth, sensuality and its spiritual wealth. In addition to its fascinating color…
Jewelry Fun
Can you trust what you see? Gemstones perched on plastic rings, salamanders are wrapped around Tahiti cultured pearls. Rings and chains glitter in all conceivable colors before our eyes as if we were wearing rainbow glasses. Above all, jewelry is…
Wiring Media Part 1
Regardless of whether you might run a one person shop or manage legions of employees, constant media liaisons just do not go away if you wish to be known for what you do. Targeting creative professions above all, a two-part…
The Football World Championship
Help!!! The football world championship is coming to Germany. Ahead of the world championships, there’s a flood of products inundating consumers to keep fans happy and producers awash in profits. This article provides a cross-section of the more or less…
Ulrich Freiesleben: Intrinsic Values
The assumption the business economist and philosopher Dr. Ulrich Freiesleben invented two revolutionary new diamond cuts out of pure boredom would not do him justice. But, it’s not entirely off the mark. After all, one of the things that spurred…
Peter Schmid: A Mild Transition
It is a year now since Peter Schmid took over the reins from the world-renowned goldsmith and designer Michael Zobel. The change of proprietor was mild and unspectacular – the Zobel designs remain expressive, full of vitality and characterized by…
A Merchant Ship Full of Treasures
The merchant ship that sank off the coast of Turkey over 3,300 years ago and that divers salvaged in 10 years of work from 1984 to 1994 was carrying jewelry, weapons, vessels and other trade goods on board. For archaeologists,…
Dazzling Blackness
Inspiration A topic enthused by its dizzying variety, characterized by a striking contrast between white and black and an enormously bedazzled love of detail. Whether in fashion or at home, whether material, paper, metal or porcelain – every material is…
Lovely Luxury
Inspiration The design inspiration of three decades melt together to form a sweet and poetic topic of luxury; colors, forms and designs are borrowed from the thirties, forties and fifties and innovatively combined to form a stylistic vintage topic consisting…
Global Painting
Inspiration Kenya meets Tokyo – Morocco encounters Amsterdam! The shifting together of most different countries and cultures paints a global and sensual image of a world undergoing integration. Ethnic patterns are combined with French Haute Couture, while natural materials are…
Angela Hübel: Sculptures for the Hand
Large and comfortable – this is the style of the rings created by the Munich-based jewelry designer Angela Hübel. The fact that she succeeds in uniting these apparently barely conformant properties in a high-quality item of jewelry is entirely due…
German-Japanese Flexibility
What is connection between a sleepy hamlet in Saarland, Germany, and the glimmering, pearly beauties of Japan? It is above all the company Perlen Yukie with its headquarters in Merzig/Saar, which – although it is still run as a family…
Nico Taeymans: Jewelry and Other Stories
The Belgian designer Nico Taeymans has a lot of stories to tell: The one about the boy who grew up in the port district of Antwerp and who always dreamt of being an artist. Or one of his many jewelry…
Gijs Bakker: Car Brooches
“I don’t wear jewels, I drive them!” This statement by the Dutch jewelry and product designer Gijs Bakker wrote history just like his series of car brooches, which he released in 2001, in which he poked fun at the almost…
Agate: Nature’s Fingerprint
A petrified miracle of creation – most deserving of this kind of finely sensual description is agate. Agate is found all over the world. And wherever it is found, nature has left very special and unique traces in it. Old…
Material Thought of Jewelry Journeys
For the second time now, international jewelry artists are setting off for boundless networking of their ideas and inspirations. Jewellery Journey, a unique, international Internet and exhibition project for jewelry art, has since August 2005 once more enabled this form…
Marriage Rites: The Ring as a Symbol of Eternal Faithfulness
In many cultures, exchanging rings as a symbol of eternal togetherness is an integral element of the wedding rituals. Other marriage rites are more distinct from each other, depending on the religion, sense of tradition or regional origins of the…
Bruna Hauert: For the Love of the Absurd
She is just as passionate about abstruse stories as she is about droll jewelry. Bruna Hauert and “Friends of Carlotta”, her gallery in Zurich, have gained an international reputation with a combination of these two aspects. Bruna Hauert – vivacious…
Kemal Simsek: In The Sign of the Acacia
The Turkish designer Kemal Simsek chose an acacia as his corporate logo. And this jewelry company, not yet 10 years old, has put on roots in the international world of designer jewelry that are just as strong as those of…
Olaf Martens: Masks and Facades
Masks & Facades – Perspectives on St. Petersburg is a book handling themes of jewelry and the pleasure of wearing it. The Leipzig-based photographer Olaf Martens has created this book that bears witness to a comical and eccentric form of…
Wolf-Peter Schwarz: When It’s Night in Helsinski
…it’s daybreak in Honolulu. Wolf-Peter Schwarz known to most jewelry-cognoscenti as the inventor of Charlotte variable jewelry, has come up with a light watch that indicates the time in the world in a sophisticated and sensual fashion. Light watch at…
Fascinating Caprioles of Nature Gemstones with Inclusions
Faults or miracles? In general, gemstones are held to be more precious if they have as little “contamination” with other materials as possible. But everything that is mysterious and unique has its own special attraction. Gemstone cutters and jewelry designers…
Lapponia: Jewelry Art from Finland
The unique style of the designers Björn Weckström, Zoltan Popovits, Christophe Burger, and Pekka Hirvonen has been the creative imprint for the new collections of the Finnish jewelry manufacture Lapponia. They all share a mutual love for nature and its…
Dorothee Striffler: Queen of Quads
Dorothee Striffler has made her choice: the square is far and away her favorite form. And, there are good reasons for that because the square is the strongest and more succinct of all geometric forms. Dorothee Striffler Diamond-shaped chain, 18…
Artists of the Sun
Inspiration The leisurely lifestyle that artists such as Picasso or Matisse convey in their sun-drenched, love-filled paintings. The atmosphere created by the mild climate, the summery colors and the warm light of the Provence in the South of France is…
Square-Shaped Treasures Made of Glass
If the only thing you think of is old Venetian art when someone mentions mosaics, you don’t know how imaginatively these little glass squares can be used. The tesseras of the Italian glass mosaic producer Bisazza are not only used…
Hall C2: A Flood of Material and Purist Calm
C2 – when the name of a fair hall is automatically associated with electrifying innovation and ground-breaking design, it can only be Europe’s largest jewelry show: inhorgenta europe. Precious stones always have a special place in Michael Zobel’s collection in…
Inhorgenta Europe: The Future of Design is Female
Inhorgenta europe is presenting the special show “brand new – new brand” for the third time. Like in the previous years, 20 young designers and newcomers to the trade fair have the opportunity to present their work to a specialist…
Wolfgang Gessl: Silver Diction
There are no limits to what we can learn from one material. And I feel that I still have a lot ahead of me in white gold, red gold and silver…”, says Wolfgang Gessl, whose mostly geometric work has been…
Brazilian Colors Delight the World
A country whose flag is comprised of four different colors must love vivacity. Brazil and the Brazilians most certainly do. The warm and friendly sunlight that mostly smiles benignly on the largest country in South America sets Brazil’s magnificent colors…
Wilhelm Krische: Jewelry Stone Made of Milk
In 1898, Wilhelm Krische, owner of a factory that made history books and a stone printing shop, patented one of the first plastics. But he had no way of knowing that thiry years later, Coco Chanel would take the “milk…
Creatively Blurring the Borders Between Nature and Art
The eclipse of nature makes it all the more captivating, especially for artists. Nature has been a topic that cultural history has been interpreting for ages, not just since the natural environment has been in danger of disappearing. An exhibition…
The Key to Happiness
People have attempted to enter into a pact with the occult forces of nature for thousands of years in order to protect themselves against evil and to attract goodness. Symbols of these alliances are still found today – above all…
Golden Messages
As many and varied as the reasons may be to publicize a message or to make a very personal statement, the manners in which one can go about accomplishing it are equally manifold. Some people sit down and write a…
Steyr Iron Trading to Modern Education
The Austrian city of Steyr has been a trading post for iron and a center of metalworking for many hundreds of years. It is therefore logical that this place should also train young people in metal design. The Blümelhuber Villa:…
Antonio Bernardo: Jewelry, to Touch Hearts
From autodidact to prize-winning designer: 30 years ago, the Brazilian national Antonio Bernardo founded his jewelry production firm in Rio de Janeiro. This year, he won two of the most coveted international design prizes for the first time, and the…
Jewelry Photography Communication
The photography of jewelry can achieve a whole lot more than just depicting products. It can focus on unique details that generate very different feelings and can contribute to the visual communication of the jewelry’s inspiration. The jewelry by the…
Fascinating Interaction of Enamel
The fascinating depth and quality of the intesive colors that are created by melting stained glass on a metal surface still reamins unparalleled today. New design based on an old idea: bangles “Dolphin” and “Aphrodite” by Frey Wille One can…
Modern Africa: A Jewelry Project
The contents of some projects are not restricted solely to creating a presitigious symbolic value, but which instead provide an actual benefit to all those involved. The cooperation between the South African gold producer AngloGold and a group of young…
Jewelry Design in Geneva Education
A pretty red brick building from the 19th century is located not far from the city center of Geneva, a few hundred meters form the main railway station Cornavin on the right-hand side. This venerable old building has housed the…
Bernd Wolf: Life is Colorful
Reduced lines, minimalist forms and clear colors characterize primarily the jewelry collection by the Freiburg-based jewelry designer Bernd Wolf. However, there is much more behind it than a superficial glance could ever realize. Bernd Wolf: Designer with visions The collection…
Binding Variety
Whether they are cable, balloon, Maderia, rose, rolo or wheat chain, chains can be worn in almost any way. As on the oldest known items of jewelry with an original structure that is as simple as they come – link…
Delicate Chokers
Strings of pearls resting directly on the neck: The Freiburg-based company pars pro toto producers chokers that are popular among young consumers in particular, as they suit the retro fashion style. Galaxie This jewelry item, which is worn tight around…
White Treasure with Rarity Value
Platinum, in many regards an extraordinary precious metal, was given its name by Spanish conquistadors in about 1580: “platina,” which means as much as “small silver.” Today platinum enjoys a popularity that is anything but small; it is valued and…
Earthly Art of Breathtaking Beauty
The works of the British environmental sculptor Andy Goldsworthy are never actually complete, but are always either in the process of being created or of being destroyed. His works of art are particularly fascinating, perhaps precisely because they last only…
Up-and-Coming Generation of Artists
Big names, small prices – this principle is familiar to us from the furniture industry, but less so from the jewelry industry. Where sophisticated design and enticing prices are joined by a high degree of quality, the jewelry must be…
Hiko Mizuno College: Japanese Jewelry
The imposing seven-story Hiko Mizuno College of Jewelry, often photographer for architecture magazines because of its unique design, juts up into the sky directly where the three most important fashion districts in Tokyo converge. Just the right surroundings for the…
Arte Smykke-design in Oslo
Aid to development, in the broadest sense of the term, seems to be the specialty of Norway’s most famous jewelry gallery owner, Anne Line Bakkevig. Earlier, she worked as a social worker with young people, and now she is committed…
Exhibition Concept Evokes Wanderlust
With his international exhibition concept, which supports and promotes dialogue between foreign jewelry artists and those from Germany, Udo Adam-Pasquale has given his relatively new gallery “Orfeo,” in Cologne, an unmistakable character in no time at all. Udo Adam-Pasquale View…
The Future of Design
Inhorgenta europe (2005) – 20 young designers and newcomers to the trade fair have the opportunity to present their work to a specialist audience for the first time. What is new this year? All participants are female.
Galalith – Jewelry Milk Stone
In 1898, Wilhelm Krische, owner of a factory that made history books and a stone printing shop, patented one of the first plastics. But he had no way of knowing that thirty years later, Coco Chanel would take the “milk stone” Krische had developed and would help it make a final breakthrough in the costume jewelry industry. Galalith – the word is formed using the Greek words for milk and stone – that was used in the nineteen twenties and thirties as a jewelry stone was, as is so often the case in the world of inventions, discovered by accident.
The Jewelry of Michael Zobel
What he wanted to be was a painter, although he was also thinking about being a graphic artist or book illustrator. But, because his father thought that things like that were too bohemian and wanted his son to learn a proper trade, Michael Zobel became a goldsmith. Although hes 61 years old today, he never regretted taking this step in his long career as an internationally recognized jewelry designer.
Communication with Jewelry Photography
The photography of jewelry can achieve a whole lot more than just depicting products. It can focus on unique details that generate very different feelings and can contribute to the visual communication of the jewelrys inspiration. Unfortunately, we see time and again that jewelry designers adopt a strangely ambivalent position when faced with how to communicate their products. This applies in particular to jewelry manufacturers in the initial stages of their careers. It is a crying shame that there are so many designers able to achieve the highest standards of precision and perfect craftsmanship in the production of jewelry and then proceed to take inferior photos of it that in no way do justice to their own excellent work. Conversely, established designers who are familiar with trade fair business and with handling the media have usually already discovered or experienced how important it is to define a clear approach in communicating ones own style of jewelry and its special features. An idea of who is or may be the target group for the jewelry can help the photographer or designer find a suitable language of images.
Messages on Jewelry Designs
As many and varied as the reasons may be to publicize a message or to make a very personal statement, the manners in which one can go about accomplishing it are equally manifold. Some people sit down and write a book — others design jewelry.
The Jewelry of Antonio Bernardo
From autodidact to prize-winning designer: 30 years ago, the Brazilian national Antonio bernardo founded his jewelry production firm in Rio de Janeiro. In 2004, he won two of the most coveted international design prizes for the first time, and the first time he tried. Antonio Bernardo loves the challenge that metal has for him as a jewelry designer: reluctantly and malleably at the same time, he teases emotional jewelry from its depths.