A lecture on the Development of Contemporary Jewelry and Jewelry Education in Europe: Past, Present; Future was held at TCDC on Sunday August 30th, 2009. It was given by Doris Maninger, a co-founder and co-director of Alchimia: Contemporary Jewellery School in Florence, Italy who was in Bangkok to scout out a location for their frist out of Italy branch. It was a good opportunity for Thai audience to get to see a different kind of jewelry–not fine jewelry nor costume jewelry. Many examples of contemporary art or studio jewelry were shown during the lecture.
Doris talked about contemporary jewelry movements in Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the UK and pointed out differences in their styles and concepts.
Dutch jewelry is known for its interesting use of non-precious materials to form distinct jewelry with strong personal concepts–very conceptual pieces.
German jewelers on the other hand, create jewelry out of both precious and non-precious materials combined harmoniously to convey their concepts in a very interesting way.
Swiss jewelers play with their sarcarstic points of view and using various types of materials including recycled or trash objects to create very high quality jewelry.
Italy is well-known for its fine craftsmanship in jewelry making for many decades. Craftsmanship was still the heart of Italian contemporary jewelry, where many artists use concepts that reflect upon its long tradition. Unlike Dutch jewelry, Italian jewelry gives more weight on beauty than concepts.
The UK contemporary jewelry scene has been quite vibrant due to a large number of schools teaching jewelry design and making. The overall style of UK jewelry is largely influenced by fashion and textile techniques. Its jewelry are considered very innovative in the way it is produced.
Doris stressed at the end of the lecture that when traditional craftsmanship meets creativity of today’s world, great things can be realized. I hope that Thai jewelry educators and young jewelers can learn from European experience shown to us during the lecture, and learn to create our own unique ways of making Thai contemporary and art jewelry.
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Michael David Sturlin 09.06.09 at 2:45 p09
This sounds like it was a very informative workshop and an excellent report. Thank you Atty.
atinuj 09.13.09 at 2:45 p09
Thanks Michael. Hope to have you teach a workshop here next year. I will be in touch.