Friday - 27th of March

Most likely the last blog.

Today we visited two artists. Gitte Nygaard, and Gesine Hackenberg.

I found Gitte's work very interesting. She told us she worked essentially as an apprentice goldsmith during her younger years, and she would watch and 'mimic' everything she sees while sitting next to a master goldsmith. It taught her a lot in technical ability, and that was her beginning foray into jewellery.

I feel that skill has transferred over to her current work. I find her pieces more finely finished, and better overall 'polish', so to speak. Everything seems to fit a bit more flush, curves and edges are sharp and clean, and everything is snug and precise. I feel this is a great touch that sometimes seems to be lacking in other work, and while technical skill is definitely not the main focus, it is welcome to see work that is made at high precision yet still has the conceptual flair.

She made one of her series from Binchotan, which is a Japanese product. It is a charcoal, and the raw material itself before being carbonised utterly. I think it is such a unique material, and it is so beautiful too, and how she explains that ironically that the carbon, and its allotropes, end up in the hands of the world's most beautiful and most poor - namely diamonds and coal. She says it is like diamonds that wanted to stay coal.

One of her rings. She was wearing it today. The black hunk is Binchotan, and the metal is gold. She said because of this 'series' she began to work with gold.