HANDCRAFTED HEAVEN
Two Wellington contemporary jewellers who took part in a unique mentoring programme have been chosen to show their work at a top European exhibition, writes Diana Dekker.
BECKY BLISS and Neke Moa were both mentored by their jewellery heroes in a unique scheme, Handshake, conceived by contemporary jeweller, artist and Whitireia tutor Peter Deckers. Now they are two of 60 from 600 international hopefuls who will show their work in Schmuck, an annual German exhibition seen as a take-off platform for contemporary jewellers. Schmuck 2015 will open, all serious sculptural gleam, in Munich, in March.
Deckers himself has applied several times through his career to exhibit at Schmuck – ‘‘jewellery’’ in German – and been chosen once. A handful of other established New Zealand makers have also been represented there.
‘‘It was a really big pat on the back. Creative New Zealand recognised it as a huge honour to be selected and now we have graduate exstudents, not that long into their careers, just amazing that they have been picked out of so many other great people.’’
Moa and Bliss, participants in Handshake1, which began in 2011, are not the first of Deckers’ proteges to be chosen. Auckland jeweller Kristin Dagostino, a fellow mentee partnered with artist Judy Darragh, had her work at Schmuck 2013.
‘‘We have had a truly remarkable run,’’ says Deckers.
Deckers was the ‘‘matchmaker’’ between mentees and their chosen mentors, who also included New Zealander Warwick Freeman, Wellington-based Lisa Walker, Lucy Sarneel from Amsterdam and Suska Mackert from Germany.
Moa chose internationally acclaimed Wellington-based German jeweller Karl Fritsch, a Schmuck veteran, as her mentor and Bliss teamed up with Italian jeweller Fabrizio Tridenti.
Bliss, 58, graduated from Whitireia in 2010 after a career in graphic design, which she still pursues. She has a design studio in Newtown.
‘‘I’d always loved jewellery and did a couple of night classes but felt I wasn’t learning quickly enough. I looked at Whitireia and thought I’d spend a year there
Neke Moa’s Where Will the Bellbird Sing?) paint was bought by Te Papa. ‘‘Pounamu is what I’m energised towards. I keep saying one day I’ll get sick of it and I’ll stop. It still energises me and interests me.’’ and learn to solder properly. I stayed there three years.’’
Over those years she became familiar with Tridenti’s work. She admires his complex creations in which he transforms bits of everyday mechanical and industrial hardware into necklaces, pendants and rings.
As mentor and mentee, they initially communicated via Skype, though she eventually visited him in Italy.
‘‘I’d send images and we’d talk. It was difficult. He can’t speak English, though his wife
Neke Moa
‘I don’t get too caught up with technique; let it flow and see where it takes you. We have quite similar personalities, quite laidback, fun and laughter.’
can, but not fluently.’’ He had, says Bliss, ‘‘a great sense of humour and a generous nature.’’
Bliss regards contemporary jewellery as ‘‘small sculpture . . . touchable. It’s a beautiful thing and because contemporary jewellery can be absolutely anything, so long as as it has some relationship to the body, it’s always so interesting. You can chose any material you want. It is a fun world.’’
Bliss’s folded, oxidised copper pieces intended for Schmuck explore shadows, ‘‘the space between shadows, the images they create, and what you can’t see’’. They come from installation work 100 Shadows.
MOA, 42, met Fritsch when she was studying at Whitireia ‘‘and enjoyed his teaching and his method of work, his being creative and out there and quite intuitive with his making; and I am. I don’t get too caught up with technique; let it flow and see where it takes you. We have quite similar personalities, quite laid-back, fun and laughter.’’
Moa was accepted for Schmuck on the strength of images of work she did for Clusters, a June exhibition at Pataka. The work, called Kei hea te Komako e ko? ( Where Will the Bellbird Sing?), was subsequently bought by Te Papa.
She contemplates taking similar pieces to Germany. For them she used different types of pounamu, each piece with a drilled hole, and red enamel paint. Moa, of Ngati Kahungunu, has always used pounamu and red paint.
‘‘Pounamu is what I’m energised towards. I keep saying one day I’ll get sick of it and I’ll stop. It still energises me and interests me. Red paint in my work has become a bit of a signature now. It all fits together.
‘‘The red is the tapu connection and the blood connection and the earth, and I also like the contrast. It goes back to the tiki with the red eyes. Pre-European they used red clay and shark oil on pounamu for tikis, then sealing wax came along and they used that in tiki eyes as well.’’
Moa has a studio at her home in Whitemans Valley, Upper Hutt.
Moa and Bliss have both been to Schmuck before – Handshake mentees had a stall there three years ago – but being chosen for the curated show is a whole level of jewellery beyond that.
Thirteen mentees from the Handshake2 programme will exhibit work developed over the past year in an upcoming exhibition. Handshake2, Toi Poneke, Wellington, November 21-December 13.