Platina

Platina sits on a busy Stockholm street. Owner Sophia Björkman has done a good job setting it out from the crowd. Entering the gallery jewelry is displayed in small white cubes placed along the walls at differing heights. The cubes' size and enclosed sides help to create an intimate setting between viewer and object. On the first floor one can find the jewelry of artists Adam Grinovich, Karin Johansson and Lisa Walker to name a few. The basement floor is reserved for exhibitions. Currently on view is Sophia's own work. In the first room of the basement, Sophia has carefully suspended elements of white oxford shirts, sleeves and collars are reconstructed into pendants. In the second room is a large grouping of brooches, bones or bone like structures encased in stocking material.

Along with jewelry there is also a nice selection of books. I purchased Alla, a catalog of brooches made by 29 different artists and their reaction to a political change in Swedish parliament.

The Book

Otto Künzli The Book, ed. Florian Hufnagl, Arnoldsche Art Publishers

I have good friends. One good friend just sent me Otto Künzli's The Book.

Otto Künzli, an icon in the jewelry field, has had a fantastic career which continues today. Featured in the book are many of Künzli's most well known pieces: Gold Makes You Blind, Oh Say!, Ring For Two. There are also pieces and images I had never seen before.

Especially noteworthy is the interview between Künzli and Walter Grasskamp. The interview is broken into sections piece by piece. Grasskamp and Künzli discuss each piece through its conception, process, and reception.

Form Emphasis for Metalsmiths

Form Emphasis for Metalsmiths, Heikki Seppä, The Kent State University Press

Heikki Seppä made a major contribution to the jewelry and metalsmithing fields when he wrote the book Form Emphasis for Metalsmiths. Seppä discusses the aspects of forming beginning with diagrams and specific vocabulary then moves into methods used in construction. Seppä touches upon many different methods including soldering, raising and seaming. But the real meat and potatoes of Form Emphasis for Metalsmiths is in Seppä's analysis of shell forming including anticlastic sinking.

The Penland School of Crafts Book of Jewelry Making, John Coyne ed., Evon Streetman photography 

Heikki shell forming whilst sporting plaid trousers. 

From The Coolest Corner

From The Coolest Corner publication, edited by Widar Halén, Arnoldsche Art Publishers

Good friend and artist Märta Mattsson has written an article for Art Jewelry Forum sharing her experience at the exhibition/symposium From The Coolest Corner. Starting in Olso, Norway the exhibition, which shows the varied works of Nordic jewelers, will then travel to Copenhagen, Denmark.

Judge a book by its cover

James Bond in the Cinema by John Brosnan, The Tantivy Press, Cover by Stefan Dreja 

Cranbrook Academy of Art Catalog

Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski, HaperCollins 

Three well designed book covers.