Thinking, thwarted ideas, re-thinking, setbacks and silver linings…

It’s over a year since I travelled to Idar-Oberstein (I-O) in Germany, long regarded as the world’s centre of excellence for gemstone cutting.  I’d never thought about cutting stone, but after my talk at the 2022 ACJ conference, Keynote speaker Prof Theo Smeets invited me as Artist in Residence (AiR) at the Department of Gemstones and Jewellery, Trier University, campus Idar-Oberstein, in partnership with the Jakob Bengel Foundation.  Theo was curious to see whether, or how, someone who had an affinity with wild stone tools might take to cutting stone.  As the older I get, the more I realise I have to learn, I responded that as soon as my son turned eighteen, I’d be on a plane. And that’s what happened.

In the interim, the Department suffered a catastrophic fire and lost its well established, custom built workshops. The go-ahead to adapt and use the current building was only given half-way through January 2023. What the team accomplished by the time I arrived in early April was nothing short of miraculous.

Over dinner on arrival, with Theo and his colleague Prof Ute Eitzenhöfer, (whose brilliant work I had seen in books and at Electrum Gallery), I heard tales of collections of rough rock and gemstones in cellars underneath houses; stories of buckets of unsold cut stones being found in the river, because the dealer would rather throw the stones away than give them to anyone. My impression was of a town long in the grip of stone-fever; of those willing to hoard material, waiting for the days when life size palm trees might once more be commissioned to be cut from gemstone. I heard of a huge uncut stone that had to be seen to be believed, so mesmerising that its viewer still has flashbacks. And no, I can’t tell you what type of stone, as my source swore me to secrecy.

If you want to read about the incredible Bengel Industrial Monument, why I didn’t simply use the workshops there, and to know what I actually got up to as AiR, read my previous Journal posts written at the time and since.

Here, I’m writing about thinking, thwarted ideas, re-thinking, setbacks and silver linings.

Having never lived alone (barring ten weeks in my mid twenties), the idea of three months as AiR was hugely enticing. To consider only myself was a welcome change and much needed respite, the value of which became more evident time progressed.

The AiR has use of an apartment and a monthly stipend. This generous arrangement afforded the realisation that I had a unique and privileged opportunity: to take time without wasting time. 

I met the faculty (impressive), the students (lucky devils), and a fair few people on the buses I took. I attended a weekly Mineralogy class (fascinating), had an induction to the stone cutting workshop (completely compelling), and gave a talk to the students about the importance of making time to play within a creative practice (well attended, ran on a bit).

The first few weeks were filled with wandering, adjusting, absorbing, wondering and reflecting. 

I’d arrived with some fairly well developed ideas of what I might explore in I-O, but no definite plans. I’d also decided that after a difficult few years, in 2023 I would find a silver-lining in any adverse occurrence. Just as well.

I hadn’t realised how geographically strung-out the town is. Bengel is at one end and the campus pretty much at the other end. Long-Covid health complications gave me a 45 minute walking radius from the apartment. Apart from the centre, I-O is a fairly hostile zone for pedestrians. I walked out of town to a tool store and halfway there I ran out of pavement, literally.

Most of my luggage weight was tools, but not my beloved stone hammers. Research led me to believe I’d have an abundance of river tumbled stones to choose from. Reality was different. A four lane highway runs over the river Nahr. Tantalisingly, I could sometimes hear the river, but whenever I caught a glimpse, it was behind railings, fencing, private property or gated business areas.  Wherever this was not the case, access was too steep and water rushing too fast to risk it.

After a few weeks, courtesy of a car trip with an MA student, I was able to collect three stones that I wouldn’t have given a second look at home. Using them to hammer silver however, I felt my entire body relaxed. I could progress ideas forming around experiments in the stone workshop.

Whilst the faculty had moved mountains, certain aspects were out of their control. Gas was connected solely to a huge smithing forge, not really suitable for fine silver jewellery. Then when the torches were connected, delivery of new hosing was delayed. I could feel the frustration within the faculty and the students.

At the end of week six, I had a really successful long day in the workshop shaping agate slices dyed a deep sky blue; finally a breakthrough.  The next morning, I found my dominant right hand to be injured; probably RSI. I hid over the weekend. Typing was ok. Writing was difficult. Cutting vegetables hurt.

I gave it a week during which I started knitting to keep my hand from becoming stiff.

Necklaces made by AiR’s on the wall of the apartment and what I came to think of as the ‘Bengel Blanket’…

A week later I returned to the workshop to cut granite with a diamond encrusted blade. It was too soon. The injury came back with a vengeance.  

Granite cut with several lengths of diamond encrusted wire over two and a half hours…

Luckily the terrain around I-O is beautiful. Snow and ice; white sky and rain; then suddenly, heat and sunshine with an explosion of brilliant, fresh greenery topped by lark-singing-blue skies. I took to the woods, hiking up to vantage points affording views of places to go if I wasn’t limited to long-covid walking.

I took buses and trains: to the highest point in the region where, alone in the woods, with pine needle duff underfoot, surrounded by birdsong, I had a few moments of pure happiness; to Galerie Rosemarie Jager, entering through an idyllic courtyard and garden to see a rigorous show of work by Esther Brinkmann. Always wonderful to see work only previously encountered in books!

Another train and hike took me to Fondation Kubach-Wilmsen.  Blessed by a butterfly on arrival, I saw wonderful sculpture and my first real life building designed by Tadao Ando. Sublime.

Blessed by a butterfly on arrival at Fondation Kubach-Wilmsen

On campus I watched student presentations, talked to a fair few about their work, and ran a workshop, ‘Making Words Work’, during which we interrogated the qualities of random objects to help in writing statements about work.

Thanks to Gina Muller for the photograph

Ten weeks out of twelve and no work made. Frustrating to say the least. Then I heard that an exhibition of AiR work at Villa Bengel was planned. I realised that to take part I’d have to design work that I might make with my left hand.

Deciding to use gilding metal for larger elements, I messaged Kelvin J Birk who was kind enough to tell me the German term for it.  Sourcing was frustrating.

I designed constructions with minimal cuts, to join with slots, tabs and gravity.

Using burrs in a pendant drill in my left hand, with the flex pinned through my apron I was able to recruit my right shoulder to assist me to ‘draw’ on metal. It worked well.

I wanted to patinate the metal using Easy-Flo flux powder. There was none to be had. Johnson Matthey’s rep in Germany was fantastic. Astounded that I was “without a car in such a region”, he arranged for a sample of Easy-Flo flux paste to be delivered to campus. Unfortunately, paste didn’t work, so powder was posted from Switzerland. I then realised that to achieve the desired results required a more ergonomically intimate workspace than was possible. All I managed was to visually obliterate my ‘drawing.’ What next?

Using my body in unfamiliar ways not only left me in more pain, it temporarily re-wired my neural pathways. Having run a workshop about words, I found myself at a loss for them, plucking French from the depths of memory and translating back into English. Who knew?

With four days left as AiR, the only option was to go with what I know: fine silver and wild stone tools. I took a bus with an Estonian exchange student to source some geodes. I scrubbed deep red residue from the scorned local river stones and smoothed sharp edges on a spindle.

I’d brought three pieces of fine silver sheet with me, so I made paper patterns and set to it. I managed to make a hole with my bow drill and to saw a straight cut to it, all left handed. Files and burnishers were held in vices whilst my inept left hand, guided by my right, moved the metal.

My first ‘Sinistral Make’ was a scoop.

I then used a slightly larger piece to make a ‘Sinistral Double Scoop.’

Encouraged, I managed to saw a circle from my last square of fine silver.

I found a perfect array of hollows in a silversmith’s tree stump and used the geodes in my left hand to hammer and raise a small ‘Sinistral Bowl.’

I delivered these ‘Sinistral Makes’ to Theo, mid-installation, the day before I was due to leave I-O at dawn. My husband and son arrived in our car. We drove into the countryside where I scrambled over a stone-cutter’s scrapheap and bought a bucket of offcuts. We then sampled the local speciality dish (by way of Brazil) over dinner at the local aerodrome whilst watching light aircraft taxi, take off and land until sunset.

I have plans for these large drilled agate chunks from the scrap-heap. Hopefully to be worked with over next winter…

My AiR started with a generous, enticing invitation. It was thwarted by failure to secure funding from ACE DYCP and my inability to range very far. Many ideas were frustrated by repercussions from the fire and relocation, in fact I came to think of my initial theme, ‘Lines of Desire’ seen allover the landscape, as ‘Arrested Development’!

Genuinely, I cannot praise the faculty enough. Would-be jewellers, if your German language is good, consider the BA at Campus I-O. If you fancy an excitingly challenging MA, it’s taught in English and attracts a truly international cohort.

Amongst many silver linings: walking improved my lung capacity; if I’d secured funding, I would’ve been immeasurably stressed by my inability to make. If I hadn’t hurt my hand, I wouldn’t have had a neurologically challenging experience nor further simplified approaches to my work that led to a new earring design as well as ideas for jewellery tooling involving agate…

The shiniest silver linings were people. Thanks to all at the extraordinary Jakob Bengel Foundation; to Theo for the invitation and hospitality; to Ute (I still have plans for that extraordinary piece of lapis); to Gina and the students for making me welcome; to Poros for driving me to hunt wild stones; to Caro for humour under pressure; to Levan for calm patience and the line “I know a grandmother…”, when starting a tale about a cache of stone material to be found somewhere or other in the gloriously strange place that is Idar-Oberstein.

Jo McAllister - 7 April 2024

An edited version of this piece was published in the Spring 2024 issue of Findings, The Magazine of the Association for Contemporary Jewellery.