Peter Vermandere
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Collection

Matchbox Label Collection

Freestyle atomics

Hotton Wheels

Jaw

Cubic Clusters

Piccola Carissima

BJOux

Primary Colors

Artist-in-residence

Expositions

Workshops

Petroforen

Tags

Idar-Oberstein

Hochschule Trier

Jakob Bengel Stiftung

Artist in Residence

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Artist-in-residence

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To be in an inspiring place is one thing, writing about it while discovering it, is something else. I've been here for five days and I have not yet been able to write. Perhaps today is a Good (Fri)day to start.

Last Sunday night I arrived in Idar-Oberstein, the cradle of the gemstone industry in Germany. I have been here for a few times since but it was more than twenty years ago that I came here to follow my first gem-cutting courses. The Edelstein Zentrum of the firm Ruppernthal where I followed these courses has since long been shut down. I still remember the workshopleader, Herr Schumacher, a big man who had worked for the firm all his life. One day during my stay, he cut by hand a perfect ball of opalite in less than three hours! He was in his seventies back then, I wonder if he is still around.

This time, during the month of April, I am allowed to work in the old Jakob Bengel factory as an artist-in-residence. The artist-in-residence program is a joint initiative of the University of Applied Sciences Trier and the Jakob Bengel Foundation. What an overwhelming place this is! It's like a trip with a time machine but then for real. Thousands of steel dies and machines are silent witnesses of the activity of the men and women who worked with them. The grand workshops as well as the little rooms are full of machines and machine parts and boxes and shelves full of sample panels. For the past week I have just been trying to absorb the atmosphere. It feels like the people who worked here a century ago could show up every second to continue their work. I am not much of a believer in ghosts and spirits but in a place like this it is not difficult to feel their presence. I have been getting to know the (living) people in the factory and the school and I already did some exploratory 'basteln und schnipseln’ which in time (hopefully) will lead to new work.

To Be Continued
Peter Vermandere

Trier University of Applied Sciences, Edelstein und Schmuck (Campus Idar-Oberstein)
Jakob Bengel Stiftung.

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