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  • Artist of the month
    • Past Artists 0f the Month
  • Shop
  • A Room with a View
  • EDITORIAL
  • More
    • Events & Press
    • Galleries, Fairs & Others
    • In Conversation with .... Ruudt Peters
    • In Conversation with...Preziosa Young
    • In Conversation with...Doris Maninger
    • In Conversation with...matt lambert
    • In Conversation with ... Alba Cappellieri
    • In Conversation with 'CLUSTER'
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Lost In Jewellery Magazine
presents the last artwork of artist Ruudt Peters 'NEBULA' exhibited at Galerie Rob Koudijs in Amsterdam from the 31st of October till the end of December 2020 !


NEBULA
It started with a story of Fog, a bounding bike ride to school one early morning rushing past, or rushing through. Frozen figures protruding from the grey mist, the viscosity of the air palpable. Both memory and sensation, an attempt to grasp at the fog, inside the fog. The elusive space held in our cupped hands as we dip them down into the misty air to grab what we see plainly. The vacuum, the absence, the space for things to be, but also not. In Nebula, we see glass shells as one hand, and silver as the other, cupping hollow spaces where white protrusions and recessions shift and move as you travel past, by, near, close, over, under, and away – from them. Sibling to the works Interno and MA, Peters’ once more addresses the space for the viewer and the wearer. However, unlike the ‘objectness’ of those bodies of work, the shell, the depths, these pieces are not the ‘form.’ It is the space inside, held between hands of silver and glass, and the light, landscape, and the figures inhabiting the brume. 

 
When writing about Nebula, its difficult to write about anything solid, even though what these objects are is just that. I find myself writing about breath. Something elusive, but part of us and often overlooked. Let us hold our breath as we ride alongside Peters that morning. Feel the space in us fill up and inhale and hold between breaths. For a moment, Peters punctures the notions of I, you, me, we, here, then, and now, slamming all into a hierarchy that betrays our notions of self and asks us to inhale, hold, then exhale, returning us back into our bodies. Ruudt’s newest works of Nebula do something artworks often fail to do, take a trite notion, overly romantic and aspirational in its attempt, life, and humble us into simple worlds, simple moments in glass and silver, where the piece is not the point, but merely a vehicle for the unattainable nebula we surround ourselves with every day. 
 
Aaron Decker
​
Photo 'Nebula', Conor Vella

 


Insight into NEBULA
 Insight into NEBULA
 
What sparked your making of NEBULA and why does it feel important to be making this work now?
 
What sparked? I was making circles, searching for the f​ade away​. Something that is both there and not there. The most important thing in the beginning was graveyards. They’re not the same in America as they are here because America has not existed for as long. Here the stones fade away with time and you can no longer make out the image. For a moment I was creating images about fading away but then the work became not only about the graveyards but also about space and air. It went from black to white, my focus on graveyards was put on hold. Slowly, I started an investigation of light. 
 
I go back to my childhood when I was 10 years old, I had to bike 10 KM every morning and evening through rain and sun.The most exciting moments were when I biked through the fog. It is crazy, the very strong feeling of being in nothing, alone in nothing. Everything became​  silent, it was really zero. This feeling came back to me when I was walking for 4 hours in the​       mist in Japan. I was walking in “nowhere”, trees and water basins plopped up and disappeared. I had the feeling that I was walking in a dream.
 
When you speak in the mist and the fog it absorbs all of your noise and sounds to completely nothing. That's what I really tried to capture and slowly something started.

Producing a new body of work amidst a global pandemic is a fantastic feat.
​Were you at all influenced by the current events unfolding or were your investigations in NEBULA a separate and personal endeavor? 

 
Three fourths of the work was already done, but covid came up and made it a strange situation. Koen, my assistant, worked in the studio for 2 days while I would be at my summer studio, when I worked in the Amsterdam studio he would not be there. We never saw each other but would communicante over zoom or skype. It was very strange but we were still able to produce work together, together but separately.

Some parts of working in quarantine were fantastic. I had time to walk in the fields with my dog, we were lucky it was a beautiful spring, but it was lonely. One thing about being an artist is that sometimes you must work alone to get a deeper understanding of what you want to create. 
 
The pandemic has nothing to do with the work, it was my own thinking before covid-19 began, it just changed the way we had to make it.  Although NEBULA was not a response to the pandemic, you can look at the work and think about covid.
 
How do the ideas behind the work, being derived from your experiences in life and travel, transcend as jewelry and create something new within the viewer/wearer?
 
In 2016 I was in Japan for 3 months with my husband. We were doing an artist residency in a small beautiful japanese house sitting in the rain, it was always raining. I was bumping my head all of the time on the low beams and we would sit there making blind drawings from 10 in the morning to 6 in the evening. It goes on and on and on. It becomes erotic, it becomes strange. It's silent and what we’ve never done together is make drawings; he is an architect, he is making drawings but very different drawings. It was for me an unbelievable thing that happened, we did this for 3 weeks and then we traveled to the temple for 3 weeks. Our time in that old japanese house in the rain was crazy. Very very small, condensed, and beautiful.
   
Did you start thinking about fade away then or did that come later?
 
I was thinking about MA, “MA the space inbetween”, a japanese icon about what you can't see or hear. I wanted to create something related to this emptiness of space so I made jewelry that used mirrors to show the distance between you and me. When you look into the piece you see yourself in a deep dark pond, in the “space inbetween”.
 
I was very interested in reduction, the essence of life, and why I was doing things. It became more or less a meditation. I feel myself very much sometimes as a drama queen. I find that sometimes I work really in the drama queen way but the last few years it's silent, very, very, going into the essence. SUCTUS is related to life and death. The form of the baby bath and the coffin were important as they created a funnel to suck in light that made the pieces glow underneath. 
 
NEBULA starts about 2 or 3 years after our time in Japan.
 
How does the work relate to the body of the wearer and how did you choose where/how it could be adorned?
 
First of all I am a very bad jeweler. I am not concerned when it comes to fitting the body or having it rest on a garment nicely. My work is more of an alien to the body. Not made to fit, it's like a blop it comes out of the wearer. It is about thinking and life experience and it has more to do with people who are viewing the piece than the way it fits the wearer. 
 
NEBULA is about reflection and light. You see, then you can’t see; it is there and then it is not. When it's sitting on the table you must move the piece around to see it. When worn as a brooch and the body moves, it is there and then not there. Through the body's movement the pieces catch the light to subtly reveal what's inside. 
 
In SUCTUS you created pieces that funneled light through stone giving the work a glowing presence. Similarly the NEBULA series uses frosted glass to diffuse light, allowing the work to capture a feeling of “elusive proximity”. Have you always considered using light as a tool of engagement or has it developed with these latest works? 
 
In the past I was never working with light. It was the meaning, without light you don't see. Using light in my work happened by coincidence. 
 
I was given a gift when I used amber stones in SUCTUS. The stones glowed in the light and I thought, wow this is crazy, really excellent and accidental. It happened by chance, I like that more, when things are not planned.
 
The use of light in NEBULA was also a coincidence. I was trying to make nothingness and something that fades away. When you see the beginning experiments, you see I made a lot of shit/mistakes; they were not good. It is very important that you can make bad things, the more bad things you make the better it is. Only from the failures can you learn.  
 
What do the different characteristics of light mean to you?
 
I did not think about the characteristics of light so much. I thought about the light in SUCTUS, the sucking of light into the SUCTUS to get a certain kind of glow. 
 
In NEBULA the light is more all around, the piece catches light and becomes a reflection.There it was glowing and now the light is condensed. Like ice it's a state of water. It looks like water or mist or fog. It's an optimistic state of light, the state of nothingness. 
 
The installations of your work are always meticulously considered. Your work is viewed in spaces much different than, say, those of a ‘normal’ jewelry exhibition. Will the installation be minimal, in congruence with conveying a feeling of silence and nothingness, or have you planned a more elaborate display?
 
I am trying out in the studio to find out what that will be. I can be a drama queen and put a smoke machine in the gallery and everyone can go “cough cough”. I always want that, but it is a stupid idea. 
 
The installation will be minimal, using materials that evoke the feeling of being in fog and surrounded by nothing. It's a fingertip of the meaning of the work. I can’t give the audience too much information. There needs to be space to feel and think about the work; otherwise, the mystery is lost. 
----------------------------------------------------

Interview of Ruudt Peters by Marley White. 
Marley White, I am an artist and contemporary jeweler from Richmond, VA. This May I was selected as a 2020 Windgate Fellow, this fellowship supports my internships with Ruudt Peters, Ted Noten, and Gijs Bakker in Amsterdam, NL. During the first wave of the pandemic, August 2020, I interviewed Ruudt Peters over zoom about his upcoming work, NEBULA

a conversation with Ruudt Peters

In Conversation with Ruudt Peters....

It started as an interview and it ended up as a lovely chat between two old friends. 
A 'magical' and somehow 'mystical' unique talk....

"I am what I am and my husband can never understand my jokes.
What I mostly appreciate in people, is honesty and I feel I learn more by people around me when they are sincere, I in fact love people's 'feedback'.
As a child, I recall to be a 'daydreamer' and also how much I learned from my father who was a very good carpenter. I started with wood and I then discovered metal. He told me, what you can make in wood you can make it in metal.
Usually, the back side of my pieces is even better than the front side, maybe because I started with carving wood at first....because my Dad told me, that on the back side there are also living people.
To me all the details are important in an object and 'all has to come together' in a work of art and it has to 'make sense'.

I consider myself  'a maker' and all my work has different 'layers' to it. The multi layers in an object, hide the mystery of life and death, which is 'unpredictable' .
In my life I always have to 'investigate' things, I like to 'learn' and 'understand'.
I am a' jeweller' and all the rest that sorrounds me, is really secondary to me. I do learn who I am through the practice of jewellery and I love to educate students into one single practice, not into multidisciplinary jewellery. A jewel is a small item that gives you the chance to better understand the world around you and who you are.
The best experiment of my life was a spiritual trip to France back in 2012, where I did meditation with a group of friends, a group of captains of industry and my spiritual coach......I have to say 'I was in heaven'.
It was a very private experience which somehow changed my life.

Now with Covid I am also experiencing silence and solitude...long walks with my dog, listening to the outdoors and working in my studio. 'Slowing down' gave me a new power and energy. I hope we will cherish and remember this in the future.
Colours are a trigger to me, for example I do hate red, it is too aggressive, but at the same time I like to investigate this colour, it has the power of 'love'.
Then when it comes to my jewelry, I prefer using black. This colour, black, sums in it all the other colours. Black is 'silence' to me. Black just 'fascinates' me.
In my life my Mom was also very important. My Mom was not always very nice to me, but I do recall one time when, at the age of 8, she gave me to wear at school with my friends...a 'pied de poule' pair of bagged trousers. I truly loved the design, but I hated the impact it had on my friends at school.
That day, my Mom taught me a great lesson in life, which I still cherish today ...'the seed' of not being afraid ever in life, to be' extreme' in what I do.
As far as glasses are concerned, I buy a pair every two years from a very good belgian designer. Now black glasses are an expression of who I am ...my 'brand' in a way.
Laura, I believe in life in 'repetition' and also in 'failures'.
We should all learn from failures and 'try again' and 'never stop' in life, since the only limit human beings have to me....... is 'the sky' !" Ruudt Peters

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Artist Ruudt Peters MASK photo: Adam Popo
A very nice interview by me to Ruudt Peters
1. You are a very ironic man and a great communicator, what is the human quality you appreciate the most in people around you?
I feel myself not so ironic I have a kind of humor. Who most people not understand or appreciate. I can walk in Amsterdam on the street and give comment on the way people are dressed or what they do.
My friend Karen Pontoppidan don’t understand that I can get away with this kind comments. I really can yell to someone on the other side of the street that she wears beautiful earrings. Once I feel very badly about such a comment, was in Germany Erfurt, I saw a man wearing a beautiful yellow brooch. I run to the man and say
that I love the design of his brooch, he say yes, thank you, I am blind and this brooch means the sign for that. I am quite strait forward to other people. I like to communicate if I like things or not. Even with my body language I enter a room and show if I like things yes or no. I cant hide or predict that I hate something.
I need honesty from other people I work with. Even sometimes Its difficult to hear that people don’t appreciate your work or thoughts. But you can learn from their honesty

2. When did you discover you wanted to be an artist?
I always call myself a Jeweller / Maker. As a child I was a daydreamer, never present, always in an other world. This dreaming give me a lot of insides. Thinking about the romance of Life and Death. But I understand
that my work has a great philosophical impact There are a lot of layers in my work. Where I mostly not talk about. I love that the wearer of a spectator finds new insides and meaning in my work. As I also like to find deeper layers in other mans work. I love to buy art what I don’t like at the first moment. I like to invest and trigger my brain to understand the work and the artist.

3. Do you consider yourself only a jeweller, or do you practice also other artistic forms in your life?
Yes. “I AM A JEWELLER” . and when I teach I like to educate people to become a good jeweler. I hate interdisciplinary teaching. For me its important that you learn first one profession that you become extreme
good in making jewellery. After you know how to do this, you can make steps into other disciplines. Because you know how to deal with one subject.
I know you also teach, do you enjoy teaching? Yes, I love to exchange my knowledge with people. I like to learn from younger generations. They have an other look upon the world. To influence each other is very interesting. A kind of exchange of thinking MASieraad together with the jewellers Gijs Bakker, Ted Noten, Ruudt
Peters, and Liesbeth den Besten, (arthistory), Liesbeth in ‘t Hout (fashion), Leo Versteijlen (architect).
We are working on a new educational project on jewellery as a learning method.
Look at our statements at our: https://masieraad.com or insta: masieraad
All of the members of the foundation MASieraad stand for a specific vision upon jewellery. On a very high level we question the meaning and reason of jewellery in our society and we are working on a new education model. You will hear soon from us.

4. Along the years you have met many friends in the jewellery world, who would you take a trip with and where would you go ?
I have many friends in the field, I can't give you one name, and when I start with names I can't stop. I only can tell you that I like to take the people I love, to an unbelievable special place deep in the middle of the
earth. In 2012 I have followed a leaders program given by Dirk Oelibrandt a very spiritual alchemist from Belgium. He took us with a trip to the “Grottes de Aguzou” in France. This was one of the most exiting
experience I had in my life. All of us had to wear a special suit to keep our self warm and dry, we wore a helmet with the lamp on top. We were introduced by the curator of the cave. He told us that we have to take
everything out of the cave also urine or shit, nothing could remain. Because of the very special eco system under the ground. We entered the cave and get deeper and deeper. All kind of stalactite and stalagmite, a
world of very erotic LINGAMS.
A certain moment we had to climb up 20 meters on a wobbly Iron ladder. On the end of the ladder was a enormous vagina where you had to go trough, you real had the feeling to get back in your mothers whomb.
On this platform we did a meditation session, where you feel very strong the energy of mother earth. Dirk told me, You as jeweller have to go with the curator to a special place. Don’t worry. We moved horizontally
on our belly and elbows for 20 minutes in a very narrow cavern. Suddenly the curator stopped and clicked on his light and we were in the middle of a enormous fantastic field with white transparent rock crystals.
I was in heaven in the middle of our earth.

5. Ruudt Peters do you like to travel? What inspires you? What attracts you in life? Tell us a little about your dreams and hopes.
Yes I love traveling. I have been all over the world. By traveling you start to understand your own culture better. Mostly I choose a country who I don’t like on the first hand. I like to invest and learn more about others.
But I realize also that I feel myself a cheese head walking on Chinese markets. Traveling is a mirror of your own culture. You realize more where you come from. What are your habits and difficulties to change.
Now in this corona time I feel privileged to be able to see so many parts of the world. On the other hand I feel that I am crazy I don’t want more countries/cultures on my bucket list. Now every thing comes to silence.
No Moving, No travels, No exhibitions, I love it. I see that this has changed my way of looking upon nature and environment. But I am afraid that we all together don’t learn from this Covid 19, I am afraid that people rush directly to other destinations in the world. I am happy that I have a summer studio in the South of the Netherlands. I stay there during Covid time, walking with my dog along the river, hearing the birds
and look at the blue sky, I see that my own country is so beautiful, why should I go out in the world?
​
6. Life is full of colors to live in, which is your color ? Which is your jewel?
I Love colors, I hate Red!!! For that reason, I did in 2000 during a traveling South East Asia an investigation in Red. Love/hate blood/violence all is inside red. But strangely enough, I come always back to BLACK.
Black has everything in it self. It’s the color of death and drama. There are thousands of black colors.
The only jewel I wear every day, is my black wedding ring.

7. One last question, I'm in love with your shirts and your eyewear.....when did you start collecting them, is this a passion of yours, or your way to perform art, or to express yourself in life? Can you share
with us a pic of you that you love ?

My mother put a seed into me, she gave me when I was 8 years old a very beautiful “Pied de poule” trousers the only problem was that all the boys at school yell at me that I was a “baker” and was “gay”.. I hated to
wear the pants, but I love the beauty of the trousers. Finally the beauty won the struggle, I start to love fashion and extreme exciting clothes. I don’t like to wear only dull jeans I always love to wear special glasses, every two year I bought new ones. When I find the bold black ones from the designer Theo from Antwerp, I fell in love with them. I bought more of the seem glasses at one time. In 2000 when I finish my teaching at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. The students made fun out of my glasses, they portrayed themselves with my glasses on. From that moment I realized that my glasses are a branding of me as artist. I use from that time the glasses also to promote the brand Ruudt Peters.

8. A quote from you to say "Arrivederci" ....till the next one !
The only solution on making good work and have a good life is repetition, remake-remake-remake, do-do-do, don’t think- don’t think- make failures and learn from that- make and reflect- fall on your face - but try again.
You are never to old to learn. Every day is a new learning moment.
The sky is the limit.
Go-go-go. !
Ruudt Peters 
"My Mom bought me a 'Pied de Poule'"
​MY EYEWEAR GLASSES 

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Key piece OUROBOUROS made at the Erfurt symposium 1995 Collection Anger Museum Erfurt Germany Artist Ruudt Peters

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SUCTUS "sguabadh" silver / amber / polyester 54x33x42mm 2020
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SUCTUS "usisavanje" silver/ amber/ polyester 67x24x31mm 2020
More to come................

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