“The use of the term horizon is attested from the second half of the 13th century. At first the word signified ‘limit’, the limit of the gaze, the limit of sky and earth…The conquest, through the discovery of mountain landscape at the end of the 18th century, of higher and higher view-points, moved the horizon further and further back, until it vanished into infinity…
…’horizon’, which originally meant a limit, the power of circumscribing a place, came to mean immensity, infinity – such as the limitless horizon of the ocean…
Then beyond the horizon, in the imagination, appear Utopias…
But at the very moment that I look at the map – when I follow with my finger the route of a road, a contour-line, when I cross here and not there a frontier, when I jump from one bank of a river to the other – at this very moment a figure is extracted from the ground and the map, the figure of a projected journey, even if it is an imaginary one, a dreamed one. With that figure, a narrative begins, with a before and an after, a point of departure and a point of arrival, a happy coming-back or a final permanent exile. The locus has become space: directions, speeds, travel, timing give motion to the map with the tracings of various routes’
Exceperts from Louis Marin, ‘The Frontiers of Utopia’
Karin Seufert
Hello dear Connie,
How are you and how is it going with your pregnancy??
I really hope that everything is fine!
I’m leaving tomorrow for 3,5 weeks to Brazil, so fortunately I finished packing but now I start to get a bit nervous about the early getting up in the morning.
These fire-walls we talked earlier about, they start to fascinate me more and more and I made a lot of pictures of them but now it is too short time to load them down on my computer and send them.
When I’m back I will do it and for now I will attach a painting from Peter Doig about the Amazon area and the jungle there. I love this area!!!
Have a very good time and take care yourself,
Warm regards, Karin
Auli Laitinen
hi Maria, I am sorry not to have posted something in a while. I am trying to get my self together. We have lost our friend and studio collegue after some time of illness and I am taking things slowly. I will return as soon as possible. Auli
accidently I didn’t post this at the right page so I am reposting it here to you.
Auli Laitinen
Hi Maria,
I am sorry not to have posted something in a while. I am trying to get my self together. We have lost our friend and studio collegue after some time of illness and I am taking things slowly. I will return as soon as possible.
Auli
Hi Carolina, nice paper! Considering the many drab or ugly buildings that exist, just think of all the beautiful paper that could have been if they hadn’t been build but their plans mashed to pulp. I love the burnt tree from which you took charcoal to make drawings.
I just returned yesterday evening from a back and forth to Amsterdam for a couple days. That was interesting! As the Human Magnet I picked up very clearly on my own feelings. It was a terrific ‘high’ coming back to that city. I felt lighter, happier, happy to be able to live there, and being a part of it. Even though I like mountains very much (I think), and Idar-Oberstein is in a tight vally between smaller mountains, I just felt I was able to breath deeper in the flat wide landscape that Amsterdam is in. Also the mind frame and way of people. This made me realize just how much I have moved away from my German roots to my “foster roots”.
After reading Susanne Klemm’s comment about appreciating her Swiss roots much more now I came to realize that it is just the opposite with me. I have actually never felt patriotic or proud about being German, had never thought about it when I lived there. Too young as a 5 year old when we left it, and not feeling particularly German growing up in Canada except for having German parents, I had to get used to being German when I was 17 and often felt that a part of me was missing because I didn’t have the same stories of TV programs, books, songs, or school lessons the others did. Later when living in Holland I was happy to be European. It felt bigger and wider somehow.
The Gray Area for me is actually a metaphysical space rather than a physical area or color. It’s the in-between areas filled with stuff like unclarity, confusion, insecurity, undecidedness and so forth. Physical gray is for me just a color that can be relaxing to the eyes from too much color, it can be calming, or just nice to wear. It’s everywhere, even as floor color in my apartment because it connects colors well. Maybe that’s it! Maybe a gray area is needed to connect things?
Ciao, Andrea
View over part of Amsterdam harbor from the building of where my job is. W-I-D-E ….. take a deep breath!
Sebastian Buescher
Hi Dani.
Nice to see what your week (your calendar) looks like. I think that my calendar, at the moment, would have the same image printed seven times, more or less. Not much changes on a day to day basis (at least not on the surface). I still have a whole table full of ‘work in progress’ pieces. As much as I would like to work in full power mode, I also know that this is not how it is right now and therefore I care for the ‘lame snail’ work mode I am in (little by little, bit by bit). Instead I have been making a lot of (green) papaya salad. It is Thai and made from unripe papaya. Have you tried it? It is my newest obsession and now I can make it easily and effortlessly in minutes. The ingredients include green papaya, carrots, tomatoes, fish sauce, sugar, crushed peanuts, lime juice and chilly. Last night I also made some sushi, which would be another obsession I had two months ago. What I like about these dishes is the flexibility and the ability to move ingredients around in a creative way, finding delicious alternatives/variations.
On a more serious and less delicious note, I also came across heavy metals the other day. A friend, alternative health practitioner, did muscle testing on me the other day and he concluded that my entire body is under strain from mercury. This came as a shock because I eat quite healthy and, generally speaking, care quite a bit about the environment I am in and keep my interaction with poisonous substances to a minimum. But then it struck me, after doing more research about this subject, that I have no idea what is in anything these days, ie foods, soaps, materials, paints, etc. We could be eating ‘healthy’ organic fish and find that this is heavily laden with mercury that strains our entire body. This thought stressed me out and made me feel quite guilty about ‘not knowing’ and even embarrassed by my ignorance. I know that some of my ceramic glazes or enamel paints contain lead, for example. I use resin here and there. And these examples are merely work materials. What about all the other things we use, eat, drink? I think that it is time to look at these things more closely because I love Mother Earth and I no longer want to be a contaminating agent, either for her or myself. I even think that these kind of issues are quite fascinating for the gray area I find myself in (maybe something worthwhile?).
Have a great Sunday!
Eduardo Graue
Hello Carolina. This is a more clear foto related with the jewellry work.
Can it be another mapamundi shape
Today is a little bit colder , because of the entrance of an
hurriccane name “Rick” that arraives from the Pacific Ocean
With best wishes, Eduardo
Hi Andrea! How are you?
I have been thinking about opposites…black_white//human_nature//creation_demolition//hand_machine…and I have been doing paper! The last two years I was working as architect, so I have a lot of building plans. I took one of them to transfrom it into pulp, and then in paper. I’ts a gray paper…
hi ale!
it is in teh middle of the night. everything is gray.my head aswell.
this project is soo much in my mind, and i have not being able to make really sense
about it for myself. why does it touches me?why does it confused me?why does it frustrates me?why do i feel so shy about it? and why not free?
and i think that all is great. and perhaps totally the purpose of the project!!!!
but i think the difficulty for me comes from the unability of using m senses…
i cannot talk, i cannot smell, cannot touch, i cannot hear, i cannot bite….
i feel gray.
i was thinking oh great you are moving closer by…to luxenburg perhaps we can meet…
but perhaps that would break this akward point of this project for me.
hmmm…
gray…but gray has all its shadows as well…
yeah! ok.then i go back to sleep…good night!
mia.
Ineke Heerkens
Emotions are hard to define. To make them touchable I asked myself what do I miss when I am abroad? Missing is not the right word for me. Being somewhere else means a fully awareness of my new surroundings in all senses. The funny thing is when I come home I notice that the so typical Finnish tree is the same as the one that is in front of my house, but I have never seen it before…
 Dutch October 2009
Ineke Heerkens
….The sea that always seems like a metaphor but one that is always moving, cannot be fixed, like a heart that is like a tongue that is like a mystery that is like a story that is like a border that is like something altogether different and like everything at once. One thing leads to another, and this is the treasure that always runs through your fingers and never runs out. Rebecca Solnit
 Dutch Clouds
 Praline, LH 2005 Hi again, consumerism was a subject I’ve stirred in some works as well but more obvious in the series entitled Praline. In this particular case the dichotomy of precious-waste and image-content, emphasizes the subjectivity of people’s notion of value within their social context. As in your work Praline questions the material desires to project them as signs of psychological stereotypes.
In Portugal the material value of a jewel it is still felt as a very strong weight in people’s choice.
Where to begin? That’s THE question that as been surrounding me for a couple of weeks…
In former posts I’ve mention the comunication as an important issue for me in this project, the crossing of ideas and the diffusion of mental boundaries. But I also came across the analogy macro-micro which I see as a very interesting subject when we come to discuss our way to sense the world: home, territory, property or the feeling of being a corn in the vast field.
In this project some key issues were lain on the table:
individual and cultural expession
global context
cultural exchange, migration
globalized trends
identity: loss or perdurance
and
how jewelry addresses all the listed above
another interesting point questioned and perhaps close to the way we might direct this collaboration is: Does cultural exchange lead to broadening artistic borders or to uniformity?
 
Hi ALE!
I have been away. Went to Paris. Saw much fashion…..overload…
snowing in Munich!
HUG.
MIA.
Miguel Luciano
Hi Lenor,
Thanks for the reply, I’m enjoying reading about your work and ideas. My interest in jewelry is a good question… While I have a tremendous appreciation for jewelry makers and am amazed by the work of the jewelry makers/artists in this group, it’s an area I have modestly explored. I’m generally enamored with the making, crafting and conceptualization of objects. However in my own work, jewelry has been referenced mostly as a commodity, appropriated and manipulated to engage questions of materialism and decadence.
A lot of my work explores consumerism and the influence of popular and consumer culture in our lives. In the Pure Plantainum works for example, the empowerment of the symbol is problematized by the dichotomy of the exterior versus interior materials, a platinum jewel on the surface, a deteriorating plátano within. It’s a layered symbol, embedded with various contradictions that at once celebrate culture while questioning our material desires.
Having said this, I’m interested in how this gray area project might open new ideas. I enjoy seeing peoples’ conceptual approaches to making jewelry, particularly when using unconventional or unexpected materials. I’m still thinking about how to engage our project here and intrigued by the possibilities of collaboration over such distance… where to begin?
PS – is there anyway to get an email notification when someone responds or comments on the blog? I’m sure i’d respond better if I could figure this out. let me know if you have any suggestions.. thanks!
Miguel
Hello
Today I was looking for inspiration and found a poem of Aztec culture that I like to share with you…..
I am came,oh my friends,
with necklaces I entwine you,
with feathers of the macaw I adorn you,
a precious bird,I dress with feathers,
I paint with gold,I embrace mankind.
Whit trembling quetzal feathers,
with circlets of song,
I give myself to the community.
I will carry you with me to the palace
where we all,someday,
all must betake ourselves,
to the region of the dead.
Our life has only been
loaned to us!!
nezahualcoyotl
saludos
Jorge
 Picking up charcoal from a burned tree in Riñihue, south of Chile. Flying home with a selection of two pieces of charcoal. Drawing with them. Thinking.
Charcoal v/s chains. Let’s see what we can do with them.
Susanne Klemm
         Dear Samantha,
Sometimes I’m using a new environment especially to reach a new entrance for a series of work. One example: the white trees in Andalusia gave me the urge to transform this beautiful, kind of sterile image in jewels. During one year I worked in a former brothel, which inspired me to create a new collection of rings, the Red-light collection.
I live in Amsterdam for eighteen years. I started my study in Switzerland and finished it in the Netherlands. I came as a tourist too, like you. I wanted to hold my stage in Amsterdam because the climate for Art in this town felt good to me.
It was a culture shock because even only one thousand kilometres to the North everything is different. I had to learn a new language, which is always amazing. I lived in a different way than before. It’s not just about another country but also another way of living as a starter. I’m sure you recognize one or another.
Now I’m sure that I found a new home. I started a family. I still travel a lot for work and for pleasure. Lots of places are inspiring. Direct or indirect. But to create, a quiet period is needed after all the impressions and restlessness.
Of course, immigration changes life and point of views enormously. Has your work or the vision about what you like to do changed since you have been settled in Barcelona?
It would be nice if we could find a place where we both where once in our life, a place that left an impression. We could discuss about this place and try to come to a start in this project.
What do you think?
Warm regards from rainy Amsterdam,
Susanne
AND
Something I always wanted to know from migrants: Do you feel sometimes like I do, a kind of homesickness, dispite that you are very happy in the “new” Country? A kind of strange sentiment about your old customs, language, food, music or humor? I always was very critic about Switzerland during my life there. Now it turned out that I feel more patriotic than I ever expected.
Sebastian Buescher
Hi…!
I like Mondays as much as Tuesdays and the rest of the week. Throughout my life, Sundays have been the worst as far as I remember. They used to be dead, hot days of nothing, lingering, waiting for the night to come, to sleep and then to be woken up to go to school (I don’t think that I liked school–I always wondered why I had to go to this place that just forces you to memorize things for test and exams, you had to do well, otherwise your parents wouldn’t be happy, and then one day, just like that, you are free to roam the world and then you do everything in your power to become the exact opposite of the image that ‘school’ placed in your head).
Dani Soter
Hello, Sebastián!
Thank you for your address! 
Today I was on the beach…So nice! Blue sky and many shells, one more beautiful than the other. All of them with stories to tell us, silently.
Have a lovely week!
I love Mondays. And you?
Hi Carolina, the ‘Human Magnet’ (me) has been almost attached to the stone cutting workshop the last week, sacrificing my fingernails, skin on my fingers, wet and damp from the spraying water of the grinding wheels, but in return I now have a fairly sizable pile of little cut stones, some of them even finished being polished. My greed hath no end! The little pieces of now mostly rock crystal and smokey rock crystal seemed to attach themselves to my greedy hands as if by magic or magnetism! This week for a couple of days I will be able to participate at a workshop here in the old (fashion jewelry) chain making factory. It’s in the stage of planning for becoming a museum, but now the machinery still works but is out of business so to speak.
I noticed a while back that I was being attracted to the idea of working with chains here because their pattern in a way also very much reminds me of cutting pattern lines for clothing. Maybe not logical except in my mind… So I’m afraid the Human Magnet will also be carrying around LOTS of samples and examples of chain stuff!!!
What I have also been ‘collecting’ here away from home are warm contacts with very lovely people connected to the school. It is like a very cozy place in this strange town to feel comfortable, understood and at home. This is a very valuable experience to take back with me.
By the way, I very much like your drawings and envy you being able to automatically turn to this medium as holding on to your impressions and connecting and transforming them to your thoughts like you do.
Till soon, Andrea
Sebastian Buescher
Hey!
You are back with a bang. I know that sometimes we need to leave the world of the blog and live outside of it. But you most certainly have made up for lost time with your new posts. A lot of images and things to see and look at. You seem to a be a very prolific worker (kind of reminds me of me and how I can have nothing on one day and a whole collection one week later — allowing an electric creative current to move through you).
Did you find my address as a comment on one of the previous posts? Wanted to check and see.
Now my gray stones are covered with white and gray surface layers and one, in particular, interests me very much. I am using it to make some new work (of these pieces called Encrusterium). See image below.
 About the rest of the stuff on the other photo (with the queen of hearts, the skull, etc). Maybe these are more pieces of my gray area, abstract things, fragments, etc, without necessary cohesion and sense. Everything can be analyzed, but that is something I am moving away from, to allow the msytery and the unknown to remain in tact………
More later, until then, I hope you have a cozy and happy Sunday!
Terhi Tolvanen
Thanks for your mail.
I have a bit of the same experience as you with jewelry; it just feels right. I need to know -why- I’m making something. I believe everybody is responsible for the quality of what they make, there are so many products in this world that are useless in a lot of senses like functionality, esthetically etc…… With jewelry the never ending search of how to make a good piece somehow works….. It is challenging but also very rewarding to work on the quality; me as artist, the content of my work, the technical solutions…..
Me also I’m a lot on the road in the near future. Hope that we manage to continue anyway….! It would be lovely to come to Barcelona, my dream since years, but I will be going to Finland beginning of November for the Koru3 seminar. At the same time I will see my family which is great! They all live in Finland, I’m the only one abroad.
Please send me again the photo of your work!
it’s working your inner-magnet?
(I was in the south of Chile these last three days. I will show you some pictures)
Dani Soter
How are you, Sebastián?
I had to leave a few days to finish a job that has occupied much of my time and that has nothing to do with jewelry …
But here I am … In fact I never went away, at least mentally!
I always thought about our conversations and in a few words you wrote in your last pass through here as “body part is missing”, “mystery / unknown”, “under construction”.
The clue that I sent you has to do with it all!
I enjoyed seeing your universe of stuff “in progress”. I recognized several objects that inspire me, as the queen of hearts with no face and the skull… The clockwise , naked … I also liked the shells … I was curious and my eyes was scrutinizing each of these objects and shells … I was also intrigued by the gray rocks. They are pieces of your “gray area”?
Clue 2:
It´s like breaking up, the distance, distant, far far far away…
But then you are closer to others.
When having to stay SOMEWHERE ELSE one has intense feelings of belonging, and missing whatever there is to miss is inevitable.
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