A Fantastical Array of International Art Jewellery

14th July - 25th Sept 2016

CRAFTS
JULY | AUGUST 2016

Looking sharp
Beady eyes will be rewarded at 20/20, an exhibition of work by 20 contemporary art jewellers inviting visitors to ponder the pleasures and pitfalls of perception (14 July- 25 September). The show celebrates Kath Libbert Gallery's 20 years at Salts Mill near Bradford, and the title's theme of visual acuity is a clever reminder that the gallery's reputation owes much to the careful art of looking. Libbert has secured a name for herself by successfully spotting fresh talent at annual graduate shows, as well as skilfully asserting jewellery's affinities with contemporary art. This ability to straddle disciplines suits Salts Mill, which ceased textile production in 1986 but is now home to architects, designers and a collection of works by local hero David Hockney.
www.kathlibbertjewellery.co.uk

Picture caption:
Above: Selection of works by Lucy Rie from the Anita Besson Bequest
Right: Proliferation Brooch, Heeang Kim (showing in 20/20)

ANTIQUES TRADE
GAZETTE
9 July 2016

Look away now if you are squeamish about insects - this is a whopper. South Korean artist Yojae Lee creates outsize brooches of praying mantis, grasshoppers and beetles from frog skin, leather, silver and clay. Priced at £1700, and 11in (28cm) long, the Praying Mantis here is shown by Lee, one of the artists in an exhibition of international art jewellery at the Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery in Salts Mill from July 14 to September 25.

The Saltaire Review Issue 18
29 Jul 2016

The Saltaire Review 29 Jul 2016
Kath Libbert By Mike Farren

By the time you read this, celebrations will be underway for the 20th anniversary of Kath Libbert's jewellery gallery in Salts Mill.

The gallery is almost as much of a fixture as the Mill itself, and when I meet Kath I concede that I had taken it for granted until Jake Attree, a previous interviewee, pointed out that she was the only individual consistently bringing new artistic work to the village.

Kath acknowledges how easy it is for the kind of art jewellery that features in her exhibitions, such as the upcoming 20/20 show, to be overlooked. "It doesn't get into the art press easily. Fashion doesn't quite get it either," she admits.

My other assumption was that Kath had had a smooth path into running a gallery. In fact her training was in psychology, and she worked for a number of years with children or in community work in psychology in Bradford and Leeds. “My trajectory was always to do with people," she tells me, though she did take an evening course in jewellery while she was a student. I find it hard to believe her assertion that she “Was pretty hopeless at it!"

What started her dealing in contemporary jewellery was initially just personal interest. "I love to wear it and buy it for myself. 1 was also always thinking of business ideas and one of them was whether I could promote the work of contemporary jewellers." She started out in the early 90s from a table top in Leeds Corn Exchange, while still working full time for the Health Service. "I represented five people, and put in £1,000. 1 wasn't doing it with the intention of anything other than a hobby, but people bought work."

Saltaire also loomed large in her imagination at the time. “I used to come to Salts Mill more or less from the day it opened. It was a very special place. I was living in Leeds and there wasn't a great deal special in Leeds in the 80s. There was this amazing building in Saltaire, there was a person that had decided to do something interesting with it and artistic endeavours were happening. And then, just going into the Hockneys... It was unique and uplifting!"

Putting the two together, she realised that the people visiting the Mill might be interested in the work she was showing, “I’d got a showcase at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, 1 wrote to Jonathan Silver saying, 'I'd like to invite you and see whether you might be interested in work from some northern designers for the Home’ I wasn't pitching tobe here, I just thought it would be great to get some of this work here."

Success was not immediate, even after an initial meeting with Robin Silver from the Home. Kath jokes about how she contemplated standing outside the Mill like a wartime spiv; with jewellery in the lining of her raincoat. The breakthrough came when Clothes On Four opened in the. Mill. Remembering her,Robin Silver suggested that she should pitch for a presence "I was presented with the possibility that I could have a proper gallery here, It was incredibly exciting, incredibly overwhelming and I had about six weeks. He wasn't saying they were taking me - I had to pitch for it."

Those six weeks involved intensive market research and attempting to source work from jewellers, but also considerable soul-searching. "I had to decide if this was something I was going to go for. Was there going to be interest from the public? Was I going to get 20 jewellers to believe that Salts Mill was a special enough place and I was a competent person? What was I going to do with my other job?"

The elements did fall into place. Kath went part-time at her psychology job, hired a new graduate for the other four days in the week, and started the Gallery as we know it today. It took five more years to give up psychology and devote herself full-time to the Gallery. However she sees elements of continuity between the different aspects of her career, "With jewellery being very intimate and having lots of personal associations, it brings you into relationship with people, Obviously the intensity you get with someone when you’re working in therapy is different, but this is the more pleasurable connection!”

However these was never any doubt about how at home Kath felt in Salts Mill. "It’s a very democratic place,” she tells me. “The brilliant part is you have people who would never go into a formal gallery. Here, you get all sorts, and you have that fantastic opportunity to go, ‘Take a look at this,’”

Part of the mission has been to act as a bridge between visitors to the galery and the kind of art jewellery it features. Exhibitions, of which there are a couple annually, involve interaction with the public — a quiz, a vote or more direct involvement. Kath shows mevideos of people enthusiastically modelling items from the flamboyant Natural Histrionics show in 2013. "We let people declaim their enthusiasm for a particular piece by building a small stage and allowing them to be histrionic. People are very up for these things.”

She is also keen to emphasise how the gallery straddles the world of high-concept art jewellery – often made from materials like paper, plastic or base metals – and the more conventional jewellery world of precious metals and stones. “People bring us heirloom pieces,” she tells me, “that belonged to a husband or a grandparent and that they want to give new life to. Sometimes it’s as simple as taking a stone out of an old piece and putting it into a new piece, sometimes it’s about completely reconfiguring something.”

Kath has always focused on promoting new talent, with annual shows for new jewellery graduates. She and her staff go to the Business Design Centre in Islington, where the degree shows have stands with graduates’ work at the end of June, prior to a new graduate show at the Gallery in November.

“It’s very important to me to showcase new graduates, and a lot of these people have gone on to do well,” she continues, mentioning Kelly Monro, whose work is based on fishing nets and creels of her Scottish home town, and Genevieve Howard, also a musician, who makes pieces using Japanese linen paper, representing the physical notation of her favourite music.

Kath’s championing of art jewellery and nurturing new talent has created a unique niche in the British jewellery world. London based Electrum and the Lesley Craze Gallery both had a similar ambit, but both closed within the past few years. The esteem in which Kath is held was reflected when she was asked to take on the Lesley Craze Gallery. “I didn’t have a desire to be in London doing this. It’s the very particularity of what Salts Mill is that works for me. It’s my little family. It’s the antidote to ‘corporate’ here and I’m not a corporate person.”

Having been part of that family for 20 years, the centrepiece of this year’s programme is an exhibition called 20/20. “The theme,” Kath explains, “is 20 international art jewellers to mark 20 years… and you need 20/20 vision to look closely and get the most out of it.”

Going through the highlights, she mentions Jing Yang, from China. “Her exhibition was like going into the British Museum. You see all these vases on podiums, but it’s called I Am Not A Vase. They break apart and they become necklaces. In China a beautiful woman is often called a vase – beautiful but hollow. She’s challenging that.”

The makers involved are typically diverse, coming from South America, East Asia and many parts of Europe, picking up an international theme at the Gallery – an aspect Kath has pursued since full time involvement in the business allowed her to attend major jewellery shows, such as Munich’s Schmuck, the source for most of the 20/20 exhibitors.

I’m shown some items that have already arrived, and am particularly taken with Carina Shoshtary’s graffiti-based work and Yojae Lee’s insect brooches, the latter both large and delicate at the same time.

To engage the audience further, there will be a cryptic quiz, with spyglasses and jeweller’s spectacles for those who haven’t go 20/20 vision, and with a prize draw. “It’s a way of saying thank you for looking closely,” says Kath. “It’s a playful, engaging way of celebrating the 20th anniversary, presenting 20 artists who are doing things that require 20/20 vision.”

The exhibition should prove to be a fitting way to sum up the life of the Gallery so far, and make a statement for the next 20. As Kath says, “20 years is a long time, but it doesn’t feel long. I feel pretty much like I did. My excitement and interest is pretty much as it was to begin. I always enjoy coming into work. It feels just as fresh and new.”

Findings
Autumn 2016

20/20 Vision
Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery Celebrates 20 years at Salts Mill Yorkshire
Rachel Brame

The Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery presents '20/20', a collection of art jewellery from international designer-makers to celebrate the gallery's 20 years at Salts Mill, Saltaire. As well as marking this wonderful milestone, the title wills the viewer to use their '20/20 vision' to analyse the meaning behind each piece. As with all of Kath's exhibitions, viewers are encouraged to physically interact with the pieces as much as possible by trying them on and posing for photographs. This time, viewers are invited to examine each piece and match the artist to their 'cryptic clue' for the chance to win £100 cash towards future purchases. This is a fantastic way to get people involved and talking about the work, especially those new to the artform.

'I'm street art into beating heart' was the cryptic clue for Carina Shostary's graffiti-inspired neck pieces and brooches. Taking the
scrapings of paint from graffiti-covered walls, Carina arranges the slivers into highly complex, almost floral, forms. She likens her pieces to 'fossils from another planet' where the material has been manipulated and transformed to the point where the original source is no longer identifiable.

Another interesting material manipulation came from Lucie Houdkova, a Czech artist who became inspired by the symbolism behind 'Chua', a Chinese applied art of carving in red lacquer. Her twisting organic shapes are achieved by layering and hardening paper tape and thus creating delicate but robust pieces.

A master of his specific medium was Christophe Straube, whose exquisite enamelling skills cleverly brought his sketch-1 ike 2D 'drawings' into the 3D world.

On the conceptual side, two designer-makers really stood out. One was another Czech artist leading in her field, Klara Sipkova, whose bold, minimalistic brooches depicted the stages of a lunar eclipse. The clean lines and precision of each piece made them striking as an art piece as well as extremely wearable. Klara is the first jeweller to utilise Barrisol Foil into her pieces and paired with the stainless steel brooch backs has produced a sleek, almost futuristic collection.

Another was Akiko Kurihara whose playful designs could not be fully appreciated encased in glass. The lovely assistant was only too happy to release them to perform what can only be described as a magic trick! A necklace where the chain would change colour as you pull it was a highlight, along with the humorous 'Mine's a Pint!' necklace where a tiny glass was filled with an ombre chain that mimicked our beloved beverage.

The exhibition opened on the 14th of July and ends on the 25th of September. With 16 other talented artists' collections on display, the Kath Libbert Jewellery Gallery, which is situated in the World Heritage Site of Saltaire, it is well worth a visit this summer with partners, family and friends.

Pics: Carina Shostary-Heart Tree necklace.
Lucie Houdkova brooch

Celebrating Twenty Years at Salts Mill 20/20

Youth Movement!