April 2016 Newsletter

Bustling along Broadway, phone in hand, preoccupied with the to-do list and not paying attention and I hear “WOW!” Not the ironic “yeah like wow” beloved of adolescents but the real thing, an exclamation of pure delight. I stop and turn, curious to find out what could possibly be so wowful and to whom. He’s about eight, open-mouthed, pop-eyed staring up at “One Central Park” the vertical garden-clad skyscraper which stands reproachfully opposite the UTS building (the one that looks as if it was constructed from a stash of stale Scotch finger biscuits found mouldering at the bottom of a Globite school case).

It’s the face of Jack looking at the beanstalk the morning after the unfortunate incident with the cow, a face that says I’ve never seen anything like it and more to the point, I’ve never seen a picture of anything like it. Because that’s the thing; thanks to National Geographic, Attenborough, The Discovery Channel and Instagram we’ve seen images of all the amazing things the world has to offer and thanks to NASA and Hubble pretty much ditto for the known universe.

In his memoir “What Days Are For” Robert Dessaix writes about losing the sense of amazement as a consequence of ageing. I blame the media. But today, on this hot, dusty, noisy street, thanks to the genius of the building’s architects I witness, albeit vicariously, the sublime power of wow. 

By Lorna Lesley

Discovering...   

Unsung Heroes

 
there are always those people who crave attention…no in fact they demand it: people for whom the spotlight is never bright enough, the stage never big enough and the audience plentiful but somewhat diminished from what it should be.
 
……and then there are those for whom the accolades and acclaim are not the measure of success, they are not the reason they get up in the morning, or the reason why they strive for increasing levels of perfection.  For them, success is in the act of creation. And fulfilment, felt simply by having created.
 
Jewellers and silversmiths Anni and Bent Knudsen seem to be of the later mould.
 
Bent Knudsen (b.1924) apprenticed at Cohr and then worked with Hans Hansen from 1946.
 
In 1956 he and his wife Anni (b.1926) set up their own smithy. You can see the evidence of his experience at the Hansen Kolding workshop all through their work, where quality and craftsmanship are paramount and the expression for the design is through simplicity and when required, effortless detail. See the close up of the bracelet opening on the petal bracelet where the hook is made of concentric wires fused together.

But unknown to most jewellery collectors and wearers is that they already had another successful business, one in paper cuts and mobiles.  The business had been running since 1952 but they had been making such pieces for friends and colleagues for many years and through their encouragement and custom the demand had grown to a point where they decided to launch a business.
 
Their success was huge.  They exported to 75 countries and by the mid sixties were producing over 200 designs and had more than 45 employees.
 
They scaled back the jewellery production in the early 1970’s but the paper cut business continued right to the passing of Bent Knudsen in 1997.
 
In 2008, the paper cut business was sold to Livingly who continue the business with new interpretations of Anni and Bent’s designs.
 
During their careers they received numerous awards and accolades, but yet it is the understated everlasting quality of their silver work that transcends time.

More can be read about the paper business here:
http://www.livingly.dk/images/ABK_info_eng.pdf