My current research results from observing small anodyne facts, such as finding a lost glove on the pavement. Given that one idea leads to another, all of my work develops by passing from one object to the next, sometimes with concern for function rather than the wider context, always taking account of the principle that one shape contains another.

Technically, my work concerns the process of creating by using a casting procedure to produce an object which shows the traces of its production.

I often work in series, of which the two most recent were “bonnet-bowls” and “drinking from the hands of a stranger”. In both cases, the porcelain is poured directly into a textile mould, either a bonnet or a glove. The bonnet is kept after emptying  the mould and exhibited with the resulting bowl. The glove, however, must be cut up and destroyed to deliver an object with a reference to a vessel.

In the case of “drinking from the hands of a stranger”, I use gloves which I have found or bought second-hand. The idea is to start with an object which has been worn by an anonymous person, to handle it and slide it into an intimate context, interrogating the personal relationship one has with everyday objects.

I create my pieces using nature as a theme; nature that I attempt to interpret in the form of stone, wood, water, grass and wind...  I want to make my works not only decorative objects but also, and above all, objects which are valued for their usefulness in everyday life. A vase, a bowl… this is how I would like to pursue the development of my work. The pleasure of looking, touching, using…

His designs reveal a constant preoccupation with the problem of global warming.

This has led him to work for years on one concept: using eco-friendly materials (timber and its derivatives) to make industrial products from a single plank with minimum losses. In his research work, he takes the concept still further, wanting his products to assemble together like a game and without tools, since the products are always designed with no metal parts and for zero-impact assembly (no electric tools and no adhesives). Although his manufacturer cuts out the products by electricity, this is generated by photovoltaic cells, which will be completed by a wind turbine by September 2009.

Adeline Beaudry is a textile designer who specialises in textiles for furnishings.

She makes use of the different characteristics of materials and textile techniques to create objects for everyday use. By introducing as many elements as possible (structure, form, finish, etc.), she limits the number of stages in producing an object.

Her initial research work, aimed at giving volume to a textile material, enabled her to create the Wrap-box and Storigami projects, both constructed on the basis of a hinged principle.

She is currently developing a collection of textile accessories for furnishings (plaids, cushions, table cloths, etc.).

My works are carved out of wax blocks.  These small structures looks like organic, mineral and vegetal forms reassembling small pieces of molten glass, small flint stones or hybrid vegetals that are, afterwards, cast in silver.  Reassembled, these tiny fragments forms a cocoon from which emerge colored blocks.

The confrontation of materials (gold / silver, glass / metal) and the contrast of colors give life to the whole. With this "pâte de verre", crafted in layers or in blocks, I play with the rough glossy, matt, polished surface, or I assembled it like mosaics. The glass itself becomes an extension of the material or a colored outgrowth.

I feel touched by the imbalance between the objects, the contrast of materials, and the mobility of the masses.

This way of understanding the object and the material allows me to make a link between my works as a jeweler, mosaic maker and artist.  I prefer unique pieces, but when I design series, I focus only on thecolourwork.

The manufacturing concept is important to me because I need to have a contact with the material, to draw, sculpt and cast all my pieces myself.

CONTEMPORARY JEWELRYArtGanik

My ideas in creating a jewel begin in the womb of the imagination in the form of waves of shapes,coloursand textures which, in my mind, have all their own characteristics and underlie already balance.

This abstract "matrix" guides me enormously.

Afterwards, of course, I evaluate the conditions of creating the piece, the future jewel, and then I adapt my idea with the requirements of the materials and fines techniques of jewellery.

Myjewels are primarily made ​​upof my own inventiveness, but also of patience and dexterity.I mix imagination and techniques of jewelry, silversmithing, enameling and gilding, in order to achieve what I call small "portable sculptures”.

I like to offer different possibilities in wearing the same jewel.The fact of finding inone jewel two or three ways to wear it, guides enormously my creative process. To give a unique piece multiple facets allows creating a private language, an intimate and exclusive link between the jewel and its wearer.

The worn jewel shares real moments of life and harmony with the person who has chosen it.    

Creating astonishment by combining materials, colours and techniques which you don’t imagine can live together. Bringing the “spectator” to discover another dimension. Letting the “jewellery object” sublimate its true financial value.

To succeed in making “body sculptures”, I like to examine the components of everyday life. I am constantly searching, testing, and handling, absorbing all the techniques which will allow me to bring my jewellery to full term, however anodyne and remote from jewellery they may be. This is one of the essential parts of creating a piece. I try not to exclude any areas from my searching.

A jewel which overcomes obstacles, gives the creator confidence and releases him from certain constraints.

I eventually obtain the jewel, whether or not it matches my original idea.

In addition, one of my greatest desires would be to cross-fertilise by ideas, for example with those of a sculptor, textile designer, photographer, scientist or philosopher, in order to give birth to a shared idea which, at least partially, reflects the society in which we live.

“Cokin jewellery” or finery filters. When Cécile Dalcq takes this attitude, mischievous circles merge and colours change. These coloured discs tighten around the body, lighting up in many ways like jewels which merge and interlock, changing moment by moment.

Each jewel becomes several, this orthotic system can be transformed and modulated as much as one wants.

The shapes and materials relate to the feminine soul, robust yet fragile, transparency locked up in a jewel box of steel wire to dress the elegance of she who wears it.

Christian Vankeer

N.B.: “Cokin” filters are used in photography and this term is part of the jargon of the discipline.

Pinch, stretch, inflate, deform…

Depending on the way I knead it, the position which it then occupies in my hands or on my lap, clay lets itself go, sometimes docile, sometimes rebellious to the pressure which slowly, patiently and from the inside I impose upon it, right to its inner core and just before it tears. Just before.

So, under my fingers, it slides, smooth and almost mellow, while on the outside it crazes, cracks and splits, offering to the dryness that conquers it little by little a form of harshness resembling armour.

But the kiln soon betrays the deception, weaving between inside and outside a golden network of light and, in places, a thin scar. Then what claimed to be harsh and robust suddenly becomes light and fragile, not much heavier than the membrane that seem to escape from it.

My work is anchored in the pleasures of observation and movement. In simple games such as the twisting and pressure exercised on raw, malleable clay, or those in which movements of objects reveal the spaces between them.

I vary and transform the perception of volumes and the trajectories which they describe in space.

Aller au-delà de que ce que le regard me donne à voir….

L’arbre est depuis les temps les plus anciens, symbole de force, de pouvoir, de sagesse, de fertilité et de vie. Par l’observation de cet environnement naturel, ma démarche consiste à réaliser un parallélisme entre l’arbre, l’Etre et leur vie intérieure.

Par le jeu de moulage de branches, par l’utilisation de brindilles ou par l’observation de l’arbre soumis à l’influence du temps, je réinvente un monde qui oscille entre rigidité et mouvement, entre géométrie et sinuosité. Cette dualité se retrouve aussi dans le jeu d’apparence extérieure et de vie intérieure que j’exprime grâce au verre, matière elle-même duale: «Fragile et solide,[…], lisse et tranchant, le verre est ouverture et obstacle, il informe et protège. Sourd et sonore, intérieur et extérieur en même temps, il capte et diffuse, il est abîme et écran. »( Extrait  «verre grandeur nature»)

La conception artistique de mes œuvres va de pair avec les propriétés spécifiques que le verre peut lui conférer. Dans cette démarche, la symbiose de différentes techniques m’offre ainsi divers moyens d’expression. C’est ce dialogue possible avec la matière qui me fascine afin que je puisse allerau-delà de ce que le regard me donne à voir…

"Nathalie Doyen façonne la terre au même titre que la nature son paysage.
Elle ne craint ni la répétition du geste, ni celle de la forme,
ceux-ci respectent le rythme de son processus créatif.
Intuitive, Nathalie Doyen saisit l’instant, une vision, une sensation,
Observatrice, elle s’imprègne de ce nouvel univers,
Habitée, elle transcende l’impalpable.
Modeste, elle délivre ensuite par bribes le fruit de son "cheminement"…".

Laurence Van Nieuwenhoven

Starting from the inner shape of a book, as a student I learned how to use a limited space to arrange signs, blacks and whites, and to organise rhythms, from one page to another.

Over the years, questions grafted themselves onto “this object”, onto its outer shape: “How to create the desire to open a book; how to create the desire to enter a universe; how to form a whole in order to remain consistent; how to move forward; how to overcome technical constraints.”

From that point, the material and the questions have evolved: “Does writing exist outside the context of a book ? Does bookbinding exist otherwise ?”

With the passing years, I came to exceed the limits of the library book or those of the book-object.

My research divided my desires: one by the issuing of book collections in small runs, and the other by a purely artistic search with interrogations, encounters where the paper, the letter and the binding are present.

Whether one-off pieces or small series, I mainly create restrained, sleek and strong jewellery in gold and/or silver. The exchange between form and material is, in fact, a quest for perfect balance. Metal is my preferred terrain. I love playing with the suppleness of metal, showing that it is neither cold nor rigid. It can be light and fragile. It can be tamed by someone who knows how to talk to it, offering us the ability to express ourselves through it. My inspiration stems from perceiving my environment with an open mind and although my creations are infused with history-strongly linked to the past-they express a distinct modernity. The most beautiful things are created when you follow your inner voice.

My early work on porcelain involved making very fine bowls, but I wanted to push back the limits of the material and give free rein to my imagination.

After much research and experimentation at the boundaries of the material’s properties, I have now turned towards shapes with aerial excrescences or covered with finely interlaced strips.

This result is obtained by adding paper pulp and textile fibres to the porcelain, giving it body but retaining good workability. Fine strips of paper porcelain are first spread on a plaster and then shaped, cut into long ribbons, torn or assembled as my inspiration decides.

Firing at 1250°C in an oxidising kiln maintains the whiteness of the porcelain and gives it remarkable translucency, making it appear almost like a living thing.

Porcelain combined with paper or fibres opens up a field of experimentation with quasi-infinite possibilities which continue to guide my inspiration towards unreal and aerial forms.

Laure Kasiers is a freelance textile designer based in Brussels. After studying textile design at La Cambre, she continued to develop an approach in the field of furnishings which had led her to design finished objects, particularly rugs.

The attention that she pays to the choice of materials enables her to alter their use, for example by re-using technical materials or production off-cuts.

By searching for structures, she deals with concepts of mobility (by using articulations) and contrast (by the choice of colours and materials. Her work is characterised by a certain thickness and a high density, which induce a tactile, sensitive relationship and bring comfort and warmth.

J’aime ce qui bouge, se transforme, suggère, interroge….. Un artefact qu’il soit œuvre d’art ou objet utilitaire possède un pouvoir inductif. Par sa forme, sa couleur, sa texture, il attire et retient le regard, suscite le toucher, surprend… Il personnalise, confère, au-delà de l’emploi, un sens à ce qu’il y a de plus commun, de plus usuel. Il transcende le quotidien et l’immédiat, petit clin d’œil, moment d’émotion .D’apparence fragile, le papier se métamorphose à l’infini jusqu’à devenir l’écorce d’un corps vivant. Il parle de nous, il parle de vous.
Jeux de patience, floralies de couleurs qui s’élaborent lentement, heure après heure, jour après jour, entraînant dans leur sillage formes et idées, broches faîtes de confettis, colliers en fils de papier. Nouer, plier, froisser,  langage ,partage.

J’ai recours aux techniques du filage, du tressage et du collage. Les papiers sont traités, résistants à la lumière et à l’humidité.