Rita Grosse-Ruyken

I just discovered the sculptor and jeweler Rita Grosse-Ruyken in the New York Times. She has an exhibition in Frankfurt called the “Rays of Light.” What I found amazing is the way she treats metal.

" The artist gently beats a bowl into shape from a golden disc. The process, using hammers that gradually decrease in weight from 4 kilograms, or 9 pounds, to 75 grams, is guided by the slowly modulating music of the blows, like a glockenspiel, on the ever-finer metal skin. A large bowl takes up to three years to complete, in which time Ms. Grosse-Ruyken works 10-hour days in the converted Bavarian watermill that is her studio, standing for up to 45 minutes on one leg while using the other to support the wafer-thin material."

"To make her pieces, Ms. Grosse-Ruyken goes to extraordinary lengths of personal commitment and technological innovation. For her 1986 work, “The Silver Cord,” she cast, forged and hand-pulled refined silver into a diaphanous thread that she then wove into a quasi-transparent spatial structure, a 21-meter, or 69-foot cord that took eight months to complete. For “Rays of Light” — “Durchflutung,” in German — she developed a technique of embedding two wafer-thin concentric platinum rings invisibly into the initial gold disc, to provide a necessary reinforcement for the ever more fragile walls of the bowl."

I wish I could see this exhibition in person.
See the video of Rita Grosse-Ruyken delicately handling her pieces.