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Jointly Forging Success
[excerpts of an article published in Kunsthandwerk & Design, May 2009]

  
This year´s Copenhagen meeting of Hammerclub is the astonishing proof, that the idea is much alive after eight years, made real by the voluntary efforts of the few, who miraculously emerge from our ´silver community´ year after year. By describing some of the steps in the development of Hammerclub, we want to make old and new participants acquainted with its specific self-organized character.

How, one might ask, could it be, that a group of artist craftsmen, individually struggling for recognition (and even bare outcome) in their workshops, came to meet regularly in order to exchange experiences and decide on common action? How, without any administrative structures, were they able to act internationally, be the guest of renowned museums, stage exhibitions and even award prizes?

The basic idea of professional exchange between silversmiths from different countries originated at an international workshop meeting in Schleswig-Holstein (a province in northern Germany, neighbour to Denmark), where Danish and German silversmiths felt the urge to meet regularly, everyone bringing his favourite hammer – hence the somewhat martial name “Hammerclub”.

The initial meeting with about forty participants was in November 2002, when the Hamburg Museum of Applied Arts invited the German silversmiths exhibiting at its Christmas show, the association of Danish silversmiths and some silver experts. In true republican understanding no chairman was elected, no formal structure was established, the Bröhan Museum Berlin was persuaded to host the following meeting, and the silversmiths from southern Germany were highly applauded for their willingness to organize the program.

Thus the basic structures were laid out early, and it has not been a problem since, to find a hosting museum and a group of selfless participants to manage the organization. Yes, you have read properly: Hammerclub has no members, who have to register and pay a fee until they disregister. Hammerclub has participants only, it constitutes itself anew from year to year. Everyone who chooses to come is welcome – invited to profit from everything, such a meeting can offer, but at the same time expected to contribute to the common cause.

From the beginning the total range of silver enthusiasts was represented: silversmiths, silver teachers and their students, collectors, museum experts, gallery owners, authors and exhibition curators. A wide ranging, manifold, constantly changing and growing community formed itself in the course of years, taking from one another and giving one another according to ability. That is why this account avoids names, that is why we feel, nobody has gained himself a predominant position in our silver community.

The meetings have been ambitious from the start. They include lectures on historical, aesthetic and technical aspects of silver as well as reports from the silversmiths themselves on their work and specific production processes. Even external expertise on marketing devices, on sales psychology and joint organisation was called upon.

Guided tours of the hosting museums and cities are traditionally part of the meetings. An unforgettable highlight, more than 150 meters underground, was a tour of the former silver mine “Reicher Mann” in Freiberg / Saxony during our 2007 meeting in Chemnitz.

Hammerclub meetings invite you to experience the material fascination of silver and find out about details of craftsmanship. A lecture on aspects of Danish silver design, given 2004 in Berlin, both used photos and simultaneously handed the pieces around to get in touch with. 2006, at Nürnberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum opened their valuable stock of silver works by Andreas Moritz for us, to handle and study in detail.

In 2007 Hammerclub was invited by one silversmith alone to Klaffenbach Castle near Chemnitz. The ancient rooms were filled with an almost devotional atmosphere, when open showcases invited to intensively study the manifold works of silver, submitted under the motto “beaker – pair – beaker”.

Already the third meeting, 2005 at Koldinghus Castle / Kolding, seat of the Danish Silver Museum, gave silversmiths the opportunity to bring their own works and have them shown to the public over the period of one month. The presentation at Klaffenbach Castle received fine press notice and gave the silver students of the Hanau Design Academy their first chance to encounter the ´real public´.

The meeting in the Netherlands, 2008 at the Hieronymus Bosch Centre in s´Hertogenbosch, was the first to award prizes for the best works in the exhibition. The theme was “a bowl of lusts”, referring to the famous painting of Hieronymus Bosch. Two prizes, a silver sheet of one kilogram and a silver bar of 500 grams, had been donated by seven participants and friends of Hammerclub. Their objective was to initiate a tradition, which was continued at the meeting in Würzburg the following year, and which will be renewed in Copenhagen 2010, this time with an even broader range of donators from the Hammerclub community.

In s´Hertogenbosch it was possible to award even a third prize, because the organizing silversmith managed to find an extra sponsor to give another silver sheet of one kilogram. What is quite unusual: Hammerclub awards are decided on by the votes of all participants, i.e. by the greatest possible number of silver experts present, and not by an external jury. Proud and radiant winners of the first Hammerclub awards (and here names shall be given) were Eva Götzen from Hanau, Debra van der Lem from the Netherlands and Laura Eicke from Hanau, two students and a young silversmith, who just had opened her own workshop.

The silversmiths of the Netherlands have set a new standard by producing two compact discs, one with photographs of the pieces in the competition, one with the texts of the lectures during the meeting. The Danish silversmiths are taking the idea up with a printed catalogue of the pieces sent for the competition.

The two Hammerclub prizes of the Würzburg competition, with about 50 participants voting, were awarded to Maike Dahl (Hannover) and Chantal Smits (Schoonhoven). For the first time a Hammerclub meeting resulted in an acquisition by the hosting museum. A pair of sterling silver carafes, chosen by a museum jury from the range of competition pieces and made by a silversmith from the Würzburg area, is now in the collection of Mainfränkisches Museum Würzburg.

There is hardly a participant of the Hammerclub meetings, who has not been positively challenged by this form of interaction on high expert level. Already our first exhibition in Kolding established a practice, which proved to be rewarding for both, actor and spectators. Each silversmith presents her or his work to the other participants, describing the idea or motivation behind it, the technical difficulties to overcome, the joy of being in harmony with the material in the end.

Hammerclub, this unique creation, will live on, as long as we can set new aims, find new museums and volunteers from our ranks to carry the practical burden, every year anew. And we hope, Hammerclub will be able to achieve more than the common way of expert interaction. What our silver community needs, is a strengthening of everybody´s active potential. A way out of a workshop´s isolation is to discover the joy of presenting yourself and your work, of sharpening your profile. Hammerclub is a good place to learn.

Hammmerclub stands strong with its specific characteristics, but is constantly changing. It is important therefore, to make the discussion of its development part of the schedule of each meeting.

The second part of our article describes the difficulties and chances of silversmithing today.

Deprived of their traditional clientele, and not able to compete with an international luxury industry, silversmiths are refined to a niche. Often, craftsmanship and artistic faculty alone cannot make a living and must be supplied by teaching, silver restoration or industrial designing. An economic analysis to show a way out is not available. The only chance seems to sharpen the public attention on silver, i.e. its material qualities, its technical possibilities, its artistic value. This means fresh thinking, new technical and artistic concepts, a bold and self-assured presentation in the public. Experiences to share and ideas to develop – we have got the forum: Hammerclub.

Jörg Schwandt and Peter Krebs
translated and supplemented March 2010