12h in Hong Kong & Obellery Jewellery

This year I flew to Hong Kong but didn’t get to spend a lot of time in town. To be honest, I think I spent more or less 12 hours in town, just enough to do a quick visit to my favorite places and to catch up with the Obellery Jewellery team at the PMQ building.

If you missed the studio visit I did in 2014, go check them out here. They have a very cool studio and gallery, they do some amazing contemporary jewelry, they support local designers as well and teach jewelry classes. And they did pretty much everything around the studio as well (the mirrors, the benches, the jewelry… you get the point). And they said yes to my studio visit when I was just starting my blog, so I’m eternally thankful!

Since this time I didn’t planed to stay in Hong Kong, this was a surprise visit. Lucky me, Hugo and Belinda were there on a Sunday afternoon. Kody was on vacation and I got to meet the new member of their team, Wing Chan who does these amazing necklaces with old Hong Kong mail boxes. And I had only my phone with me, so these are all iPhone photos

Both Bel and Hugo were doing well and I learned that they are currently the finalists of Lane Crawford’s PLATFORM initiative, that helps to nurture and grow emerging talent. Basically they’re looking for emerging young entrepreneurs, brands and designers to pitch their product or their work for promotion in Lane Crawford stores across Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu and online. Obellery is currently a finalist and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they are selected to sell at the Lane Crawford stores (go Obellery team!)

I also asked Hugo about that ring he was doing last time I visited (approximately one year ago) and we all laughed cause it’s not finished yet. And the truth is, I don’t think it will ever be. He tells me it has evolved into other shapes and he’s coming up with new pieces based on geometric forms and angles. And bear in mind, all of this is fabricated.

As for Bel, she was working on some cool opal earrings and I got to see some of her new brooches and work. I also spotted her cool protection glasses, that looked pretty much like the sexy librarian style. She wouldn’t put them on for me (she knew I would post them on the blog), so there’s just this shot of the glasses. To be honest, I think I’m gonna buy a pair for me as well.

It was fun to catch up with the Obellery team and I promised that next time I would not rush and do a proper recap of their studio.

And because I know Hugo hates to take photos I asked for one, with the whole (available) team. So sad that had to be so quick, but it’s a promise, I’ll be back next year. Thanks Obellery team!

Happy New Year!

I can only wish that 2015 is at least as good as 2014 was for Spaceunseen. I started this blog in February last year, a dream come true and one of my 2014 new year resolutions. I thought I would have fun doing it and that it would be interesting for other people as well.

Oh my, was I proved right! I didn’t expect to have such a positive reaction as I had from everybody. And that is why I want to thank a lot of people. First I want to thank the designers that I contacted and that said yes to my visits. They did not know me (most of them) and were so kind to open their studio doors and let me shoot their jewelry spaces and lives. Secondly I would like to thank everybody that started following the blog, the social media accounts and that leave lovely comments on the blog posts and in the facebook+instagram+twitter accounts. And I want to send a special thank you to Martha Keith, who was the first featured designer on the blog and that accepted to be the Guinea pig for my project!

I also have some objectives for this blog in 2015 (and by writing them down here, I make myself accountable at least for me). I feel that if I’m doing a blog post about a studio visit I should do it right. If the jewelry designers that I visited lost some of their working time by talking to me and letting me photograph their studios, I should at least make up to them and write a honest, truthful account of their jewelry studios lives. All of this to say that writing a blog post takes time and that this is not a blog where I’m “regramming” or “reposting” photos from other people and tagging them along. All of the photos of the studio visits are taken by me and all of the photos of the “5 minutes” feature belong to the featured designers and are used with their previous agreement. So as in jewelry, if you want something done right, it takes time, so bear with me while I try to catch up.

I have at least 8 designers that I visited last year and that I haven’t posted the visits yet. And I’m dying to do so, because they were so much fun, and very different. I’m a jeweler as well and sometimes my business gets in the way of posting as frequently as I would like to. Plus I have a bunch of new places to travel this year and I look forward to visit more and more studios and meet and share with you the very talented people that I meet.

So very soon all of those designers that I visited in London, Lisbon and Hong Kong that have not been featured will be soon. And I’ll also make a quick visit to Martha Keith that moved her studio and update you on news from the previous designers. And will reach out to many more designers, so if you’d like to be featured, send me submissions and I’ll follow through as soon as I can!

I thought I would have fun, but I had no idea of how much fun it is!

To 2015 and all the new things coming to this blog!

Thank you for following!

Behind the scenes at Martha Keith studio visit

Martha Keith is the designer behind Martha Keith Personal Adornment in Metal. She is going to be the first official studio visit on the site and the blog post on the visit is coming up next week.

Here’s a sneak peek of what went by behind behind the scenes of my visit.

Martha won 1st place of the MJSA Vision AwardDesign Competition with a gorgeous necklace

As part of the project doing “a ring a day” Martha has a tray with all sorts of rings made of different materials.

Behind the scenes at Daphna Simon Jewelry

I visited Daphna Simon’s studio in NYC and got a chance to see where the beautifully carved pieces of Daphna Simon Jewelry are made. Unfortunately it was a rainy day and the sun didn’t come out, but we had Daphna’s untamed jewels and her cute dog Lila to brighten up the day.

Here’s a sneak peek of the behind the scenes of Daphna Simon Jewelry studio visit.

Daphna at the bench working on some rings and an impressive leopard cuff carved in wax.

Who can resist them? Lila never leaves Daphna’s side while she’s working at the studio.