Artistry in Metal for Your Home

Expert Craftsmanship in Metal Art

BORED with Bulgari, weary of Waterford, even your galoshes are Gucci? For some, the commoditisation of luxury brands is creating a desire for truly exclusive and exquisitely beautiful things. And where demand leads, supply is sure to follow. One of the more interesting developments of the past few years has been the emergence of designers-cum-makers who produce unique jewelery, silverware, glass, furniture and ceramics to tempt the most jaded of palates.

Buying luxury brands has never been easier: top-class boutiques, once to be found only on Rodeo Drive, Bond Street or rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, have sprung up in provincial shopping malls everywhere.But finding and commissioning a designer-maker is a whole lot trickier. It involves following up tips from friends, making trips to galleries and exhibitions, and trekking out to workshops in the industrial backwaters of the world. And even when you get there, you still have to make the deal—bringing together the craftsman's sensibilities and skills with your vision (and money) to produce something to your taste. It's not as easy as buying off the shelf. So why go to all the trouble?

Scott Jacobson is proprietor of the Leo Kaplan Modern gallery in New York, which handles contemporary applied artworks ranging from individual pieces priced at $20,000 to architectural installations that may cost up to $1m. “I've had people say they go to bed happy,” says Mr Jacobson, “because of the art made for them and their connection to it.” Others enjoy using commissioning as a way to promote a branch of the applied arts. Pope and Oliver Makower of Britain's Bishopsland Educational Trust decided to use a family trust to promote contemporary silversmithing, spending its income on commissioning pieces for loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Crafts Council in London. “We saw this as a good way of using a family trust,” says Mr Makower. “But what started out as an intellectual exercise has become a passion—an opportunity to express ourselves.” Commissioning also offers an opportunity to form a continuing relationship with a maker whose work you like. From the maker's side, David Clarke, a London silversmith, says: “If you've got a client who commissions regularly, it's a fantastic opportunity.”

Clients sometimes become friends. Maureen Cahill, director of the Glass Artists' Gallery in Sydney, says that collecting craft objects gives clients the opportunity to buy work throughout a designer-maker's life, taking pleasure as they develop, watching them win prizes and even developing a nurturing relationship with their favourite makers.

In New York, Mr Jacobson agrees: “It has been interesting to see the ‘patron' aspect of this, helping to free designer-makers to think in a way they haven't before.” There's a further pleasure to commissioning designer-makers: they often produce things that can be used as well as admired. Janice Blackburn, a collector and a curator of contemporary applied arts exhibitions for Sotheby's in London and New York, commissioned a silver cutlery service. “When you get something like that, the pleasure it gives surpasses any painting I could have bought.”