Guest Star #96...Daniel Von Weinberger

One of the books Linda Savineau loaned me is about Daniel Von Weinberger, today's Guest Star. I read the entire book, Plastique, C'est Chic, and loved, loved, loved it. It often reads like a poem as it details the life and work of a truly remarkable person. Daniel's jewelry is extravagant, composed of all sorts of materials from plastic toys and beads to glass shards and ribbon with just about everything in between. The assemblage-style necklaces are also a contraction--they appear to be the opposite of Daniel, a devout Orthodox Jew.  

Daniel's story is fascinating. I won't bother to explain it all to you now, my writing will not do it justice. However, you can watch a wonderful video, titled "My Way", that is well-worth its seven minute length even though it's entirely in Dutch. I can't understand one word of it, but get a good sense of Daniel and his work. It shows him picking up a flattened can off the street and putting it in his pocket and later shows him in his studio sorting frogs from mounds of plastic toys. I imagine him talking about how he chooses materials and explaining his process. Toward the end of the video you see him standing among the works in his exhibition, "Plastique C'est Chic - Bijoux Eternels" at Grand-Hornu in 2010. You can also read (in English!) a great interview here. After watching the video and reading the book and interview, I got this feeling that this person absolutely loves what he does and makes work for all the right reasons in the most genuine way possible. 

Thanks for reading.