Today I begin a week long workshop with Benjamin Lignel. He’s a designer/jeweller/historian… To further explain, this is part of what I wrote about him in my MFA thesis document 2009:
” Benjamin Lignel has trained in philosophy and literature, art history and furniture design. He explains on the Italian Associazione Gioiello Contemporaneo (the Association for Contemporary Jewellery) website, that his work “continues to offer a design-led alternative to our craft-based profession: as an extended family of individual objects that hope to tackle specific aspects of body adornment” … Lignel’s works are made to engage with the machine, as the co-creator and as a muse. Because of this his works exhibit a design methodology. In order to fully engage with the machine he must, at every stage of design and manufacture, strive to reconcile his intent with the fast barriers that mass-production brings to his works. Lignel is well equipped, in both philosophical and practical terms, to deal with the ramifications of his manufacturing process. If design can be considered a way of finding new solutions to existing problems, Lignel is a jewellery designer.”