Ronde broche van koper met kwarts (aventurijn) c. 1920 - 1930

This round copper brooch with aventurine quartz was made by Conrad Fehn. It's a funny thing about brooches, isn't it? The way they sit on your chest, like a badge of honor, or a secret talisman. I can only imagine the kind of labor it took to hammer that copper into shape. You can see the artist’s hand in it. The tiny hammer marks all over the surface give it an organic feeling. Like it grew in the earth. The stone itself is like a little world, a green planet set into orbit. It reminds me of Hilma af Klint. That idea of making small symbolic forms that represent the whole universe. I think artists are always trying to figure out how to make something that feels alive. A brooch, a painting, whatever. To animate the inanimate, to bring something into being that wasn't there before.