Amber in the Contemporary Lithuanian Art
Pille Veljataga

The waves of the Baltic Sea used to throw amber ashore since olden times. Its articles can be found in archaeological treasures, and amber beads have become part of a national costume. The outlook on amber as a national symbol and the image of a Lithuanian girl wearing amber beads was formed in the period between the late 19^th century and the early 20th century by the writers and poets of the national liberation movement. It has survived in the national cultural memory up to the present days.

Exhibitions
International exhibitions
Artists' House in Nida
Amber in the Contemporary Lithuanian Art
Artists

Artists consider amber to be a compliczated material. The shapes of its pieces present a great diversity, and the process of its grinding and polishing unfolds a host of shades, textures, whitish fibres seen inside the piece, some hardened semi-transparent "tiny clouds", and air bubbles in the clair mass. The dug out or cast out amber by the sea is coated with a "rind", which prevents from seeing its inside. The mysterious inside unfolds itself only after the process of polishing. Amber - the hardened resin which was dripping down from the trees fifty million years ago. The shape of a piece depended on the place of the accumulation of resin. While resin was concentrated on the tree-trunks, amber was shaped in one way, and while it was between the rinds - in another shape. Resin is of a dark yellow colour, transparent, and the bright whitish insertions in the clear mass appeared only due to the foaming of resin.The foaming resin originated the non-transparent yellowish, white amber. The so-called blue amber was born under the impact of iron admixtures, and the black - when small peaces of wood, soil, turf were sunken in resin. Even a strong wind might have effected the appearance of amber - not fully hardened mass rippled and left an expressive texture.

Amber gives many possibilities to an artist, the only thing to do is just to choose what attracts you. If one imagines the relationship between an artist and material as a dialogue striving for mutual understanding, amber could be called a very talkative interlocutor. Whereas to perceive the artist's words, which witness the mysterious spiritual kinship and are close to his creative credo, is difficult, indeed. At present and in the past, the greater part of amber adornments in Lithuania is produced by folk masters (artists amateurs) and craftsmen.

We had only few professional jewellers up to the end of the 70s. The most prominent among them - Feliksas Daukantas and Kazimieras Simanonis - devoted much attention to amber. The mentioned and other artists created standarts for a serial production of amber adornments at the state enterprise "Dailė". The stylistics of their adornments became an example for artists amateurs. In the course of time,the production of amber adornments (they were in great demand in the former Soviet Union) started to curry favour with mass taste. Amber became for lithuanians material for a souvenir production. A predominant opinion was that amber was not suitable for a valuable adornment. Amber disappeared from the horizont of professional art quite for along time.

The 1990s witnessed the first attempts to change the prevailing outlook to amber: in 1990 an exhibition of jewellry in amber was held at the Museum of Applied Art. However, it was Kazimieras and Virginija Mizgiris who took a programmed initiative to stimulate the jewellers' attention to amber and return it to the sphere of creative searchings of contemporary professional art. Now, after a decade's work, the contribution of K. and V. Mizgiris to the development of Lithuanian jewellery with amber is obvious.

In 1992, the Nida based Mizgiris family started a local museum-gallery with an agenda: to provide the artists with a shot in the arm to include amber into their creative repertoire. Thus artists were offered conditions to work at the Artists' Home and showcase their production in the gallery.The ambition to open an amber gallery-museum in Vilnius was realized in 1998. The first exhibition in the gallery in Vilnius featured a collection of jewellery with amber that took seven years to accumulate. It showcased the work of Birutė Stulgaitė, Žilvinas Bautrėnas, Vytautas Matulionis, Ąžuolas Vaitukaitis, Solveiga Krivičienė, Danguolė Baravykienė, Algirdas Mikutis, Raimundas Padleckas and Vitalijus Milkintas.

The 1998-1999 competition The Amber Axe is Raised was, in a sense, a testing ground for the Baltic Amber Competition to be held in Germany. The Mizgiris gallery received an invitation and decided to select participants through an open national event to compete for the Amber Art Prize internationally. In total, 25 artists from across Lithuania took part, both professional and amateur. As all participating works were exhibited, the exhibition event could not achieve a homogenous artistic quality.On the other hand, this contest-exhibition mirrored the entry of Post-modern tendencies into artefacts fabricated of amber or with amber. Some works had an agenda to question the beauty and value of amber, like projects by V. Matulionis, A Candle or Inclusions of History by E. Ludavičius.The First Prize winners were J. Balčiūnas and V.Vidugirytė. Their rings represents the branch of no-longer-practically-applicable applied art, to use the local term. The Second Prize went to L.Kėrienė, for a ring in classical forms featuring a rare blue amber piece, from the set Morning, Day, Evening and Night. The Third Prize recognized the innovative achievement of B. Stulgaitė, who pioneered among local jewellers the technique to marry amber with unconventional, organic substances. Awarded was her necklace made from cloth with multiple minute amber pieces, entitled 8X8. The German event featured eight Lithuanian artists; J. Balčiūnas and V.Vidugirytė placed third in the international competition.
  

The 2000-2001 competition entitled One Amber Piece pursued the agenda to focus artists' intentions on amber as Nature's gift, thus the requirements spelled it clearly that expected were works dominated by large amber pieces. The exhibition showcased pieces by 19 professional artists, most of them well established. Some of them opted to accentuate the natural appeal of amber (D.Varnaitė with Grass Wakes Up Like Dawn won the 2nd place, A. Vaitukaitis with Touch Me - 3^rd place). Others explored ironically the theme of the noble and symbolical status that amber enjoys in our cultural consciousness (St. Sebastion by S.Virpilaitis, Object by V.Mockaitis, An Ugly Duckling One More Time by A.Mikutis, Inclusions by S.Krivičienė and A. Krivičius). J.Balčiūnas and V.Vidugiryte received the Main Prize for a Brooch.
  

The 2001-2002 travelling exhibition Baltic Amber: History and Design was combined of an archaeological and historical part, and featured collections of the artists V. Matulionis, B.Stulgaitė, Ž.Bautrėnas, A.Vaitukaitis, S.Virpilaitis, J.Balčiūnas and V.Vidugirytė. It also included amber artefacts by amateur artists. This travelling exhibition was hosted by Island (Reykjavik), Canada (Ottawa), Belgium (The European Parliament, the Project for the Central and Eastern Europe Culture), USA (Lemont, Washington D.C.) and Rome, Vittoriano Museum, as part of the contemporary art festival, organized by the Rome-Europe Culture Fund. 'This exhibition in Rome has deep symbolical significance for us. Amber has bridged again the little Nida with Rome, capital of Western culture and Christianity, ' V. Mizgiris said. In Rome, the Baltic Amber: History and Design received considerable attenion and positive critical acclaim.
  

The highlight of the 2002 - 2003 exhibition season was the international competition Amber in Interiors. According to the event curator J. Ludavičienė, 'the artists were encouraged to interpret amber as a highlight of an interior. Twenty-seven artists from Estonia, Lithuania and Poland combined amber with different materials and produced very diverse elements that can dominate an interior. Despite their diversity, the products fall into two categories. Some produced pieces that can be integrated into a real interior, private or public space. Yet another aspect of the theme was conceptual approach. Amber is perceived as an integral part of a piece of art with a specific symbolical capital.' A.Šaulys and M.Relo-Šaulys from Estonia were awarded the Main Prize of the competition, for a co-authored work Home Pharmacy. L. Kėrienė with The Phenomen, received the First Prize, J. Erminaitė, Abduction - 2002, - the Second Prize, and Mother and Son by V. Mockaitis was awarded the Third Prize. As it was quite challenging to establish common criteria for the evaluation of traditional and untraditional pieces, the jury introduced a nomination for a unique conceptual approach. The winners under this nomination were S.Krivičienė and A.Krivičius with their piece Find the Amber Room.
  

In the spring of 2002, on the occasion of the 210th anniversary of Vilnius Art Academy, Metal Crafting studio at the Design Chair of Telšiai Applied Art Section launched an exhibition We are coming (curator by J. Ludavičienė). Last year the first bachelors of metal crafting graduated from studies, ready to enter the contemporary art scene in Lithuania. Though the exhibition introduced to the viewer different aspects of metal art, the young artists also extensively used amber in their works. Worth mentioning are bracelets and brooches with amber of B.Zdanyte-Sietinšienė (in 2000, the female artist participated in the international triennial Possessions in Tallinn, noteworthy were also her pieces featured by the Amber in Interiors), also the production by the artists Asta and Mindaugas Šimkevičius, Laura Kavaliūnaitė, Jurgita Erminaitė, Jurgita Čiutaitė, Sandra Malaškevičiūtė and Šarūnė Vaitkutė.
  

The project of the end of 2003 (curator J.Ludavičienė), entitled Amber and Fashion had the agenda to reunite fashion design and amber, and reintroduce, at least to some extent, amber into contemporary costume.The artists who took part demonstrated different approach to the role of amber in the contemporary fashion. The collection Amber-Weapon by the fashion designer Sonata Bylaitė and the artist Vitalis Čepkauskas manifested functional approach. Conceptual approach was chosen by the jewellers Asta and Mindaugas Šimkevičius and the fashion designer Povilas Zaleskis. They presented an interdisciplinary project Two Can Play.

One could consider the exhibition of Kristina Norvilaitė and Algina Žalimienė, Blossoming , that took place in autumn, 2004, as a game with elements of parody allowing one to feel the creator of the almighty image . The graphic artist Norvilaitė produced mannequins: torsos cut from timber planks and dressed in colour linocut ‘clothes'. The outline of a piece of ‘clothing,' its pattern, surface structure and colour; belts made from pieces of amber, necklaces imitating the softly falling fabric of a scarf, a fashionable accessory – ‘an artificial flower' from larger and smaller pieces of amber: such means of expression were used by the artists to create various images. An elegant lady and an extravagant woman, a seductive doll and aggressive teenager can be found here. Žalimienė has studied textiles and now creates jewellery from amber by adapting her skills as a textile artist: by using the technique of bisser needlework she ‘embroiders' patterns on jewellery with pieces of amber.

In winter 2004 – 2005 the visitors of the gallery could see the exhibition Mooving structures of Martynas Gintalas, who finished his MA in visual design, and the postgraduate student in jewellery, Eglė Čėjauskaitė. It showed Čėjauskaitė's jewellery and Gintalas's photography and video graphic arts related to his colleagues' works. The images associated with landscapes of fantastic planets and cosmic bodies floating in the space of galaxies shot with a camera flying at unimaginable speed – this is the result of work with a computer, with real things at its origin, that is, the filmed jewellery of Čėjauskaitė. The compositions of large, but ephemeral pieces of jewellery from the mesh of silver wire, amber and shells, are dominated by lines turning in a spiral, and their dynamics is emphasised by the video and photography that demonstrates the mysterious interior of a piece of amber or a shell, impenetrable for the human gaze.

Nerijus Erminas who has had his exhibition Remix in the Baltic Amber Art Centre , 2004, has graduated in metal art from the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, Telšiai department. Currently he studies sculpture in Vilnius. Erminas creates art objects similar to domestic utensils (a hammer, nails or an axe), but constructed illogically, not corresponding the scale of a human body or made for an unknown purpose: in other words, non-functional things encouraging us to think of the necessity and value of daily things that surround us. While developing the idea of an imaginary, toy world, the artist has made remixes of these works from amber: doll-sized Table-ware , a sugary decorative amber vest for Barbie ' s husband ( Vest I for the superman is scooped from birch and is reliable like armour); a miniature frying pan and a ‘real' fried egg whose white is imitated by white amber, the yolk by transparent yellow with an insect embedded in it – an inclusion. Such jokes successfully question the line between the real and the fictitious.

At the beginning of 2006 the Baltic Amber Art Centre opened an exhibition Ashen Gold. It represents recent artworks by Algis Mikutis and Ąžuolas Vaikukaitis – the two jewellers, who cooperate with the Virginija and Kazimieras Mizgiris Ambergallery on a regular basis. Both artists did not give a name to any of their artwork. Even more, they did not mention their own names, wanting to remain anonymous to visitors and critics. The main reason might be that their jewellery was inspired by ethno-cultural traditions where old masters were reproducing forms created by their ancestors, or inventing new ones, and leaving future generations their creations, but not their own names. Algis Mikutis and Ąžuolas Vaikukaitis based this collection on studies of antique pieces of jewellery  of the Balts. They felt that existing publications on the subject were not enough for their purpose; therefore they applied to the  museum for a permit to visit its archaeological repository, and were allowed to see and even to touch the Bronze Age artworks that looked just like then when archaeologists found them buried in the ground. This ancient bronze was ash-coloured, but we value it as real gold. Inspired by the direct contact with archaeological artworks, the artists rejected any stylistic clichés of romantically ‘aged’ things. Contrary, gilded silver is shining just as a newly polished bronze used to shine centuries  ago. However, the artists are careful in direct and semantic quoting this ancient artworks, and do not tolerate any theatrical primitivism. The result is jewellery that could be worn nowadays perfectly well — by those, who are fascinated by the Spirit of the Archaic.

In the framework of a traditional crafts programme launched by the Municipality of Vilnius, V. and K. Mizgiris opened a Baltic Amber Art Centre in the spring of 2004. Situated adjacently to the Amber Museum-Gallery in Vilnius (on Šv. Mykolo Street, No12), the centre houses a demonstration site for amber crafting and a permanent exhibition on the origin of Baltic amber. The exhibition part reflects the key principles of modern museum arrangement and merges instructional and aesthetic-entertaining functions. Both local and visiting artists are welcome to take shifts every month at a lathe for amber crafting (there is also an antique, foot driven mechanism) and to demonstrate their skills to the visitors.

In spring 2005 Virginija and Kazimieras Mizgiris founded Amber Gallery ( Gintaro galerija) in the place always visited by the visitors to Vilnius – next to the Gates of Dawn ( Aušros Vartai, Aušros Vartų str. 17). A constant exposition of mini-sculpture and objects with amber of Lithuanian artists N.Erminas, A.Vaitukaitis, M. Šimkevičius, A.Mikutis, O.Čepeliuk, A.Ališanka, S.Grinius is held here, on the ground floor of the house that used to belong to the noblemen Oginski; the premise in the basement is used for temporary exhibitions.

Over a decade, the gallery has hosted numerous solo shows of both Lithuanian and foreign artists of different generations. In order to attract new blood into amber jewellery, the gallery provided the opportunity for the curator J. Ludavičienė to organize a number of shows of young artists even if they do not work with amber.

The gallery would not be possible without its artistic community, whose most active members are B.Stulgaitė, Ž.Bautrėnas, V.Matulionis, E.Ludavičius, A. Vaitukaitis, S.Grinius, A.Mikutis, S.Virpilaitis, S.Krivičienė and A.Krivičius, J.Balčiūnas and V.Vidugirytė, A.Šaulys and M.Relo-Šaulys. The pieces by these artists make up the bulk of the gallery's collection, most of them had a chance to give their solo shows of jewellery with amber.

  

Birutė STULGAITĖ, one of the best-acclaimed Lithuanian jewellers, has established a style close to the principles of Minimalism. B.Stulgaitė subtly feels the peculiarities of material which determined her outlook on amber. As the artist put it, amber "accepts" silver unwillingly, it comes into contact with the materials of organic nature in a much easier way. "I ask what it wants...", the artist aptly explained her relationship with amber. A plain piece of amber of a pretty strange shape might have wished the artist to put a small wooden stick into its hollow spot - and it became a brooch. B. Stulgaitė turned the black amber, rich like a ploughed field and "heavy" like primary matter, into the beads of an ellipsis form, linking its segments with horse-hair. In her works, amber provokes associations with the primary state of the world - it is a witness to the world which existed millions of years ago. While disclosing such associations, the artist makes an attempt to match amber with materials which were created in precivilization times not by man but by nature. She fixes amber adornments to a leather band or makes a necklace or earings with amber from the seagrass processed in a special way, preserving the elasticity of the grass. The artist successfully matches grinded or polished, so to say, "civilized" but not natural amber with metal: a radiating clear piece is accentuated by a gilded thin wire through a subtle stroke, and the contours of the lustreless flat amber brooch are emphasized by thin silver edgings. B.Stulgaitė trusts the decorative beauty often piece of amber, and her hand masterly touches only those places which need to be touched to a certain extent. This peculiarity imparts simplicity and the harmony of a refined taste to her adornments. The 1999 solo exhibition by the female artist is one of the key events in the development of Lithuanian jewellery with amber. According to the art critic A. Aleksandravičiūtė, 'The jewellery of B. Stulgaitė always has the existential parameter, while amber, by its nature encapsulating a frozen moment in the existence of Nature, is a perfectly suited matter for this purpose. The artist perceives transparency of amber as purity and values and accentuates this symbolical feature above all.'
  

Žilvinas BAUTRĖNAS is a well-known Lithuanian jeweller of the middle generation, since 1999 he has lived in the USA. His artistic agenda is based on Postmodernist manipulation of cultural associations and meanings. The artist's world outlook is rich in the creatures and things, which had acquired their shapes and names in ancient cultures. Such are the amber personages of only some centimeters in height in the work "Those who Faded to Get on Board the Noah Ship" the signs of the swastika (the sun) and the grass-snake, exactly cut from an amber plate, the pieces of a natural form, which due to one or another touch of the hand, acquire a similarity to a tortoise or a fantastic tower as well as small pieces of amber resembling nothing definite, to which the artist fixes small supports, i.e. imparts a certain form, as if including them into the ranks of the mentioned things and creatures. Ž. Bautrėnas' creation. Now in jewellry art, like in applied art on the whole, an artistic idea is often based on traditional fratures of the thing by way of demonstrating opposite fratures - as if denying the expensiveness and longevity ofthe adornment, the jewelry art witnesses the emergence of the articles which resemble spare parts of the cars or show their 'non-decorative" origin in other ways. Necklaces created by Ž. Bautrėnas are also strung together from segments, which provoke associations with a kind of screws or medevial armour. Their appearance is rigorous, but the splendid amber with its unique form returns the spectator's aesthetic experience to the sphere of beauty and adornment. However, to the sphere of wrathful beauty, which does not recognize any sentimentaly and which is witnessed by the whole of the adornment. The exploitation of the thorn motif- of what is sharp and hurts - for adornments and clothing is not new. In the outfit of ancient warriors, thorns performed their direct flinction, and in the subculture of contemporary youth, thorny bracelets and jackets create the image of aggressiveness. The sensation of "Sharpness" in the earrings created by Ž. Bautrėnas is not aggressive at all, it is rather playful - the tiny thorns harmonize with an original texture of the blue amber and look decorative. The mentioned motif has a double meaning in a cross: it can be interpreted as a symbol suffering or only as a decorative compositional element, which unites on even plane with the relief of the amber. Ž. Bautrėnas' creation witnesses the echo of another contemporary principle of art anything chosen can become an aesthetic object. The artist can fix to the amber necklace various pieces of amber, which seem to have nothing in common either from a compositional or stylistic point of view: one can see among them a flat and relief piece beside some big raw or small transparent pieces. Each of them is attractive in its own way and therefire, has the right to hang on a neck. It is hard to notice that their "accidental" coexistence is actually staged. It should be so, indeed, because the artist is offering not the charm of order but that of accidental nature. "The Inclusions of the 20th Century" also speak of accidental nature but in another way. A scrap of photo, a work of the watch, a jeans button got into amber and became inclusions. Amber can preserve them for the future like it has preserved for us a tiny beetle that had lived millions of years ago. These accidental fragments of the world will speak of us...

  

Vytautas MATULIONIS, just like B.Stulgaite, was one of the first representatives of the generation which brought a renovation spirit into Lithuanian jewellry art. At present, he is a matured artist, who has mastered professional secrets of jewellry art. V. Matulionis' collection - massive, radiating with the richness of materials, necklaces and brooches having the shape of a fish, a lizard, a spider, a bee or an ant. Such adornments stimulate one to recollect a long-standing outlook that an adornment is a thing made of expensive material and that precious stones adorn and have some magical power, i.e. an adornment must demonstrate expensive and refined materials. His adornments depicting living things continue the art history tradition which, incidentally, has preserved the meaning of a living thing as of an amulet. Only at first sight V. Matulionis' adornments can produce the impression of an exceedingly great abundance. But in truth, the order of composition dominates in them: the body mass of the living thing and small details are linked by a clear silhouette, and many-coloured materials do not become a motley mixture. The artist selects pieces of amber suitable for the depiction of the body of one or another living thing and attaches to them some parts of the body made of silver. "The Fish" - a modest flat lustreless piece of amber, the bent form of which was supplemented by the artist with a small head, tail and fins. The artist used lustreless amber for a "frog": it seems to be jokingly moving its big eyes enlivened by blue turquoise; its eyes bear the engraved inscription "North-South-East-West' The inscriptions on silver and gilded surfaces perform a decorative function of an ornament. But not only. The artist engraves magic figures of the "sun square" on a lizard, a living thing of the sun's element and the "mandala" sign, symbolizing the order of the universe, - on an ant The main material of adornments is amber, whose prominent, polished pieces with radiant fantastic features inside are often exploited by the artist. V. Matulionis manages to solve a pretty hard task - to match semiprecious and precious stones with amber. For example, he lays out whitish rock crystal on the tail of the massive "Lizard" imparting some relief effect to the surface of the metal and a kind of fussion with it does not trouble amber. The "Lizard" is hung on a chain adorned with turquoise and jasper - the whole becomes contrasting, but the contrast is tasteful. The artist also uses for his living things small precious stones, which seem to be a mere shining dot on metal; amethyst and topaz beside magic letters on the bee's wings become the eyes of the living thing. Someone might find the "Spider" with its truthful appearance pretty odd. But its legs are so precisely made, and the amber looks so warmly cosy... Therefire, the spider seems to bring luck, it is a real goody. V. Matulionis' works in amber prove that amber is no "individualist" which cannot match with other materials - a decisive factor is talent. He is also the author of some amber objects, like a huge amber axe, dedicated to those who championed amber back into professional jewellery, or an amber candle that imitates a vase. His is an ironical approach to the sacred aura, which typically surrounds amber in the traditional Lithuanian culture.
  

Eimantas LUDAVIČIUS, who creates objects and adornments, is a master of metal - steel, bronze, and iron. His artistic language is based on laconic and emphatically not embellished shapes, gained in the heating process, when metals change their colour, wrinkle, and burn through. The design of processes and accidents rather than results; the aesthetization of "ugliness" - these principles of Post-Modernism, are visible in many artworks, created by Ludavičius. The artist can make materials pretend to be what they are not. For example, the brooches, which he presented at his solo exhibition in the Gallery, were made of forged iron. This heavy, prose material was shaped in such a subtle way, that resembled the adornments of a lady of antiquity. Now the artist presents A Little Cow - a joke, juggling visitors. In their eyes, the cow, framed in steel, seems to be carved of amber, whereas in reality it is made of wax. The illusions and secrets have their charm, if you do not want to clue all of them. The jewellery object Stella is an amber plaquette, covered with lines of unreadable drawing, and has a silver key for unlocking secrets. It is designed for fantasizing. While playing secrets, it makes no difference whether some elements were real (such as the original, beautiful amber), and others were "unreal" and did not match in style (such as white motor-paint enamel, and a key string). Looking at the jewellery objects Layout of a Cloister or Saturn's Quadrate, you do not care whether the numbers, inscripted in the quadrate, really have any magic meaning. It is more important that this knick-knack outdraws your attention. Why? The reason rests in Eimantas Ludavičiaus' talent to implement the aesthetics of "ugliness".
  

Ąžuolas VAITUKAITIS in his jewellery pieces and ornamental artefacts focuses on optical qualities of amber. He always selects raw amber pieces of exceptional beauty and pays special attention to metal treatment techniques. His style is informed by the traditional concept of a jewellery piece and characterised by the centrality of a sumptuous amber piece, whose form is only accentuated by silver detail. His finger rings and neck ornaments are usually sizeable, thus the unique features of amber used are brought to the full effect. His tree solo shows (in 1999, 2001, the latter with S.Grinius, and in 2003) have testified to the artist's thorough perception of material qualities of amber. His amber pieces have revealed him as a lover of tasteful luxury and magnificence. Truly imposing is an almost two-kilo amber piece used for the work Touch Me, one of the highlights of the gallery's interior. It meets the visitors and welcomes them to feel the unique aura of amber. The beauty of raw and rough amber is best accentuated by warm and plastic bronze; transparent and luminous pieces are frequently married with smooth silver and bronze surfaces. The artist brings different shades and textures of amber into a meaningful dialogue (figurine Man); in other instances he matches yellow amber with bronze and gold (Flight, Holy); solid and obtuse forms are being combined with openwork elements. According to the art critic J. Ludavičienė, his work is a rational and aristocratic playing with amber and silver colours, and forms (Opera, Envelope Knife, Genesis).
  

Saulius GRINIUS made an impetuous debut together with Ąžuolas Vaitukaitis at the Gallery exhibition. He creates decorative plastic arts and objects. In fact, his artworks united both. Saulius Grinius creates cosy things, radiating with romanticism of antiquity and not sentimental at all. Such is, for instance, an amber knocker, hinged to an antique looking wooden plank (Knock). The natural shape of an amber piece usually inspires the idea for the to-be work of art. So an amorphous lump of amber placed on a silver support becomes a Mushroom, rich amber textures are reveal by cutting it into thin slices, resulting in a piece Fake Orange.

Algirdas MIKUTIS claims his spiritual kinship with the masters of the 18^th century German amber figurines and the art of the Far East. Reminiscences of the ancient cultures seem to be a powerful source for shaping his sculptures. In huge opaque pieces of amber (amber is fragile and tends to fracture), he models a complex forms in relief and drills cavities. His characters: nimble mice, a comic elk, a cute man and fantastic creatures emerging from a lump of amber, are nice and warm like amber itself. The exhibition of 2001 was entitled MMM Amber Sculpture. Of the three 'M's, the first two represent the family names of the artist and the owner of the gallery, while the third one stands for 'material'. Material, spelled with the capital 'M', can be easily mastered by a skilled hand and powerful imagination. The artist often produces items that have a practical function - in these he combines amber with horn or wood. He is convinced that nice things serve as a reliable source of positive emotions.

In the exhibition Losses that took place in the Baltic Amber Art Centre , 2005, the artist improvises with the subjects of pagan Lithuanian mythology and refers to the archaic art of various countries when he creates statues of mythological creatures. The Lord of the Pantheon is Thunder – he looks not like a threatening Lord of Lightning, but like a dancing Oriental deity; the goddess of forests, Medeina, is associated with African sculpture, and the figure of the God of the Sea, Bangpūtis, to amateur primitivism. Warm humour characteristic also to the characters from Lithuanian folk tales captures attention. The spirit of home, Kaukas, who does good and bad, looks like a shrunk, cowering bird; the Reaper tries to scare one with a long, forked tong; the face of the grotesque Witch is reminiscent of a monkey.

Sigitas VIRPILAITIS arranged his solo exhibition 1999 at the Gallery, and has become famous for introducing Post-Modernism into Lithuanian jewellery art. Lithuanian and other amber jewellery is not very open to the principles of the Post-Modernism, because the traditional approach to amber is deeply rooted and is resistant to changes. The amber itself is the reason: each piece has strong individual features, its own depth, optical qualities, as well as specific meanings, carried by its long history, which lasted millions of years. Up to now, the neglect of this individual and precious aura that is covering amber, was almost unacceptable. Only Post-Modernism could embrace this approach by annihilating the opposition of the subtle or vulgar taste, of luxurious, precious, and unique items or cheap serial artifacts, generally speaking, of high or common culture. In his jewellery, Sigitas Virpilaitis makes amber look like caramel paste, cut by a cheerful confectioner into candies - shells, baby pacifiers, ovals, and quadrates. He puts them in turn with sweet looking (chocolate?) pieces of coconut shell, inserting sharp small pear-tree sticks here and there. The artist utilises silk, feathers, wood, small transparent amber beads: he strings all these segments on a hardly visible synthetic thread or fastens with bright coloured polyester strings. The result is an ephemeral toy. Yet this game follows the rules, all the forms and colours are exactly where they have to be. This is a challenge for an artist to eliminate the solidity of an adornment, to make it light and playful, and still keep it within the frame of jewellery artwork. Sigitas Virpilaitis has managed to succeed in achieving this. According to the art critic L. Ludavičienė 'the artist offers a Post-modern par exellence amber version.'

His solo exhibition Amber and Gold held in 2005 has become an extraordinary event of our art life. The idea of jewellery from amber and gold was first conceived by Virginija and Kazimieras Mizgiris who have in-depth knowledge of the collections of amber held in European museums. The Amber Gallery's commission of the project Amber and Gold fell, after having discussed all candidates, to Virpilaitis. The result of his work, that took a year and a half, emerged by using as much gold and amber, semi-precious and precious stones as he needed to do what he conceived – that is following only artistic, and not commercial, considerations. By creating a collection from amber and gold the artist treats a piece of jewellery as a precious item. On the other hand, he demonstrates his individual style and renders jewellery from precious materials with the spirit that has little in common with the air of luxury. Amber clarified in an autoclave ‘refuses' its material identity and experiences the metamorphosis into a whitish transparent jelly-fish body or the leaves of an exotic plant of grey mother-of-pearl colour. Being very light, it fits for huge, but visually weightless ear rings. The artist allows himself to defy the established notion of the valuable material of a piece of amber and to take out all the inside of the piece, thus turning it into a hollowed bell; he may also carve the thin walls with openwork patterns. Gold in Virpilaitis's jewellery does not demonstrate the shine of a precious metal and reveals its visual quality, its ability to acquire a relief, texture and warm matt surface that reflects the idea of composition. Following his idea the artist often changes the usual appearance of amber, but he has also created jewellery that reveals the natural beauty of dark, transparent amber. The refined taste, but without the learned lessons of elegance, and playful, but rigorous imagination – these heights have been reached thanks to talent and professional skill; everything that Virpilaitis does starts here – he is one of the leading Lithuanian jewellers.

Solveiga KRIVIČIENĖ and Alfredas KRIVIČIUS, who have recently participated in exhibitions as co-authors, create objects. There is plenty of valuable amber, beautiful by nature and presented only by masters in Lithuania. You can find it in arts shops or even on the street vendor counters. The idea of amber being beautiful and valuable itself has become a banal truth, which inspired Solveiga Krivičienė and Alfredas Krivičius to make the Inclusions. The artists do not present the amber; on contrary, they put it into a concrete cub box and close it tight. Its picture and the description of its chemical qualities - these reliable documents evidence the presence of the hidden object. You should not hope to see everything yourself as you live in the age of virtual reality. More often, you have to believe in what others are trying to convince you. To conceal amber was S. Krivicienė's idea she explored from the past decade: her finger rings and neck ornaments feature amber hidden under silver cover with holes through which it is hardly visible. The publicity makes it easy to convince a consumer society in many "musts", for example, in drinking "Coca-Cola". No wonder, if future aliens will be puzzled at a lost civilization, which left plenty of "Made in China" and "Coca-cola" signs. Solveiga Krivičienė and Alfredas Krivičius ironically put these and similar signs onto amber disks and suggests to wear them as powerful amulets, protecting values of the consumer society. The object - finger ring by S. Krivicienė entitled Woman's Life can be set alternately with a baby's dummy, a car and medicine, these three representing different stages in woman's life. The 1999 exhibition Details included quite a few ready-mades, amber in that context acquired the appearance of a substitute for cheap plastic. Besides visual manipulations with amber, the artists explore linguistic associations. Gintaras, amber in Lithuanian, is one of most popular names in the country. For the competition Amber in Interiors they presented pictures of a person called Gintaras.
  

Jonas BALČIŪNAS and Vaidilutė VIDUGITYTĖ made an impetuous debut in the Lithuanian jewellery art.Since 2000 they are lived in USA. Artists have a quality, which is extremely important for jewelers. I mean a feeling of substance, and the ability to join materials, creating unexpected associations. Artists make moulded silk look tougher that metal. On the other hand, silver, covered with gently modeled ornaments and whitened with acid, has no glitter and does not remind a metal any more. Pieces of polished amber absorb light instead of reflecting it, and seem to be filling up with heaviness. There is no dominant material in these artworks. The image of the world, created by the artists, leaves no place for the modern self-expression. It seems that not self, but the world is spreading out in their creations in the manner, set by the tradition. Post-Modernists do not care about origins and cultural roots of any tradition. The spirit of the naive love of the world is more important to Jonas Balčiūnas and Vaidilutė Vidugirytė. This spirit is embodied in the shapes, ornaments and figured scripts of their jewellery, created as if by an unsteady hand. The rings and brooches bear inscriptions, and adornments are accompanied with textual comments, mainly Yosano Akiko verses. A sight should touch and admire, and only later should it find out the meaning of each small silver letter, inlaid into amber and written with no spaces. The same words could define the entire creation of Jonas Balčiūnas and Vaidilutė Vidugirytė. Their artworks reveal and bring us closer to the world, contemplated with love and in peace.
  

Adolfas ŠAULYS and Mari RELO-ŠAULYS represent the young art that accepts Post-modern discourse as natural artistic experience, and not as avant-garde challenge. The Lithuanian A. Šaulys and Estonian M.Relo live in Estonia. In 2001, they exhibited their pieces at the gallery, A. Šaulys had previously participated in group events by the gallery.These artists produce conceptual jewellery, they no longer relate to nor challenge the symbolical myths of amber, deeply rooted in Lithuanian cultural consciousness. They choose amber due to its physical qualities (different shades, transparency and similar) that are needed for a particular concept. In the Home Pharmacy lucid amber is used to imitate gelatine capsules. Grinded but unpolished transparent amber fits best to imitate a Chupa-Chups candy (brooch Realistic), but if a candy assumes a shape of a hand-grenade, few will want to taste its sweetness (Military). The idea to create a parody of adult toying with weapons occurred to the artist when he was listening to some candy-on-a-stick populist talk on serious issues, like NATO membership. A. Šaulys develops military motives across a number of his pieces: amber lends these shapes quite a grim appearance. In contrast, amber looks light and warm in the elaborate air balloon - and gondola- shaped brooches by M. Relo-Šaulys.
 

COPYRIGHT 2000 (C) Matas Mizgiris