Stanisław Całka bracelet
Winner of the Galeria Ambermart 2009 competition
Amber-Ring is increasingly making its mark on the amber market, being a respected producer of both serial and unique jewellery. Last year your wife received an award in the Galeria Ambermart competition, and this year you took first place.
We certainly owe a lot to our studies – we are both graduates of part-time studies at the Higher School of Art and Design in Łódź. In a way, our studies opened us up to the world, giving us a strong motivation to participate in competitions. The bracelet that won the Galeria Ambermart 2009 competition was – along with six others – the subject of my bachelor's thesis. To be honest, I didn't believe anyone would like it. By submitting it to the competition, I wanted to provoke others into expressing their opinions on it. Friends to whom I had shown it before were divided in their opinions: some congratulated me, while others considered me crazy, surprised that I was showing pressed amber. The fact that this bracelet won was a huge surprise to me and greatly encouraged me.
Was a division of the company also an effect of the studies?
It was the idea of my wife, who has considerable ambitions in the field of design. Previously, we only produced repetitive jewellery, but under the influence of art school, my wife wanted to create more individual designs with a focus on the gallery customer. This division works very well. We currently employ 10 people and try to introduce new designs three times a year for the Amberif, Ambermart, and Złoto Srebro Czas trade fairs – we've found this pays off. We have made simple, geometric designs and enhanced amber the hallmark of our company.
I've been working with amber for over 20 years. After finishing secondary school, I began my training with Mieczysław Elis, who owned one of the largest amber grinding shops in Mazovia. It was there that I fell in love with amber and... the boss's daughter! I delved into the techniques of processing, pressing, and improving amber.
At Amber-Ring, amber is modified through a process of heating it under vacuum. This method alters the optical properties of the amber, giving it different colours and visual effects.
First and foremost, we try to prove that pressed amber doesn't necessarily have to be inferior to natural amber, which is unfortunately how it is currently treated. Even the classification of the International Amber Association states that it is created as a result of pressing waste and amber powder, etc. I don't entirely agree with this, because thanks to the advancement of modern technology – not only in my company but also in several others involved in this field – amber is plasticised. We don't press it from crumbs or waste, but from large pieces or from one chunk, giving it the desired shape through compression. I believe that calling amber that has merely been shaped under the influence of temperature and pressure, "pressed," is unfair to producers, as it is immediately associated with something inferior. It might be worth considering this when developing a standard for amber.
The draft of the new standard only plans for a division into natural and modified amber.
Unfortunately, a large proportion of customers react positively only to the word „natural”, even though they do not actually mean natural amber, but rather amber that has been dyed a cognac colour or flaked. So when they hear about „enhanced” or „pressed” amber, they are often ready to give up on their purchase, and we have to explain to them what this ‘pressing’ process actually involves in our company. That is why I feel somewhat obliged to defend this amber. Ms Gierłowska once put it beautifully when she said that ‘amber is reborn through the process of pressing’. Tests on amber samples commissioned by Prof. Barbara Kosmowska-Ceranowicz and carried out at the Warsaw University of Technology have shown that the infrared spectrum is identical for natural amber and amber enhanced using my methods. It seems to me that, in the plasticisation process, the interference with the stone is less than during clarification or peeling. The succinic acid content characteristic of amber (3-8%) also remains unchanged. We also do not use any additives in the amber, so its natural properties remain unchanged. I hope that a more appropriate term will soon emerge to better describe the technology I use.