Kees Englbarts Engraver And Artisan
Ever heard of mokume gane? Most people haven't
,but Kees Englbarts has. Oh, never heard of Kees Englbarts either? You may not have, but any watch en- thusiast has certainly seen his work.
Kees Englbarts is a Dutchman living in Geneva, as are many other non-Swiss Europeans connected with the (http://www.cocogiftstore.com)LED WATCH industry. Ah, Geneva, the soulif not the heart of the watchmaking community. This busy city on the banks of Lake Geneva is the place where independent artists, artisans and craftsmen gather to make their way among the reputable names in horology, for the most part taking in contract work from them while creating as their hearts desire on the side. It is here that Cartier jewelry and jeweled watch pieces are created, it is here that we find the best gem setters on the face of the earth, it is here that ingenious watchmakers make their unique piec- es in lonely little ateliers, and it is here that Kees Englbarts has come to make a living doing what he does best. Doing what he likes to do best.
Kees was only 17 when he first became acquainted with the art of engraving. Upon winning a water-bal-loon throwing contest with a friend (they managed close to 90 feet without breaking the balloon) in his hometown of s'Heerenberg, Holland, Kees missed the awards ceremony after celebrating his victory. The contest organizers gave him an address where he could pick up his medal. When he arrived at the address,he found it was an en-graver's shop. This was the year 1985 and it was the first time he had ever seen anyone hand-engraving. The lanky youth was mesmerized, firing rapid questions at the craftsman about how one would go about learning this trade. At that time, he had been considering art academy or graphics schooling, but the next day he signed up at the Vakschool in Schoonhaven to learn engraving and has never looked back since.
One fine day after graduating, a school chum called Kees and told him of a man hiring engravers in Geneva. "The first thing I said was, 'Geneva, where's that? France?'That same evening I called my uncle in the factory I was working at and quit. I wanted to go to Geneva to work as an engraver. I had to check it out and see if it's something serious," Kees remembers. He borrowed the Dutch equivalent of $150 from his mother, filled up the tank of his rusty old Alfa Romeo, and set off to find his fortune. Geneva came to find his artisan soul.
He began to work in an engraver's workshop, but couldn't be paid at the beginning because he simply wasn't good enough. He had had three years of school-ing behind him, but no practical experience. He says of that humbling experience, "You learn that the only thing you learn at school is how to prepare your tools, and more or less how to engrave, but once you have to do the real thing, you're nothing. I felt really stupid and not able to do anything." The engraver gave him tips and spurred him on, and eventually Kees developed a real talent. In March of 1990 he went back to school, this time in Idar-Oberstein, Germany's gemstone mecca, to the School for Jewels and Jewelry Design. He went for five semesters, returning to Geneva in the vacation breaks to earn tuition, but quit before graduation. "Somehow I had the impression that this was enough. The school was interesting, but not interesting enough to finish. At the end you get a piece of paper that says you did nine semesters at our school and can call yourself a Dipl.-Designer. I think I learned enough there. I wanted to do something else, but that was a very good experience. It was interesting, but jewelry is not my thing."
Geneva reached out to Kees again, and he came back to stay, laying down some roots, getting married, learning French in earnest (by ear!), and beginning to realize his artistic visions. He was certain that (http://www.cocogiftstore.com/Product_ListCategory.asp?Bid=1&Sid=5)LED Vintage Watch were his med-ium, and he began to make some good contacts. He worked with Franck Muller at Watchland for a year and a half from 1994 to 1995 before realizing that he needed to be more autonomous and unconstrained in his choic-es, so he became independent. News of Kees's engraving endeavors got around, and soon he was taking on plenty of contract work from some of watchmaking's bigger names: In the meantime he has done hand-engraving work on the cases and movements of watches by Hublot, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Antoine Preziuso, Svend Andersen and Peter Speake-Marin, among others. At the moment, Kees has taken on the mighty project of hand-engraving the 500 skeletonized movements of Jaeger-LeCoultre's limited Platinum Number One Reverso. This will take him between two and three years, providing him with a
steady job and therefore the means to work on his own projects in his free time. "I work as an engraver for companies like Hublot and Jaeger-LeCoultre, but I am always dependent on what they need, what they make, and what their customers ask for. If their customers don't ask for engraved (http://www.cocogiftstore.com/Product_Detail.asp?id=255)Analog LED Digital Date Steel Sport Men Watch, that means I don't have a job. They say that if you are working independently, it just means that you depend on everyone. So you depend on all these big guys to give you a job or not give you a job. So what I want to do, little by little, is make more of my own watches and try to secure my own clientele."
In this day and age of machine-controlled everything, a hand-engraved watch is a special sight to behold. Very few watches in the industry are hand-engraved. They are either machine-engraved, lasered or acid-treated, a chemical process that can be viewed on the case backs of most watches as it allows for a very fine and detailed rendition. As beautiful as the watches that he engraves for others are, the watches that he has been creating since 1997 for his own pleasure are even more so. Truly inspired, it is entirely impossible to say how long it takes him to create one of his masterpieces as he is continuously working on them in his spare time. It is equally as difficult to say what kind of price should be put on them as there are possibly hundreds of hours that have gone into them. Kees doesn't know; he doesn't count them. Asked if he thought this type of unique and meticulously worked piece is actually financially viable, he confidently answered, "There's so much margin on every watch nowadays that with the Internet and easy communication, people can be aware of the things I make, contact me directly, and receive a very special watch for a relatively reasonable price. I can even bring these people their watches per-sonally!" His interest lies not in being a businessman and making a big name for himself, but in being able to create his works at will and feed his family at the same time.
At this time of massive consolidation and conglom-eration within the traditionally very intimate watch industry, there seems to be a movement afoot among in-dependents and smaller, still privately owned watch companies. Especially the members of the A.H.C.I.(Academy of Independent Watchmakers), many of whom also live and work in Geneva and its suburbs, very industrious and ingenious men who take on much con-tract work from bigger companies, seem to be stepping forward with very special, very small series and distributing them in a way that is beneficial to both the buyer and seller, with no middleman. "I think it's a reaction to what's happening in the watch business right now. Big companies, even if they don't call it a fusion, are fusing, but they try to tell the public that every watch brand will keep its own identity and image. But in the end it's like selling VW engines in both Rolls Royce and Ferrari carrosseries. It's still a VW. They (large compa-nies) are leaving an empty space where we, the independents, can make things for people who want something else."
Expounding on why he thinks a collector might buy a watch from an engraver when he could have one from a watchmaker, Kees states, "All the members of the Acad-emy are watchmakers. And watchmak-ers aren't engravers, so when they make a prototype, they find other artisans to make the watch case, do the engraving, and possibly set the stones. And then they do the movements, put everything together, and sell the watch. But I figure, why can't I do that? I have a watch-maker who will do the movements for me, and someone else who will make the cases, then I do the engraving, and it's my watch. Where is the difference actually?"
It remains to be seen if Kees's concept can be successful for him, but one thing is for certain: For a collector in the market for quality, unique timepieces, it would be worth the time to take a look at what Kees can offer.
by: LEDWATCH
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