Kris Ruhs Ebony Belt

This remarkable belt is a treasured object of beauty, a star in my collection (of many artists jewelry). I LOVE the way the theme of crosses was worked into the entire piece. The way the polished hand hewn ebony looks is for me, like looking at a precious jewel. I worked with ebony myself in the late 1970’s and went nuts when I saw what Kris was doing.

Kris Ruhs, a young cool, handsome and vibrant multi-dimensional, multi material, multi genius on every level of design, became a part of my ARTWEAR family in the late 1970’s, and I encouraged him, and gave him a place to showcase his remarkable creations. He was, (is), a painter and sculptor, finding his way into being an artist. He worked in an unforgiving exotic material, ebony, (for jewelry a most difficult medium to work). I love and hate this wood; it is so heavy, so dense and strong that when you saw it or sand it the sawdust of this exotic black wood is like pepper in one’s nose! I sneezed like mad whenever I worked this dense as metal material. I cannot imagine the sinus issues poor Kris must have had after making all these most phenomenal pieces of ebony jewelry to show in my gallery. In the early 1990’s, Kris took off for Italy and was hanging around the art and fashion crowd there in Milan. Soon I heard rumors of this fabulous new store there called COMO CORSO 10 a very chic place to shop and be seen. Carla Sozzani and Kris became partners and built this place for the international world to visit and celebrate art, design and music. Check out the blog I wrote on Kris in the menu above.