The Artist  Armin Kolb

Born in Hamberg/Black Forest, Germany in 1958.
1977/78: started working with wood; first exhibitions.
1983/84: apprentice with Robert Highland, North Queensland, Australia.
Since then:experimental, free-style “artistic” work with wood, using mainly hand tools (handaxe, rasp, etc.)
1986 return to Europe after extensive travels across Australia, Southeast Asia and North America.1986 return to Europe. First workshop was setup in Münsterland, North-West Germany.

Everything began in 1977/78 as I started to paint round wooden disks in patterns of mandalas and fixed a spin in the middle of them. This way I developed  my first coloured tops. However,it was not until 1986 before I further refined the art of making spinning tops by using a woodturning lathe. Since then thousands of tops came into being:small finger tops to start with, followed by whipping tops and later, wind up tops after my own creations and large spinning top objects.

In 1995 I took up different and more complex  techniques in the making of tops. Materials like horn, bone, amber, coral, silver and emerald flowed into the work and also into the play. It is because of this that the small finger tops can be seen as moving away from the world of “just crafts” and into the realm of treasured objects.. On the other hand the large hand tops - made of materials close to nature, such as sandstone, wood, feathers, iron, leather and pigments - are moving in a kind of forgotten time and this way they become objects of art, cult and culture.

All spinning top´s in my workshop are made by hand.

Two aspects are very important in relation to my work. One is the still point at the center of movement, the other one is the Japanese term for spinning top: “KOMA”  which literally translates as “to be content alone”.      

After performing this big top

Buying different pieces of wood on a market in Madagascar

1977-78 craft markets and exhibitions in Southern Germany

1982-83 craft markets in Surfers Paradise and Kuranda,   North
            Queensland, Australia

1986-87 “craftsman in residence” in Osnabrück ART HOUSE

1988-92 numerous exhibitions in Germany

1995/97 SPINNING TOP-show with different topmakers of
            Germany in the KUNSTHANDWERKSFORM in
            Hannover,and LIGNA Hannover

1999      LIGNA Hannover

2000      award price KOPPEL 66 Hamburg

2001      radio and television show about my work on
             spinning top`s

2002      member AdK (Arbeitskreis der Kunsthandwerker/
             Craftspeoples guild) in Hamburg                               
             award for the best single piece of work by the board of
             trade, Hamburg

2003      GRASSI-Messe Leipzig

2002-05  MUSEUM FÜR KUNST UND GEWERBE, Hamburg

2006      LANDESMUSEUM, Karlsruhe

purchases:
             UNIVERSUM SCIENCE, Bremen
             GRASSIMUSEUM, Leipzig
             LANDESMUSEUM, Karlsruhe

 in my workshop