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| Artya 1/1 Halloween Collection 2011 |
Halloween is a coming and ghouls and green faced goblins roam around looking for a watch to suit their delicate tastes. In past years I vouched for Corum's skull watches with eery motifs. Some years back I wrote a Corum watch story, which if I say so myself is pretty good. This year ,my friends, the creepiest watches are forged in Artya. The watch that wrangled my senses and gave my sympathetic nervous system quite a jolt is a watch from last years Artya's Halloween Special Collection Masks of Evil Watch. Before I even perceived the yowling white faced demon beyond the shards of dial hands, the mounting terror coursing through my veins threatened to throw me into a full blown panic attack. Could it have been the slashed bezel with its suggestion of a tormented mind or the thick gooey blackness of nightmares upon the dial ? Or maybe it was the amphibian skin band, which conjured images of cauldrons and chanting witches? Maybe it was the intense electric currents Artya uses in creating some of its timepieces. No! It must be the screaming skull, of Artya 1/1 Halloween 2011 burning in a ring of fire below bat like structures marking the hours and minutes and surrounded by a maimed discolored bezel burnt by a concentrated bolt of electricity which struck its surface with a ferocity of between 100.000 and 1.000.000 volts.
If one wonders why Artya watches evoke such an emotional reaction , one must remember Artya watches are sculptures - works of art, and art is meant to create heightened emotional reactions. However Artya watches are not only art, but highly competent timekeepers fueled by automatic mechanical movements.
It takes an enormous amount of creativity and confidence to create edgy watches with slashed bezels and toad skin bands; dials sporting the wings of dragonflies or the casings of bullets. Although Artya watches display frightful and horrifying depictions, they exude an overriding sense of good taste. The good taste stems from the obvious exceptional craftsmanship, confidence, creativity and experience. Yvan Arpa, the founder of Artya, gleaned his watchmaking knowledge and experience from Sector No Limit, Hublot and Romaine Jerome. However, experience is just time on the job. What Yvan Arpa is presenting to the watch world is so much more than mere experience, it is the sense of creative freedom, untethered from the bonds of convention.
Sharing in his passion for art and creativity is his spouse, Dominique Arpa-Cirkpa, who paints the dials of the Artpiece 1/1 collection.
Happy Halloween my friends and Sweet Sweet Dreams!
