M any craftspeople have flocked to We city since
the fa ll o f the wall, especially ceramists and jewelry
and clo Wing designers.
thin French cotton thread around glass
beads, shares a studio/store in the Prenzlau-
er Berg neighborhood with another jeweler,
Ruth T emur. Schabert was trained as a gold-
smith in Munich and studied painting in
London before she made the move to Berlin
in 2002. It was exactly what she was looking
for: the opportunity to pursue her art while
enjoying a reasonable cost of living.
Iris Hamelberg, who set up her ceramics
studio in a small storefront on a side street
off Rosa Luxemburg Street, a busy commer-
cial corridor in Berlin Mitte, the city center
where art thrives, has experienced the same
advantages. “Even a storefront like this
with my studio right here is affordable,” she
explains. There is a small showroom, but
most of the space is taken over by Hamel-
berg’s studio, where she creates her thin
and elegant, hand-thrown white porcelain
vessels and bowls, decorated with simple
colored lines that emphasize their shape. >
Opposite:
Ceramist Iris Hamelberg
both makes and sells
tableware, like these
2008 Limoges porcelain
jugs, in a storefront in
the center of Berlin.
Left:
Petra Brenner’s bold
necklaces, such as this
2006 cast and kiln-
formed glass piece with
pearls and latex, can
be found at the shop
Schmuck Fritz.
Bottom:
Anna Sykora has taken
advantage of one of
the many “store apart-
ments” in Berlin. She
lives above the ceramics
studio where she hand
throws porcelain objects
such as these 2009 vases
and tumbler.
oct/novo9 americancraft 067
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