T H E W ID E W O R L D O F C R A F T
In the age ofsupermarkets, many craftspeople have
created combined Hve/work Spaces in Berlin’s form er
L ad e n w o h n u n g e n ,
or store apartments.
Above and right:
OONA gallery’s avant-
garde jewelry includes
V ulker Atrops’s 2009
Swarovski crystals and
fiber necklaces and
Christian Hoedl’s 2008
silk/raisin necklaces
from his Backstage-
Puristen series.
“I think this is the reason why craft artists
in Berlin often set up studios in small retail
locations,” Hamelburg says. “We can still
afford to be visible at street level.”
Nearby, Christine Birkle, a fashion de-
signer originally from Bavaria, who is well
known for her handmade felted women’s
clothing, opened a store called Hut Up in
the HeckmannHofe—a small courtyard
connecting two streets. Here she sells her
signature line of wool and organza dresses,
skirts and tops, which are all shaped through
the felting process. They do not have any
seams, which makes them reversible—even
the beautiful wedding dress collection can
be inverted to show a color other than white.
Other artisans have created combined
live/work spaces in Berlin’s former
Laden-
wohnungen
, or store apartments. The resi-
dential areas of the city all previously had
small grocers, bakeries and hardware stores
that came with attached apartments, pro-
viding living spaces for the storeowner’s
family. In the age of supermarkets these
artists have found a way to put these spaces
to new use.
Anna Sykora has just this kind of set-
up—a retail space/studio located in a former
grocery store apartment in Kreuzberg, a
bohemian neighborhood neglected during
the years of the wall. Originally trained as
a model maker working for the ceramics
industry in the former East Germany, she
has been producing hand-thrown porcelain
vases, bowls, cups and platters, sold in gal-
leries throughout Europe and beyond, for
almost 20 years. Clear shapes and clean
lines adorned with abstract patterns in sub-
tle, muted glazes dominate the display win-
dow and a makeshift counter, but most of
the space in the store is dedicated to pro-
duction; wheels for throwing, shelving for
works in process and a large kiln dominate
the space. Sykora loves the advantages of
having a combination of the shop and studio.
“I like having a presence in the neighbor-
hood,” she says, “a place where people
from the neighborhood stop in and pick
out a gift.”
With so many artists selling their own
wares directly from their studios, visitors
to Berlin cannot expect to find an abundance
of craft galleries. There are, however, sev-
eral notable exceptions—such as OONA, an
iiber-cool jewelry gallery exhibiting an
avant-garde collection representing about
20 artists currently on the forefront of the
international jewelry scene. The gallery,
which was opened in 2000 in Berlin Mitte
by Anna Schetelich, puts on six shows a
year with a strong focus on work by gradu-
ates from the Munich Akademie—such as
Volker Atrops’s casual pieces incorporating
sheets of commercial crystals—and a group
of noted Japanese designers includingjiro
Kamata, who creates jewelry through the
combination of sunglass lenses with highly
polished metal surfaces.
Fascinating jewelry can also be found)
068 ainerican craft oct/novoç
www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaiza.net
Photos/Till Bortcls.
