Are you kidding? That was 20 years ago??!!

I can’t believe the wall came down on this day 20 years ago.

I grew up with the wall. I was born on the West Berlin side of it and for the longest time, actually almost until it wasn’t there anymore, it was all but normal to me. I had never seen Berlin or Germany without it, so it was all I knew. Yet, every day, having the wall was continuously declared an unnatural state of being. I wonder whether a lot of people realized that they were not just talking about a structure or a political situation but about a whole generation that was living an unnatural state of normality, day in and day out.

I certainly never did until this very day 20 years ago.

Thinking back, it feels like home but it’s as far away as the memory of a book I read. It’s not just the spacial difference between being here in the US or being over there. I would need a time machine to get back to the Berlin I really know. Click HERE and listen to a song that very much represents this time for me.

So, again and again, I realized that the people around me here in the USA have a completely wrong perception about how and what the wall was. Nobody ever really wants to say it but so many of you are thinking: “What the ..bleep.. was the big deal about the wall and the divided city of Berlin??!!

After I had that discussion with someone I know, she said, she thought the whole time it was like Minneapolis and St. Paul, which is obviously not quiet right. So I figured I should take this as an opportunity to maybe clarify this for anybody that is interested.

I took this map from German History in Documents and Images and violated it to make the situation clear.

So, as you can see, East and West Germany are separated. There was a wall running most of the length of the border between them. If you see Berlin as one city, it is located in East Germany. The western part of the city had a wall surrounding it almost entirely. So, it was basically a western island in East Germany. There were few roads in and out of this West Berlin “island” and the border crossings were heavily guarded and enforced by the east.

As a West Berlin citizen, you could drive through the east to, e.g. get to West Germany, but you had to pass through the border crossings and you were not allowed to leave the dedicated road all westerners were supposed to travel on. It was quiet the problem if your car ever broke down in the east.

If you wanted to visit or stay in the east, you needed a visa and there was a minimum amount of money you had to exchange and believe me, you lost money on that deal. Also, you couldn’t just go wherever you like in the east. It was very restrictive for westerners.

Obviously, it was a lot more restrictive for easterners. They were not allowed to travel to the west and more or less all other freedoms were held in check by a regime that made use of violence and other methods of instilling fear and obedience.

I have a couple of old Berlin photos that I got from my dad that show the wall. Unfortunately, my scanner broke so I had to take photos of photos and the quality is not the best.

The yellow line is the wall and the “no-man’s land” (sorry but I don’t know what you call that in English), in which there were likely mines and other death traps. I also labeled east and west so you know which way you are looking.

If you look towards the bottom left of the photo, you can already get an idea how anything that was in the way of the wall just got cut off on the eastern side. It was very typical to see buildings that were simply sliced and had only a cement wall without windows etc. as a scar.You can really see it in the next photo. Look at the buildings along the border on the eastern side.

Here is a link to more photos about the wall and it’s victims: 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin wall

It doesn’t matter how many photos I am looking at though, I just can’t fathom that all this is 20 years ago.

Unique Handmade Art Dolls – More Art Than Doll

Christmas is approaching fast! If you are looking for a very much unique and memorable gift, this may just be it!

I stumbled upon this handmade artisan doll maker on Etsy. She makes these beautiful art dolls but also has a variety of fun and very joyous little Pocket Palls and other colorful characters.

Visit her Etsy store HERE.

Handmade Jewelry Hub

Twitter just introduced a new way of organizing the blizzard of tweets that you may get hit by on their site. You can now create lists of people that have one common denominator in some shape or form. It makes it a lot easier to filter what you may be interested in and avoid some of the stuff you are not.

So, since I am making handmade jewelry, it was merely a matter of time until I started a list about just that. I have accumulated more than 450 artisans that all make handmade jewelry of some kind. You will find glass, steam punk, wire wrapping, silversmithing, PMC and lots more. Come take a peek and get emerged in style, fashion, color, luxury and bling!

If you are creating handmade jewelry, have a twitter account and would like to be included in this list, please leave a comment or send me a direct message on Twitter.

Back to the basics!

For me, the past couple of months have been taken up with elaborate schemes of three-dimensional effects of silver in glass and my brain was/is filled with ideas and possible effects in PMC.

I have been moving away more and more from the simple, minimalistic but clear and colorful style I started with.

It’s good to evolve. It’s good to develop and learn new things but once you get the feeling that complexity and effect start to get in the way of aesthetics, it’s time to stop and maybe take a step back.

So, I have gone back to the basics and I realized that sometimes simple may be as good or even better.

Vampires vs. Goth, à la South Park

It is time now to introduce you to another one of my Precious Metal Clay creations.

I just finished this pendant and I have to say, it very much developed while I was working on it. There were no sketches and no drawings. I did no planing at all this time. It was just the clay and me and the notion of:  Do what you will. And this is what happened.

So the only question now is, should I market it to the Vampire kids or the Goth kids?

So what do you think?

Halloween Pet Costume Parade

Just in time for Halloween, here are some great handmade costumes for your best friend:

My New Artfire Store

For the past week or so I have been fine tuning and accessorizing my new online store at Artfire.com.
Artfire has come a long way since I looked at it for the first time in the beginning of the year. I don’t mean to insult anybody but back then it had a kind of second-hand look to it. It was visually not very pleasing in my opinion and it was hard to find anybody that wanted to buy rather than sell anything.
I probably should have stuck with Artfire and given it a chance to develop at that time because now, visually and feature wise, I think it might be the most promising out of the three venues (Etsy, 1000 Markets, Artfire) I am a part of.
Well, I will stay with all three, at least for a while. So I guess I will find out whether or not I’m correct.
So, here is a picture of the online store front, but if you have a little time, you should probably check it out in person because there is a whole lot more to see.

Work in Progress: Update

So, you remember one of the previous posts about some new unfinished fused glass pendants. A couple of them are now all done and I even have a few photos.

Here are the samples:

Soft forms and organic feel with PMC

 

I just finished a pendant I have been working on for a while now. It’s made of Precious Metal Clay and therefore is 99.9% silver after firing. The cabochon is made from different shades of blue Bullseye art glass.

It has soft forms and a very organic feel to it. It reminds me of roots and forest and of the antlers of a stag or maybe a spider.

It’s got something of a fantasy realm. Pan’s Labyrinth comes to mind. I’m not really sure why.

I still have to practice the finishing touches some more. Some areas are not as smooth as they could be. But all in all I am very pleased with it and I feel that I am improving with PMC and becoming comfortable with some techniques that enable me to create pieces that reflect my style.

Work In Progress

I haven’t had too much time lately to work on new pieces. It’s definitely been too long since I had some good quality glass time.

Now I am finally working on a couple of new pendants. I have them all fused and am now in the middle of cold working them.

In the photos you can see the rough edges but the semi transparent sides, which means that I have roughly ground the pendants into shape but still need to work on the finer grits of sanding the sides.

After I have fine tuned the glass, I will drill the whole for the sterling silver wire and the bail. After the final fire polishing, it’s time for some picture taking and then you will find them listed at my Etsy and 1000 Market store.