NONNE 11: A NEW CREATIVE HOME

NONNE 11

Finding a new studio, a new creative home.
Written in English.

 It’s May, and Bamberg has risen from hibernation. Branches are suddenly clad in luminous green; red-tipped brambles and roses are competing for space on the riverbank, racing towards bloom in an explosion of life and energy. Crowds are thronging their way through the market stalls, small beer-drinking groups scattered along benches and railings just people-watching.

 The obligation to wear masks outdoors in the city centre has been lifted a few days ago, and our faces feel strangely naked and unprotected from sunlight. Over these few months, un-masking one’s face has become an intimate act somehow, a revealing of a slither of self that was hidden before. I won’t miss the wearing of masks, but I might miss that strange thrill of seeing the lower half of someone’s face for the first time, making a half image whole, often in surprising ways.

 My twenty minute walk to the new studio is lit by the chestnuts’ generous cream-coloured candelabras. As my new surrounding crystallise into familiar paths and structures, I can feel myself easing into this space. After months of renovating, building things and managing temporary situations, with an excess of uncertainty about life in general, I am slowly beginning to feel more grounded. With that, there is a sense of inner opening, a tightness released in my chest, with a gushing stream of creative ideas pouring out.

It’s impossible the capture the canopied ball-room feeling of standing under a flowering chestnut tree, all perfect and new in spring, untarnished by the spotty brown deadness of chestnut blight that will appear later in summer.

Alvaro embarking some ceiling painting wearing the most amazingly horrible orange t-shirt imaginable, the type of clothing appropriate for this kind of messiness.

Sugar candy houses on my way to the studio. Here, the magnolia in all its stateliness is still in flower; now towards the end of May it’s long wilted and greened.

 Once again – because realisations return in a cyclical way - it is just so clear to me how stress is an absolute killer for creative output. And another thing: Home is where I can express my true self safely and creatively.

 Whether this refers to a physical space, a corner in my apartment, a relationship, or a larger geographical area: Home is where I feel unguarded enough to unlock those inner sluices of creativity. Then, I can use that energy to sustain myself, to manage stress in a healthy way, to have each breath reach deeper filling up my entire lung capacity, and ultimately, to flourish as a human being.

 With this new studio in Bamberg, a new home is born. It is by far the most spacious, light-filled and personally meaningful studio I’ve ever had, mostly because I have been able to co-create this one from scratch.

 The studio space, nicknamed NONNE 11, will officially open its doors on the 18th of June, ready to embrace summer in its full force. To celebrate this significant step with us, have a look at my calendar for dates, the location and Covid-19 details.

 While my path has been windy and unforeseeable up to this point, I certainly think there was a direction to it; it’s as if I am following a scent trail, invisible but clearly intuitable. Opening my own studio-gallery – and in such a stunning location - is a truly important mile stone on that windy path, and while I don’t know what the future holds, when we can travel and trust strangers again, how long this moment will last and how exactly we will make this project work, this is the right place to be now. This is where I will plant my feet, create, build, connect, love, be present and bring my energy to now. Over time, I am sure the studio will take on a life of its own - you can follow our stories and events here.

This will be a space that allows me to continually stay curious, to keep exploring, to blur the boundaries of my different modes of making and to become a nexus of connectivity for other creative souls. I want this space to feel interesting, inspiring and safe to those who visit us. A space where my partner and I can live out or contribution to the world, where we can hand-craft unique pieces that will add value and meaning to people’s lives. A space to practise emotional articulation through art, both to improve my own being in the world and to touch the lives of others.

Just around the corner from the studio, next to the Regnitz river, there’s a perfect picnic spot for spring lunches.

Rivers and canals mark this area of Bamberg, and our studio is built on an island inside an island. The canal sides are worn and picturesque and make me want to lie down on the lychen-covered stones.

A favourite lunch spot opposite a steep set of stairs leading up the hill. There’s a ferry, which seems to operate occasionally although I’m not aware of any discernible schedule.

Our workbench, massive and heavy, the most difficult piece of furniture to move by far. This will house a parade of power tools when everything is installed.

The studio: A space of possibilities, to be filled with ideas, events and droplets of everyday living.

Poetic Fantasy on Lost Gardens and Being Human

 Below is a poetic meandering of thoughts, written as an artist statement to accompany my newest series of brooches titles “Memorabilia”.

Memorabilia I. 2020. Brooch. Sterling silver (blackened), enamel on copper, steel pin, black baroque pearl. Hand sawn, constructed, enamelled.

I miss my garden.

 The last garden I had was back in 2032, that narrow walled garden at the back of our apartment. I remember walking barefoot down the broad flagstones, I remember birds hidden behind layers of foliage, and the taste of early summer radishes. I miss being separate but still part of the world in that tranquil microcosm.

 My garden was an inner sanctum that freed something in my chest, that carved out patterns of meaning for my life and the lives I touched. It allowed me to face the outside with courage. It was beauty, and perhaps unnecessary, although its unnecessariness made it an utter necessity in itself. It was order, and it was chaos, it was decay and love and frilliness, it was a glimpse of a splendid room that allows you to imagine the entire palace; it was a throbbing, ever-growing metaphor for our most precious human skill - the use of our imagination.

 It was a space where small gestures mattered, where our humanness was reflected in a personal pantheon of fragile dreams: the furriness of moss on stone, in the twisted branch of something dry, in the post-rain puddles on the garden path.

 Now that almost nothing of that mythical space remains, now that we have destroyed and scorched, wallowing in dispassionate inaction while our capacity for kindness shrivelled, while we waited, we have lost the language of imagining meaning.

 We remind ourselves of our humanity in the memories that remain, held together in the blackened bone reliquaries of that sacred garden.

Memorabilia II. 2020. Brooch. Sterling silver (blackened), enamel on copper, steel pin, black baroque pearl. Hand sawn, constructed, enamelled.

Memorabilia III. 2020. Brooch. Sterling silver (blackened), enamel on silver, steel pin, black baroque pearl. Hand sawn, constructed, enamelled.