IN THE STUDIO
Welcome to my studio – Atelier NONNE 11 – which I share with my husband Alvaro-Luca Ellwart. We each have our own distinct style, and our own workbenches, but also communally used tools and machines. Our space is everything at once and can be transformed according to our needs: It is our goldsmithing workshop and art studio, our showroom, a meeting space for friends and clients, an event space for small gatherings, artist talks, concerts or workshops.
To visit, have a look at our regular opening hours or make an appointment.
To me, the transition between drawing, painting and designing objects to make is quite fluid. The process is reciprocal – the drawing influences the three-dimensional pieces I make, while those inspire the drawings in turn.
Photograph: Dominik Schreiner.
However irresistible the glossy, luminous enamels are to me, it is actually the process of enamelling itself that fascinates me the most. I build up the complex colour combinations of my pieces layer for layer. Depending on its size, the finished artwork will often have undergone twelve to twenty firings.
Photograph by Dominik Schreiner.
Every artwork I create bears the traces of my hands and my spirit. When I dedicate hours of my life to an object, I inscribe a part of myself into it.
Photograph: Chris Czuma.
Photograph: Dominik Schreiner.
Detail of one of my pomegranate sculptures in progress. Photograph: Dominik Schreiner.
Sifting enamel powder onto a pomegranate object.
Photograph: Dominik Schreiner.
The wall above my jewellery bench is covered with a myriad little things – found objects and half-finished jewellery pieces, experiments and prototypes, tiny bits of paper with quotes or reminders, leaves or dried seed pods, and generally any questions or ideas I might hold in my mind currently.
Photograph: Dominik Schreiner.
Although I share a studio with Alvaro, we mostly work on our own separate projects. Our approaches are as different as night and day, and yet together we have created a jointly charged creative space where ideas influence, cross-pollinate and fuel one another.
Photograph: Chris Czuma.
Sifting enamel powder onto a pomegranate object. Photograph Dominik Schreiner.
To me, every enamel colour has its own personality. When these are combined, a fascinating and often unpredictable complexity emerges. When enamel powders with different melting points are layered on a piece, they begin to interact with one another.
Photograph:Dominik Schreiner.
I spend hours sawing intricate patterns by hand, finishing them, polishing the edges and perfecting the tiniest details. The sawing is slower, more mindful and meditative than the fiery-fast process of enamelling. In doing so, my hand learns to sense even the slightest change in pressure on the thin saw blade. While my mind is framed by the task at hand, my thoughts are free to roam wide and imagine new artworks.
Photograph: Dominik Schreiner.
A variety of enamel test plates I like to use as examples for different techniques in my enamel workshops. Photograph: Dominik Schreiner.
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