Our liaison with graffiti art goes way back to our youth when we used to watch the sprayers in the skate park during their meditative creative process and one half of us picked up a spray can ourselves at the tender age of 16. Only 25 years later, we are breathing new life into this beautiful waste product with our handmade jewelry made from the peeling paint of Berlin's graffiti walls. Our main source: the Hinterlandmauer in Mauerpark - the Place to Be!
The Hinterlandmauer is not just any wall in Mauerpark - it is a living work of art, created by locals and international street artists. Celebrated worldwide as a “Hall of Fame”, it attracts artists who regularly leave their tags. But even here, nothing is forever - the pieces are usually only there for a short time before they are painted over. But the constant change of styles, the overlapping of layers of paint and the dynamism of the artists give the wall a special vibe. Over the course of time, thick layers of paint develop, which detach from the wall due to their weight under the influence of the weather and sail to the ground. This natural process is the beginning of our special pieces of jewelry, which combine in cross-section to form unique patterns with a piece of Berlin zeitgeist.
The style check
We collect the pieces of paint that have fallen off the Hinterland wall and take them home with us. There, the finishing process begins: precise sanding reveals the lower layers, revealing random colors, shapes and patterns. This part of the process is our favorite dopamine boost, because we never know exactly what work of art will emerge in the end.
The sanding stops when we are satisfied with the visible patterns and structures. Then the creative flow starts, where we think in our heads about what bling will go with the resulting designs. The result? Unique works of art that not only look great, but also create a new connection to the street art scene.
The materials behind the bling
The main component of our pieces is the classic acrylic paint from the spray can, these colors bring our creations their fresh and varied tones. The standard base of any good graffiti is classic wall paint, as an important element of layering it also brings a certain roughness to the paint texture. Another element is bitumen - sounds unglamorous at first as a component of concrete walls, but in addition to a little bit of tar and dirt, it provides the interesting texture - Dirty Jewels!
#Handmade #UpcycledJewellery #BerlinCrafts #MadeinBerlin #MauerparkArtisans #GraffitiArt #GraffitiLayers #StreetArt #MadeInBerlin #UrbanCrafts #Sprayer
Berlin, 16.01.2024
Text by Angelika Grüttner
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