I learned my craft in Waltraut Müller’s workshop in Bremen from 1971 to 1974. Although I was just 16 years old at the time, it was there that I developed my feeling for harmonizing sophisticated shapes and precise artisanal realization. Later, while studying in the School of Design at Pforzheim University from 1978 to 1983 and working on associated study projects under the mentorship of Professor Reinhold Reiling, I sharpened by sensitivity for detail and for the overall composition – for form and expression. After attending night school and one year prior to receiving my diploma in 1983, I passed the goldsmith’s exam and earned my master’s certificate.

After completing my academic training, the “Dieci Orafi Padovani” exhibit at Pforzheim Jewelry Museum prompted me to spend a year in Padua, where I worked in Diego Piazza’s atelier. Next, in my workshop on Fehmarn Island, I pursued my constructivist design vocabulary and crafted minimalistic artistic jewelry as one-of-a-kind pieces and in small series.
Wanderlust repeatedly spurred me to visit faraway places, but never as a vacationer. I went there to work, to get to know the people and learn about their material culture. That’s what I did in Italy and later also among the Maasai in Tanzania and finally in Nepal. I gladly shared my know-how: for example, in silversmiths’ workshops in Kathmandu as part of a UN development project or with the German Development Service at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro.
I relocated and moved my workshop to Karlsruhe in 1990. There, where I had left my friends and colleagues before embarking on my travels, I resumed my efforts to shape metal so it seems to “grow” out of the plane and into the surrounding space.

I opened my jewelry gallery “der goldene schnitt” [“the golden section”] in Karlsruhe in 1997 so that I could provide a public forum for my own works and those of colleagues who understand jewelry in ways that I appreciate. I continued to train students and created a center for sharing and grappling with the craft.
But as the years went by, these tasks consumed so much of my schedule that I had less and less time to spend at my workbench. My yearning grew progressively stronger for the artisanal work, for “working at the bench” and for the calling that touches and expresses my innermost self!
That’s why I decided to give up the gallery in 2016. I relocated and moved my workshop to Freiburg im Breisgau.
Now I work here in peace and quiet, in an atmosphere that allows me to gradually approach a form and then integrate it into a harmonious overall image.

– my thoughts about jewelry –

When I think about jewelry, images arise inside me. Many of these images are related to my training and my work as a goldsmith and jewelry designer. They contain the professional expertise about jewelry and culture that I have been able to acquire in the course of time. Other images have to do with my childhood: I recall the time in my life when I perceived forms without thinking twice about them.

– my feeling for jewelry –

Today too, I still believe that I can sense my mother’s presence in the gentle gleam of the labradorite in her bracelet. The atmosphere that this piece of jewelry radiates for me has fused forever with my concept of jewelry.
When I design, I repeatedly find myself immersed in old, half-forgotten memories. And I try to ask myself: Precisely what character did that formal situation have? What did it mean for me at that time? What could help me to recreate that rich atmosphere, which seems to be permeated with the self-evident presence of the things themselves?
I know no experiences other that are more deeply anchored than recollections of this sort. They form the rootstock for formal moods and images which I try to fathom in my work as a designer. I sense an abundance and a richness that make me feel as though I’d seen them someplace before, although at the same time I know that everything is new and different.

– a few dates and awards –

Selected Publications

Design Report, Blue C Publishers, November 1998, page 47
Design Innovationen, 98th yearbook of the Design Zentrum of North Rhine-Westphalia
Nahe Zeitung, 57th annual edition, no. 278, page 3
Pforzheimer Zeitung, December 3, 2002, no. 280, culture section
Publico Portugal, no. 451, January 16, 2005
Wildeshauser Zeitung, 143rd annual edition, no. 70, published March 23, 2007, page 1
Badische Neueste Nachrichten, 62nd annual edition, no. 72, published March 27, 2007, page 15
Included in the catalogues of the Baden-Württemberg state exhibitions in 2016, 2012, 2010, 2004, 1998, 1996 & 1994
Schmuck-Design der Moderne, Reinhold Ludwig, 2008, ISBN 978-3-89790-292-3
Compendium, 2009, ISBN 978-3-939130-95-6, pages 935 and 936

Awards

1998	Camelot 1116, Krakow
1999	red dot award for high-quality design, Design Center of North Rhine-Westphalia
2000	Best of Selection, Design Center of North Rhine-Westphalia
2001	Innovation Prize of Munich Trade Fair
2002	33rd German Jewelry and Gemstone Award, Idar-Oberstein, commendation
2007	First prize from and commissioned by the German Foreign Ministry to create lapel pins on the occasion of Germany’s council presidency at the EU Summit

Participation in Group Exhibitions

2000	Best of Selection
2005	Museum of Art Craft Show in Philadelphia/USA
2005	Special show “German Living” in Tokyo, Japan
2007	60th anniversary exhibition of the Bund der Kunsthandwerker Baden-Württemberg
2009	Eunique Karlsruhe – fair applied arts and design
2009	Christmas fair, Baden State Museum, Karlsruhe
2010	Special show “German Living” in Shanghai, China
2010	Eunique Karlsruhe – fair applied arts and design
2018	Museum of Art and Craft Show in Philadelphia, USA

One-woman Shows

1985	Galerie Am Graben, Vienna
1986	Gallery VO, Washington, D.C.
1987	Galerie Helga Malten, Dortmund
1999	Galerie Schulte-Hengesbach, Düsseldorf
2002	Galerie Spandow, Berlin

1997 to 2016 Conceived and directed my own gallery “der goldene schnitt” in Karlsruhe
Since 2016 Atelier in Freiburg in Breisgau