One of those artists, Christine Kuhn, had a powerful idea. Before the fall, the Berlin Wall was inaccessible to the people of East Berlin. Armed guards patrolled the wall constantly, and people were not allowed even to touch it. In contrast to the stark surface of the East Side, the West Side was covered with graffiti. To create her mural, Kuhn stood at the wall and handed out gloves to passers-by, inviting them to leave a handprint on the wall, something she had been elated to do when first given access to the wall for her artwork.

As the focal point for my piece, I chose a photograph of Kuhn’s mural taken by world-renown photographer Christophe Avril. Printed on aluminum to, as Avril says, “give it more life and some eternity,” this was an ideal representation of Kuhn’s work contrasting the human experience of touch against the political and harsh image of the wall. The smooth aluminum of the photograph against the rough surface of the background emphasizes how well Museum Glass works with pieces with multiple textures.

For the frame, I wanted a heavy piece of metal with an industrial look. A Street Frames worked with me to modify their number 705 Flat Iron Raw moulding, which is welded and finished with F-bolts at the corners.

Because the wall is concrete and steel, I wanted to add texture to the background. Experimenting with cement tiles and poured concrete, I quickly realized both were too heavy. The ultimate solution was to take a standard mat board and texturize it using sand and styrofoam kernels in paint, basic house painting supplies. There were four layers applied, each requiring 24 hours to dry. The wood spacers in the piece were painted with this mixture. This created an uneven, rough surface that fit well with the industrial feel of the subject. The photograph on aluminum was float-mounted above the mat board on wood supports.