Merlin Klein, Germany

 A little thin

Glass pearl from Sahara sand collected in Munich, Pearl silk, 2024

“A little thing” in English: pettiness Alternatives: a small thing, or trifle It became somehow grim, a very strange mood set in. First, I did not know what had influenced me visually so much. I blinked hard, many times, so as to see whether my eyes recovered or whether it was due To the fact that the light reaching my eyes had changed. That was not the case. I looked around closely. Somehow everything looked orange and hazy. It lasted an instant longer until I looked up at the clouds in the sky. This is where the light came from. The whole sky was coloured orange red and the reason was not the sunset. It was as though heavy pigmented clouds were up there, somehow moving, or maybe not. While I was considering what it could be, perhaps an atomic war had broken out earlier than I thought and the colour in the air was possibly the result of the detonation of a city transported by the wind, a patch of blue sky appeared through the clouds. Evening set in, Then night, And I went to bed. During the night, it started suddenly to rain heavily. I could hear how the rain falling from the sky hit, drummed and rattled onto the roof of my truck. I remembered the sky and the colour once again. It was almost as though the rain fell differently. Heavier and yet slower than usual. I thought again about the war and kept picturing it in my mind while outside the acid rain contamined and ate everything away. I hoped that the aluminium covering of my truck would withstand it. I slept. The next morning I opened the outside door to check whether everything had been eaten by the acid rain. I was frightened and touched at the same time. Outside, everything was covered with a fine, orange brown dust. I was aware that it was the same colour I had seen in the clouds the evening before, and now, here it was in front of my door and it painted everything outside in a monochrome I looked on the Internet to find out whether more information was available, or if something had happened. I now wanted to know whether it was a city blown into the air by an Atom bomb that I was rubbing between my index finger and my thumb…. I read about this phenomenon; under certain circumstances, sand from the Sahara can be carried very far by wind and weather. In this case, this was what had happened and Munich was covered with it for a short time. Because I could not believe that the Sahara sand was now covering everything, I started to collect it together with a paint brush. It was like having found something precious. It was the finest sand I was holding in my hands. A friend of mine had just come back from a holiday in the Sahara. She found it strange that she had travelled so far and had brought back Sahara sand in her luggage, and that here it was a few days after her return in front of her house. Like me, she had the same impulse to collect it. As we talked about it and I told her about my idea to make a glass pearl necklace from the Sahara sand, that one could wear as a piece of jewelry later, she gave me the sand she had collected without another thought. We put all our Sahara sand together and transformed it from a small pile of dirt into a special pile of something remarkable. Perhaps, it is not just about my work but also about friendship. About travel and distance. About what makes you curious. Or about “staying at home”, about the nearness, about the incomprehensible. In any case, it is about Anna and me. The Sahara and the wind. And situation… A short while ago, I was sitting with Anna in my Truck and I had the necklace, which until now, I had only imagined, it was almost ready. Andy arrives at that moment, cheerful. He hears the conversation between us. As he realizes that after many trials the necklace is almost ready, he asks to see it. Again he is very happy when I show it to him. “From the sand, you made this little thing”? Yes, that’s what I made out of it. Dr. Bernd Hamann, Uwe Schadewald, Silke Meyd, with their arduous work, with their skill, ambition and engagement, with their finest labwork, the firm Fluxana in Ilmenau, have made a piece of glass from the Sahara sand for me. And I have only then, as Andy said, made “a little thing” so that this story can be worn as a piece of jewelry. As simple as possible, how easy is that. “A little thing” in English: pettiness Alternatives: a small thing, or trifle Thank you Anna! Thank you Fluxana! Thank you Dr. Hamann, Uwe Schadewald, Silke Meyd….