Surreal rubber armors & SM Kermits:

The "crazy" world of Verona Gummibaum
Creativity, no commerce!

This designer of extraordinary rubber fashion is an insider tip in every respect. Verona Gummibaum has no own store. There is not even a company name next to the bell buttons of this yellow-white apartment house not far from Munich Central Station when MARQUIS author Thomas Hammerl visits her. Only the real name of the 42 years old artist can be found on the bell plate. Having arrived on the first floor the door to her apartment (in which the manufacture is part of the private area of four rooms, kitchen and bathroom) also opens a gateway to a unique and most impressive artist's oasis with a museum-like magical charm.
Being a "perfectionist, autodidactic pack rat with much love to detail", who can't help but realizing her never ceasing stream of ideas by means of her many talents and hyper-creativity, VG has turned her 100 sqm apartment into something as fascinating as a trip into the world of A Thousand And One Nights. Handcrafted glass nugget lampshades illuminate Egyptian murals in the dining room. This is contrasted by erotic pencil drawings in the bathroom which are inspired by the Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger (Alien, Dune) The bathtub is completely spackled with small tesserae, self-designed tiles on the floor set further artful highlights. The toilet lid is decorated with a crucified devil right in the middle of an arrangement of glass splinters. The corridor comprises a commode framed by gaudy glass ceramic pebbles, fantastic unique designer hats can be found here, and originally, reshaped cabinets leap out as does the mirror with a frame of pearlescent conch shells; there is also impressive silver jewelry heaping up on dishes. All 'Made by Verona Gummibaum".
Amidst this picturesque cosmos, exuberant with imaginativeness and filled with creatively arranged pieces of arts, hokum, stuff, oddities, images of saint's as well as souvenirs from journeys to Indonesia, India or Africa, the studio seems amazingly austere and functional. Apart from a PC, some illustrated books on craft (among others, dealing with Antonio Gaudi), plenty of rivets, knobs as well as rolls of rubber plus a collection of finished fashion, there is only a working table in front of the window complete with lamp, glue, brush, tools and a simple punch machine. No other devices as Verona Gummibaum crafts every singly one of her models completely by hand! The hospitable designer with some green and black wisps of hair on an otherwise bald head and the filigree, temporary face tattoo reaching from the root of the nose to it's middle as well as with a piercing in lower lip and nose is dressed in a black sweater, black trousers, black socks and black rubber flip-flops. This women, however, who is communicative and loves to laugh, lives with her six cats the live of a workaholic hermit. The born Gemini frankly and readily chatted about her eventful life.