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 Condensed version:
- love to draw and paint as a child (age 3+)
- early interest in dismantling things and do crafts (7+)
- inspiration through grandfather in doing crafts and drawing
- first try to paint with watercolours (12+)
- first public exhibition in a bank in Elmshorn (watercolours, drawings), Germany (16+)
- Scholarship for Arts by the Peter Kölln Foundation, Elmshorn, Germany (1990)
- Exhibition in Hospital in Hamburg, Germany (1991)
- First participation in Carnival of Venice, Italy 1999
- First participation in the Venetian Carnival Competition in St. Mark's Square, Venice, Italy 2003
- Certificate in “Deathmask making” at Stöber Körper & Form, Solingen, 2005
- 1st Prize Award for “Best Costume in the Carnival of Venice” Venice, Italy, 2007
- 2nd time 1st Prize Award for “Best Costume in the Carnival of Venice” Venice, Italy, 2008
- taking shoe making class in London at “Prescott & Mackay”, spring 2008
- Teaching Summer class “Venetian Mask Making” with students at Public school in Vicenza, Italy, summer 2008
- Teaching summer class “Venetian Costume Making” with teachers at a public school in Vicenza, Italy, summer 2008
- 3rd time 1st Prize Award for “Best Costume in the Carnival of Venice” Venice, Italy, 2009
- display of various costumes on different events in Germany, 2007 & 2009 participant with about 10 costumes at "altonale spaßparade", Hamburg
In more detail:
Tanja Schulz-Hess lives in Hamburg, Germany. The mother of a little daughter lives different lives in one: Being mother of a curious, sweet little angel, working for Germany's most prestigeous political magazine and her life as an artist.
Painting, creative work on fashion items such as clothes, hats, shoes etc., building and dismantlings things have always been her real passion, her vocation. After her first public exhibitions (paintings) in 1987, she earned a scholarship for her creative work in 1990 but decided not to study art.
After an apprenticeship in publishing house administration Tanja took a study year with the American non-profit cultural study & exchange program “Up with people”. In one year she traveled with 170 young people from 23 different nationalities around the world, performing in a semi-professional musical show, doing marketing, PR and stage work same as social work (more than 100 different community service projects such as cooking for homeless in Nebraska, USA, sorting clothes for the Salvation Army or holding speeches about German culture in schools). She stayed with over 100 hostfamilies in 21 states in the USA, three provinces in Canada, Norway, Sweden and Finland. During this time she was also doing a lot of creative work in stage decorations and other creative projects which ran within the program.
After being so inspired she returned home and moved to Hamburg in 1996 to study politics and journalism. After two years she decided that university was not her way of learning and studying. She was offered a job in a press agency, stayed for 1 ½ years and started working for DER SPIEGEL in 2000.
Besides that interesting, intellectually stimulating work, Tanja got more and more interested in the Venetian Carnival and its costume history and developed her skills in costume making.
Her “Venetian love story” started in 1992 when she went on a cheap bustrip to Venice, Italy, for 3 days of Carnival with her friend Monika. After seeing the Carnival, she promised herself never to return to this fantastic world of stunning masks, dresses and stories told by the costumes, people made, without a being in real costume she made. Just buying one would have been too easy and especially not HERs.
But making one turned out to be more difficult than she thought. In 1999 she decided to go to Venice for her first "real" carnival. So she made a design, a very simple big caftan-like dress with a big headpiece made of chickenwire and fabric. Easy to wear for a beginner. But when she dug out the sewing machine her mother once gave her, she had the same problem as always when she uses a sewing machine: that stubborn machine did not stop producing knots, let the thread rip etc. Whatever Tanja tried, the machine did not want to work… until today that is still the case. There seems to be a curse when it comes to the combination “Tanja + sewing machine”.
Tanja is not superstitious but when or where ever she uses a sewing machine it does not get far. In 2008 she even burnt a sewing machine in two minutes in London during a shoemaking class (but that is a different story…  ).
So Tanja searched for another way to fix a costume. Stapler did not work, normal glue dried not fast enough. But finally she had an electric gluegun in her hand and THAT worked VERY WELL… until today. So good that all costumes ever after and even her wedding dress was entirely glued with hot plastic glue.
Until today Tanja works “free hand” without patterns or tailor skills. This is why her costumes are more wearable sculptures than dresses.
Every year Tanja's costumes got bigger, brighter, more detailed, more “commenting nowadays life” –- which means they tell a story. Each costume has a history why and how it is made, details to look at, background development history where the fabrics and laces (mostly old) come from. 90% of the materials are from fleamarkets around the world (but mostly Hamburg). But also hardware stores and friends houses are good sources for her inspiration and ideas… Litarally EVERYTHING can become a costume. Inspiration is everywhere. An old kitchen curtain as well as a dream she had in her honeymoon with Tobi in New Zealand after visiting a chocolate factory, fabric, wire, tubes, hair, old household things. In her costumes even the most “boring” things bloom to a second life.
As “frame” Tanja loves the shapes of 17 to (mostly 18th!) 19th century dresses but always in combination with a “contemporary” theme or topic. In the last years huge wigs a la “Madame Pompadour” or headpieces in general have become Tanja's “landmark”. Not always easy to wear but definately a flashy topping they form a beautiful union with the inspirational dresses and complete them together with detailed little things like fans, walking sticks, shoes, handbags and muffs, earrings and chokers she also produces individually to each costume.
After winning the competition of “Most beautiful costume of the Carnival in Venice” twice in a row 2007, 2008 & 2009 (not one dream-come-true, but three!) she continues making costumes, not to win in the first place but because she loves the making, developing of ideas and to make the people who visit the Carnival in Venice happy.
In the competition a lot of people of “the business” (professional tailors, stage decoration or costume makers, professional artists) take part. Tanja remains an “enthusiastic amateur”, somebody who does it out of passion and love without the aim to make money.
Besides caring for her little daughter and husband and working at the publishing house, some months at the end of the year she gets up at six in the morning before her little daughter wakes up or in the evening when the little one sleeps, she finds the time to make the wearable sculptures. Every smile, look of awe and respect, every photograph taken (it does not matter if by average people or professional photographers) are her best salary for the hours of work on the “dream dresses” she makes.
Though it is possible to rent most of her costumes nowadays. So if you have ever dreamt of wearing one of those “Contemporary Carnival Art” dresses, contact me. I am happy when they get the chance to “breathe fresh air”.
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