SiebenMorgen

Hi, my name is Tinee Häcker. I'm a professional free lance artist with a diploma in Fine Arts. I always thought to become a painter, but instead I got interested in printmaking. Inspired by travels to the Far East I started to carve seal stamps out of soapstone, later went on with linoleum and rubberstamps. As a kid I loved to carve on cherry wood sticks with an old kitchen knife my grandfather gave me. He was an educated type setter, working in a publishing house/printery, and always smelled of printers ink when he came home from work. So for now, I work as a printmaker and illustrator, mainly for myself and my SiebenMorgen shop.

I live in a very small, old house in Stuttgart, Germany, together with my husband, two wonderful daughters and one singing cat. Without them, there would be no SiebenMorgen. There, in the former washhouse of the backyard barn, is my little print workshop and my huge vintage printing press. It's a lovely place to work and my kind of magic chamber. I also have rented a studio in a town nearby, where I do all the manufacturing, packing, shipping and office work.

When I opened my Etsy shop nine years ago, I never meant to lance a design label, brand or whatsoever, I simply searched for a kind of trigger for my work. I wanted to name it. And there was SiebenMorgen, a neighbourhood street, with such a poetic sound and not so poetic surroundings, and it fit perfectly. SiebenMorgen is the land, that I work on 24/7. It's full of love and dedication and plenty of everything. It's also the place, where I make little chicken dance and give cute foxes a heartache. With only an ink pen or some chisels. For almost a decade now. So - thank you!

All my products start with a little handdrawn doodle, sketch, sometimes a photo. Most of my illustrations and designs are made using handcarved rubberstamps or linocut prints, sometimes combined with ink, pen, paint, paper and coincidence. When I make a digital version of a design, e.g. for a notepad or greeting card, I leave it almost untouched to stay as close to the original as possible and to maintain the typical handprinted character. All my paper goods are offset-printed climate-neutrally on 100% recycling paper, here in Germany. Some of them even with 100% vegetable water-based inks.

Since 2011 I also offer rubberstamps with my handcarved stamp designs. So many customers have asked for it, otherwise I would never have thought of it.
Again all starts with a little doodle, which I transfer to a rubber block and then cut out. A clean print of the finished stamp is scanned in high resolution to create the digital template for the stamp maker of my trust. Which is a small company nearby, just around the corner and with decades of experience. They return me A4 sized plates of grey rubber, which I carefully separate into single designs with my steel scissors. Of course I also cut sharp to create a nearly perfect print. I prefer the grey rubber as it's a natural product, without toxic fumes or odors, it gives a great print, is easy to clean and lasts for a while. The separated rubber designs are mounted with cellular rubber as a flexible interply on beech wood handles, which I have marked or handstamped with the design accordingly before. The wood comes from a family owned, sustainable forestry here in Germany. So...a long way for a small thing, as it is with almost every SiebenMorgen product.
See how my stamps are made on my blog: https://siebenmorgen.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/wie-meine-stempel-entstehen-how-my-stamps-are-made/

If you still want to know more about my work, write to me. I love mail :)

Best,
Tinee