open doors to colour and buttons

Michaela Peterson, painter, and Kerstin Åsling, textile artist (click "ateljister" and find Kerstin in the list) are the two Konstepidemin artists with open studios this Saturday and Sunday 12-16. As part of the Art Biennal two artists' studios are open every weekend until end of November.

Next weekend, day after London trip, it's my turn! Busy packing and arranging things, if I don't get a chance to blog from London, have a joyful week!



Read in Zenit magazine (Swedish only) an article about Kerstin's button weaving. She is a grand lady of weaving, young in mind. Based in tradition but eager to take it a step forward.

Also a Zenit article about Michaela's soft speaking paintings there.

And Gudrun Åsling, (yes, Kerstin's daughter) shows her paintings at Konstepidemin's main gallery, exhibition and new web page both opens today, Saturday.

nice stripes and sverker's girls

Sverker Eklund, neighbor sculptor at Konstepidemin, will show his "girls" at Svensk Slöjd in Stockholm two weeks from Saturday. I'm glad to have one of the lovely girls at home, dressed in green with golden hair and red lips.





They are something between medieval angels and dolls from your childhood, but Sverker just calls them girls. The studio smells of wood and linseed oil from the tempera mixtures. In the morning when he arrives, he says he can hear them have conversations from the walls they are hanging.

Svensk Slöjd runs a shop and exhibition space, a nice web site full of Swedish handicraft and inspiring artists' work, but only in Swedish : (



I was happy opening the kiln this time. Sometimes it's like processing photos in a darkroom, to see the colours developed. Many little pieces to put together, after London trip.

much better colours and big size shoes

Feel a need to compensate for gloomy colours in latest posts, unfired clay is really pale, I know, subtle, dusty nuances. Here is greener green, to start with:



Most colours will fade when graphic designer Laurie Rosenwald leaves her guest studio at Konstepidemin. It's good for you New Yorkers who gets her back, but who will lighten up our lunch breaks now? Miss you already, Laurie, please come back!
See her talk in the "How to make mistakes on purpose" or buy her children's book about colours that she spent last summer working on here.



Another link that will refresh your eyes, photo work by Cally.

And finally an important link for London (and net) shoppers with need for ladies shoes in larger sizes, Janine Dalton did good research.

more stripes

More stripes to be painted and put in the kiln. There is always a plan for colour and lines when working with each piece, plan quickly forgotten. Quick notes in the sketch book is necessary support for memory.

The vases, when fired, will be for ceramic eternal flowers and are glazed inside in case you want to have a live one for a while.

Kiln is filled and will be opened Friday, what will be will be.

painting stripes

Last bisque firing before Örebro show is cooling. While waiting I paint oxide stripes on dry, slip painted shapes. They will be fired directly to 1250 degrees, only the pieces that are to be glazed need a first round.The unfired pieces have their own beauty, maybe takes a potter to appreciate it.



"Eternal flowers" before firing.

Tight schedule weeks to come; a two day seminar end of this week, London trip takes a week, two open studio days when I'll probably talk more than work. What is, is.

concrete pigs and bird cages

Photos from the neighbor's open studios this weekend:


Karin Agelii's concrete pigs. She is such a multi talented designer; whole gardens and sculptural pieces for them, children's play grounds, tableware and patterns. And she has it in her hands too.


Being in Anna Elisa Nilson's studio it is like being surrounded by fairy tales. We agreed they are on the more melancholy side (the kind you want to read over and over).



Ordered new business cards, online. If I'm happy with the result I'll give you the company name. So far I'm happy with the price. The lotus fruit drawing is from the sketches for Terra Nova, I hope I will still like it at the end of the pile. The lotus has an auspicious meaning, but also just looks fun.

I'm in pre-show mood; a little restless and with many little things to prepare. The to-do list gets longer and longer, no more time and focus to create the masterpiece, what is is.

brickwork

Brick factory workers' drawings, evenly spread all the way up the facade of the Röhss museum. You don't see them if you don't look.

London suggestions 3

I think more went wrong with latest London post, than comments being switched off.

A comment from an Andrea, gave me a lot to think about. I wrote about the teenager's craving for fake brand handbags, as opposed to my looking for craft galleries. I was ironic, and now I need to clarify that I am not ok with copying design. The only fake thing I have ever owned, was a gift from a friend some ten years ago. As a joke he bought me a Rolex covered with diamonds, a souvenir from Bangkok, I was very happy about it. The fake gold worn off in one evening and we had a good laugh.

I think originality is worth it's price. But in my teenager's world brands are everything and for her school friends a fake brand is like a brand in itself, the original Gucci is so totally out of reach for them. What I find most hard is the sad look of all the kids who wear brand uniforms, to fit the approved style at their different schools. It takes a lot of self esteem to go your own way and the pressure is high.

The teenager and I think differently about many things: shopping, consumption, sustainable living etc. My job is to tell her, the best that I can, my values. I hope that she and her friends will be, with age, proud and courageous women who make their own handbags.

And I'll try to make it more clear when I'm ironic from now on. And think I'll leave the teenager out of this blog.

London suggestions 2

Something happened when I published latest post, it wasn't possible to comment. Stupid, as I asked for London suggestions. Please, try again, sorry!

London suggestions?

The whole staff from KHVC Center for the Crafts are going on a study trip to London. I'm excited ! Haven't been abroad since football, or soccer as some call it, World Championships in Berlin last summer.

What is new and unknown to us in London?
We'll visit Origin at Somerset House, Flow Gallery, Contemporary Applied Arts CAA Gallery
Contemporary Ceramics, maybe Cockpit Arts.
Any other craft and applied arts suggestions? We have three days first week in October.

Also interested in tip on activities with teenager, mostly interested in shopping (preferably fake brand handbags)? We'll spend three extra days together in London before the colleagues arrive.

Most thankful for suggestions!

open this weekend

Home after a long day celebrating Hnoss, full of food for thoughts. Nice surprise to meet Paula Lindblom in person this morning, a Göteborg based jewellery artist who also inspired me to start blogging. She was as nice in real life as in her emails, strange we never met before. Here is her own blog in Swedish and the other in English together with her colleagues from Norway and Spain.

Anna Elisa Nilson, textile artist, and Karin Agéeli designer/sculptor will keep doors to their studios at Konstepidemin open 12 - 16 both Saturday and Sunday.


Anna Elisa newly graduated from HDK School of Design and Crafts, Göteborg University. If she had a webpage I would visit it often to see her paintings and objects! The photos above are Anna Elisa's.


Karin is also a gardener and have a masters degree in ceramic art. Her, and Anki Eklund's, clever design "Pick up" for Höganäs can be ordered here (US) or here (S). Photo from Höganäs.

jewellery celebrities

Happy anniversary, Hnoss!

Galleri Hnoss* shows contemporary jewelry and now celebrates it's first 10 years. The artist run gallery invited all their former exhibitors to Röhss museum. 74 top international jewelry artists and designers send their pieces for a grand exhibition "hnoss depended" that opens Saturday. I think it will be totally mind blowing to see them all at once. One at the time in the tiny gallery space can be great enough.

A seminar is held Friday, I will attend even if not into jewellery myself, the speakers are interesting. And in the gallery here at Konstepidemin work of ten young Swedish artists will be shown. They are giving us a party, the hard working artists behind the gallery.

Lucy Sarneel exhibiting at Röhss museum and lecturer at the seminar.
Necklace Loving Spoonful, photo from Klimt02

Read an interview with Mona Wallström (yes, the plywood artist) in Svensk Form newsletter (Swedish only, sorry).
If you can't get enough of contemporary jewelry, here's a blog for you.

* Hnoss was the name of the goddess Freja's daughter and means jewel.

plywood palace

Mona Wallström, dear friend and Konstepidemin artist, opens her solo exhibition Plywood Palace at Sintra, Göteborg, Saturday. She is a jewellery artist without limitations, creates a space within the gallery room and all its content, furniture and jewellery, in plywood.


She and her two lovely Spanish assistants Camino and Cento from Valencia have worked frantically for weeks now, to make it in time. Now they are moving in to the gallery space and makes it an amazing place.

Ceramic studio accent color:

clay day

Building new bowl to replace the one damaged by plumber. I use fabric rather than paper under everything I hand build, makes it much easier to move the pieces around and doesn't stick. Much better when lifting slabs too.


Favorite tools: a hammer shaft and a very useful thing I have no idea what it's really for. Did I once find it in a Hungarian flea market, while staying in Kecskémet studio? I use them to gently tap the outside to find the right line, while supporting from the inside. Line never quite straight, but strong.


Also, drilled 150 holes in leaves for new ceramic garland, love the cordless drilling machine.

Bad photo quality, sorry. Teenager needs digital camera for film project at school, leaves me with the cell phone camera this week.

good and bad news

Good news: Lerverk, an artist run glass and ceramics gallery and shop here in Göteborg, wants me to have an exhibition next April.

Bad news: The plumber broke a big, not yet fired bowl while fixing a pipe in the kiln room.


Pecka Söderberg, next door sculptor, and Lina Ekdahl, poet, packed the transport for exhibition opening on Saturday at Konsthallen Varberg, one hour south of Göteborg. Scary pieces and poems, full of catastrophes, and at the same time very funny and warmhearted.

surfaces

Image from late summer trip to Skagen, Denmark. So many feet walked the beach towards the northern tip of the island.


My ceramic surfaces have no perfection.
I leave fingerprints, tool marks, brush strokes as memories of the process.
Slips rather than glossy glazes, the matt surface feels more like part of the clay body than painted on top of it.

Thank you Camilla for being such an inspiration and for all the blog talk before I dared to start! And for bringing so many of your friends here!

Most of you know her beautiful blog already, and if you don't, go there now!

textilia

Went to exhibition opening at Textilia, a private gallery for contemporary Scandinavian textile art, run by colorful Anita Eneroth.

Elisabeth Carlsson makes simple everyday materials talk; makeup pads, rubber bands, saucepan holders...with thin and fragile stitches. Her web page is not published yet, I'll let you know as soon as get the address.


Dancer/ choreographer Veera Suvalo Grimberg performed a textile dance piece, light and humorous, in the beautiful gallery garden.

first autumn day

The days are over now, when I could work with the door open. Stormy, rainy Friday, brings a message of what is to come; Gothenburg winter. Made more garland flowers and tried to plan for Örebro exhibition; what is missing in the whole?

Konstepidemin celebrates 20 years this year and do so with small and big events. Every weekend until end of November two of the artists will keep their studios open to visitors. Saturday and Sunday between 12-4, you are all welcome! Those of you who can't make it will have photos and links from here.


This weekend will show:
Elisabet Eriksson, textile artist, read an article about her, in Swedish, in the Göteborg art magazine Zenit


and Amalia Lindahl Kenamets textile artist and painter.

welding help from Per

Studio neighbor Per Petersson helped weld the garlands together. We have our studios on top of the little hill where Konstepidemin is located. Per is a sculptor who works with large scale pieces in a wide range of material that he manages to turn from matter to poetry.
Better take a look at his web site!

He is also generous with his practical knowledge, always helping someone like me out, alongside his own work.

While welding, Lars Åsling, another neighbor artist, came to visit and we had an interesting discussion about blogging as a phenomena. Working in a place like Konstepidemin makes it possible not only to get practical help but also presence in a dialogue with creative, reflecting, funny people. I'm thankful!

The steel ring was fixed with strings to keep it exactly in place, the "flowers" could be glued beforehand as MIG welding is hot only on the exact spot.

mosaic sketches at terra nova

Resketching for mosaic commission, being the happy winner of sketch competition. Four entrances in apartment buildings, Terra Nova, in the former wharf area next to the dock where the replica of the ship Götheborg was built. Original Götheborg sailed to China for the Swedish East Indian Company and sadly sank just outside the port on its way home (but the new ship made it both to China and back successfully). Broken porcelain pieces from the cargo will be available as mosaic material. I will mix them with tiles of my own production and use different Chinese auspicious symbols as inspiration; clouds, lotus fruits and chrysanthemum flowers.The production process must be quite rational, so I try to vary the elements and colours within a narrow theme. The commissioner asked me to work differently with one of the entrances and now I hope we'll all be satisfied.





"Stripes" of mosaic from ceiling to floor. Empty space top and bottom, like the Chinese scroll paintings.