merry merry

Merry, merry holidays to all! Wish you lots of time with friends and family, peace and joy and fun.
I'm off to Santa-land and snow; hope to update all kinds of things over the holiday break; blog, website along with old friendships. All the best!

reconnections

Over the last time I've been reconnected with people from different periods in life. For sure, you never know what you will mean to someone until afterwards, or they to you.

Rick Hards
Photos above from Råda Säteri

turning point

Longest night of the year is behind us, now lies only light ahead.

Share with you some favorite christmas tree ornaments, look Heather, your star looks good! Wish you all happy holidays, love and light, and more light.

extra summer; last swim

I think that was the last swim for the summer, at least without a sauna before going in. That was last weekend, this will be rainy and windy.

But there are other pleasures:
Tea's up opens at CAA in London tonight, Paul Scott shows blue and white (of course!). 12 different artist approaches, like Cathy Miles wire sculptures or Suzanne Wall's spoons.
Web pages Cathy Miles, Paul Scott

This week swoshed by, still swamped with office work and no clay in sight really yet. Hope you are happy with your week and wish you a weekend full of fun.

early summer - goodbye house

I said farewell to a family house up north, this early summer. It was time to do so and I feel good about it, a house shouldn't be empty too long.

Somehow the memories from this place are kept under the soles of my feet. Like how it feels to walk barefoot on sharp gravel. Or to walk on soft moss. Or the floor boards on the attic.

It's the place where I learned to pick flowers, and how to write my first letters and other important stuff. I came up with the names for new calves every summer (always sunny) and sang for the cows when they were milked because grandmother said they did so much better from listening to music and I wanted to help and do my part of the job. Horses my grandfather named himself, always Pekka (only one at the time).

No matching link, I choose
Myung Rye Kim ceramic gardens and more, because I miss clay work a while longer.

looking back and ahead

This summer was fantastic. I can't say it was a relaxing vacation, but fantastic. It started like this, a train trip up north, end of June. Will show more, in portions.

Off to see how you are, I'm curious. Hope late summer is a good season for you too! Still feeling free, and at the same time eager to get started in new projects.

Newly found blog, via Dear Ada, added to favourites:
Stripes and dots
New blogger; welcome Priscilla Mouritzen! Pinchpots
Both will make the ceramic world wider.

swedish footballs

This blog is normally ad free, today is an exception, in Swedish :)

Hjälp femtonåriga tjejer som älskar att spela fotboll att få ihop pengar för att resa till USA CUP i sommar.

Köp deras singel "Fotboll i mitt hjärta" här!
Fotboll i mitt hjärta blogg här.

Sprid gärna länkarna till fotbollsnördar du känner!

(Girl football team raising money for trip to USA CUP this summer)

post party

What a party! So much love. I'm tired today and very, very happy.
Thank you so much for congratulations!

early in life

A much earlier version of me. This week was full of birthday preparations and not so much work. Have looked through most of my albums and piles of old photographs. It's fun! Realize I've lived a lot.

Today four shows open at Konstepidemin:
Bo Söderström, painter, in the main gallery
Karin Jonsson creates an installation in Pannrummet (a former boiler room with very special athmosphere)
Peter Hoogeboom, artist and jewellery designer, at Hnoss
and KV art school in the Blå Huset restaurant

Peace and joy for the weekend!
(Mansuetude, it's actually on Sunday)

not without my handbag

Tagged by Karin "Show me a special something, important or beautiful or meaningful or full of memories for you - or all of that - and tell me about it."

Had to think for a while until I saw it right in front of my nose.
The handbag.

My helpful friend, keeper of all things necessary. Big enough for files, calendar, camera, notebooks, books, phone and sometimes groceries. Sturdy enough for biking rainy days.

Full of memories from a fantastic week in Berlin the football World Cup summer of 2006. A rented apartment at Oranienstrasse and the bag shop nearby.

The design has a point, combining recycling with craft. The embroidery is a sari and the material is from used truck tarpaulins and tires. This bag is urbanity and craft.

It opens up for conversations with all kinds of people wherever I go. It must be something like what you dog owners experience all the time, very nice.

Pelle Mia website
Freitag is similar, more high tech (and I think they were first, but without the saris...)
Freitag Design a truck contest

And while I'm at Berlin shopping, here are my favourite shoes, Trippen. Some models are a bit heavy for me, but I have two absolute favourite pairs, same model in wine and black. And I would love a pair of boots.

Lylou handbags, softer bags but not less colourful.

I send the tag on to:
Alexandra, Katherine, Paul, Mansuetude and Camilla

100 + 1 + Korean ceramic

I missed the 100 post celebration on Friday (to busy celebrating new glasses or maybe I just can't count)! Instead, let's celebrate number one hundred and one today.

Being a new blogger I first thought "Where are all the interesting bloggers?". I started with the few I knew and Camilla was a great help. Now I have more subscriptions in the reader than time to read, it's like diving into the ocean, endless. You can imagine I'm happy over the new glasses.

Through blogging I've found so much inspiration, so many brilliant ideas, so many artists, so much art and craft, so many thoughts and ideas. I'm thankful to all of you who share so generously. There is also a lot of crap out there, which is also good knowledge.

The other question "What can I share?" was also there. I soon realized the blog as an important space for self reflection and to seek out the one thing every day worth telling. The blogging creates some healthy distance to look at what I do, where my mind goes and what I aspire for. It might picture reality as more harmonious and pretty than it really is, but in the end I find more truth.

A few times I've fallen in the trap of duty, sharing not from my heart but from what I "ought to". When I felt that happen I next felt my mind reel with the thought "But this is my space, I don't need to fulfill anything".

I don't think a revolution has happened, but I really do think the time spent looking and telling is rewarding. I feel more confident, my directions get more clear (in an unclear way).

And I get to look around at Konstepidemin, keep track of my artist neighbours' work.

And of course all the kind words you've poured over me matters. Not just the positive feedback, but the whole idea of communicating makes me happy.

And I get to practice my English. Sometimes I feel, just like Andrea, that my language is primitive. I envy your wit and playfulness, and hopefully I learn from you.

So there are many good reasons to go on.
Now, what happened this weekend?

Went to the opening of Korean ceramic artist Kim Youn Gon show at Sintra, Göteborg.
More photos here. Delicately slip decorated stoneware, all functional poetic perfection, rooted in Korean ceramic tradition.

He probably wouldn't be here if not for Jooeun Han, who came here as a student and later set up his studio here in Göteborg. I'm glad he is here, bring more friends!

And I started a new blog, so far more an info page, for the girl's football (soccer) team Football in my heart, in Swedish with lots of pictures. Plan is to take the team to Minneapolis for a major football cup this summer.

wishes take off

Back in Göteborg from our Luleå trip. It's nice to be back and see that you are also here again. I hope all your wishes for the new year will come true!

We had a lovely new years night; so much to talk about with friends you don't meet every day. The long dinner was interrupted by homemade ceremonial parts, that worked well (we hope). First we threw all things we didn't want to bring into next year on a little fire in the garden. Not the real things, of course, but written words on little paper notes, we all had a few of them and agreed changes are welcome.

Later, at 12, we went to the beach with two small hot air balloons. One that had all our future, personal wishes taped on it, in the other we put all our wishes for the world. They lifted beautifully into the dark stillness, made a turn and we could see them drift slowly high up there for a long time, saluted by little fireworks now and then.

Now I'll have a lazy day at home. But I will go out to pick up a parcel from USA I'm excited about, I have a guess it will be a nice surprise!

Inspiration:
Brad Miller, favourite his scuptural work
Tyler Lotz ceramic sculpture

summing up

I hope your holiday was nice, with only friendly faces around you.

Our celebration was fine this year. Warmhearted spirit, no stress, not too much food. We lit candles for absent friends. And the kids got too many gifts as usual and were happy about them all.

I was Santa this year. First time, I did well, the youngest is still a believer! As you can see from the photo, the kids were a bit shaky with excitement.

Started to think of what was important with this year and prepare for next: paying all bills, putting what I can in order and cleaning mental shelves for what is to come.

We'll leave for north Sweden tomorrow evening, will be back before then.

If you need a rest from holidays:
Clare Twomey ceramic installations

and Annie Vought paper cut and installations
via Abstract the day

Somehow they feel related, little fragments of daily life and stories.

clearer sky

A day for catching up with things, both sky and mind gets more clear.

Some reflections on being in two places, thanks to Heather:
No, in my 50% office job and 50% studio work life it's not only a matter of left and right brain, it can be more schizophrenic than that...

I keep my office job (at KHVC, a craft promotion organisation) out of the blog, even if it can be interesting and give stuff to reflect over. Having two different professional identities can be confusing both for myself and for others. And I don't want to be mistaken to represent anyone else here.

It's very ego, I want to keep this "my space". Blogging strenghten the artist part in me and I'm very happy for that. I so easily slip into letting office part take more of my focus and enthusiasm. The work I do there is in many others interest and can seem so much more important than my playing around in the studio. I think I share this experience with many artists working in other jobs. Or?


Photos from Félicité L. webpage

Found Félicité L. fil métallique in the French craft magazine Ateliers d'Art.
She makes furniture, lighting and other inspiring wire art objects.

Makes me long for Christmas break and more time to make little things.

Bientot demain blog is dedicated to slow design and now added to favourites.

Per Agelii added one more football player on Lagbygge.

I've been tagged

I was tagged by Karin tonight and will follow the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well
as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Five facts? random? weird? Hm...

1. I played underwater rugby as a teenager (random and weird).

2. I once had my hand kissed by the maharajah of Jaipur on a pier in Henningsvaer, Lofoten, northern Norway (weird).

3. I haven't used pyjamas since I was a child, until a month ago when I bought a flannel pyjamas that is now my dearest piece of clothing and I wear it as much as I can (weird).

4. I like watching football(soccer) and get quite excited when there is an important game (like on Saturday when Sweden meets Spain and can qualify for the European Championships 2008). Loved being in Berlin summer of 2006 World Championships, football brings the world together! Applied for tickets to next summer's game in Switzerland and Austria, without luck. And I dream of 2010 World Championships in South Africa (neither weird or random).

5. I have only lived in two cities my whole life, first half in Luleå in the north and second half Göteborg on the west coast. Moving here (for studies) at first make me feel like an immigrant in my own country, social life and culture so different, but I soon loved it and find it hard to imagine another place for good (maybe weird) .

And next, who to tag?
I'll go for Cally, Smosch, Lylou, Elly Yap and Sofia.

svartöstan, old tracks

Walk with me and friend Annie in Svartöstan, a part of Luleå with it's very own atmosphere. Photos from Sunday a bit more than week ago. Not much changed since, maybe they have some snow now?



The workers at Järnverket, the steel mill, needed housing and that's why Svartöstan was built. Nowadays it's a stronghold for musicians, artists and intellectuals, and where most of my Luleå friends live. If one could move Svartöstan here I would live there too...



Annie's neighbor has this solution for letting the cat in and out, don't miss the construction inside.



Svartöstan is half my family history; this little house on my grandparent's yard is where my parents lived my first three years. The big house of my grandparents is torn down since long and replaced by a new, not as pretty. My grandfather and my father worked in the steel mill, as most of the crowd of uncles and male cousins who lived nearby.





I guess almost every industrial town has a part they are a bit ashamed of. For a long time the strategy from the land owner, a municipal company, was to leave the houses to rot, to avoid future commitments for the city.

In Svartöstan, originals and newcomers joined forces and changed the plans into preservation and development instead of destruction. Most wooden houses are restored now, a few remains to be taken care of and new houses are built. Citizens formed a society, Svartöstan is alive and kicking.

I'm so very proud to be born here. There is a certain mentality, same as when my grandparents lived here, a mix of solidarity, Independence and playfulness.



It's a kids paradise, things to explore everywhere and at the same time safety. When did you last see a kid build a tree house? I think this guy will be a professional architect, he had so many good ideas about function.



Graffiti painters stick to this one building by the beach and leave the rest untouched.

Street art project Outsides, my favourite Mr Horse.
Mailed the cat ladder photo to a collector blog Katt-trappa.