Art of the Book

Three-dimensional sketches

admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:18:07 +0000

For many years now when starting to work on books, I’ve been sketching in three dimensions. I liken it to a warm-up before exercise. It’s not a plan for the work to come, but a way of getting in touch with materials, loosening up creatively, leaving the inner critic behind. Just combining bits and pieces into a nonsensical object. Because it has no other purpose than being a sketch, there are no rules to be bogged down by, no shoulds to aim for nor is it possible to make any mistakes. It’s very liberating and fun, and it always works. Sometimes it’s even more fun than the work itself. I have boxfuls of these little things. I call them talismans - maybe it says something about them in relation to the purposeful creative work that happens after them… (Jul08)

Karelian pies

admin — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 18:22:27 +0000

For the past 15 years I’ve managed to always wait for my next visit to Finland so I can indulge with what in my opinion is a national institution: Karelian pies - “Karjalanpiirakat”. Since the nearest shop selling them is some 4500 kilometres away at the moment, the day indeed came when I finally bit the bullet and decided to make them myself. I’m not big into cooking - after putting materials together with tools most days, thus “cooking” ideas into physical form, making food feels like work I guess, I rarely do it for fun. Well, didn’t quite now either, as the reason for this 4-hour project was plain and simple: I had to have them. Could not go another day without eating a Karelian pie. So there was no choice really. And so, after 4 hours I had 40 Karelian pies, each looking different from the next but like my childhood saying goes: “They’ll look worse once they reach your stomach!” Now, a few hours later, half of them are gone already and there certainly won’t be any left by end of tomorrow, if I have anything to do with it. But I’m exhausted. Now I think I’ll just wait for the next visit to Finland. (Jun08)

For the adventurous among you, here’s the Karelian pie recipe in English.

Drawing with the Moon

admin — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 06:18:03 +0000

Enjoying a meal out the other night, I had some fun playful time drawing with the Moon. Much like with sparklers at Christmas time, but obviously I couldn’t move the Moon around… Together with some palm leaves against the night sky, the results seemed quite painterly.

At the end I also stopped in the middle of a busy courtyard to point my camera towards the black sky. When I was moving the camera slowly around, perplexed passers-by tried to peek over my shoulder what on earth the crazy lady is doing. I will need to return to this experimenting some more and see if the Moon could be made to write something… (Jun08)

Sitting the night away

admin — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 05:55:18 +0000

I’m being a bit British now and will carry on talking about the weather. But according to the newspaper, it’s “unusually cold for the season”. Apparently there’s been some storm in India due to which we had this sudden drop in temperature, from the high 40s to the low 30s. This “chill” in the air brought all the terraces alive, so we also decided to enjoy a long lazy evening in our favourite pizza place. One of the most enjoyable things is to see all the changing colours of the scenery from daylight through dusk to sunset. There’s a point during dusk when everything turns soft pastel shades, but I never catch it on camera. (Jun08)

“The Complaint of the Black Knight”

admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:07:36 +0000

Isn’t that the most fascinating book title? It is the title of the first book ever printed in Scotland, 500 years ago, which gives them cause to celebrate the year 2008 as “Year of the Printed Word”. As part of this celebration, the Owl & Lion Gallery in Edinburgh has organised an exhibition exploring the art of the book. If you have a chance to visit, the exhibition will be open from 20th June until 11th July, 11am-6pm. One of the two artist books on display from me is, quite by coincidence, titled “Knight’s Prayer”.

Writing

admin — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 07:11:41 +0000

There’s not much work-in-progress imagery appearing here these days. The reason being that at the moment I’m spending my creative time writing instead. It is the project that has been on the back burner for a long time and now gets some deserved attention. It’ll be a while before the written content will be part of an artist book but I’ll get there. The content will be in Finnish, as much as I’d like to be able to do this in English for a wider audience, it just isn’t possible. It will be in a lyrical format using a lot of alliteration which is beyond my second language skills - I can only construct such text in my mother tongue. So this shall be a more personal project instead. And while the writing’s going on, I’ll archive here some more paintings as illustrative references to the upcoming artist book.

“Autumn Mountain” (2007)
45×30cm, ink on parchment

45C and rising…

admin — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:37:29 +0000

And with some 80 percent humidity, I’m very close to eating the words I uttered a mere two months ago when freezing in northern Europe… something about not ever again saying it’s too hot. If only there was a way to capture this heat in a photograph. Sometimes it’s difficult to breath outside. So this weekend we escaped into the coolness of one of the fancy car showrooms to see some vehicles we won’t be buying any time this century…

Productive lunch

admin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:56:38 +0000

A day long power cut forcing us out of our now non-airconditioned home, we escaped to Ibn Battuta for the afternoon. A rare treat was in store for me when the little one fell asleep and I had an hour all to myself to indulge in my favourite berry mocktail and some good old-fashioned pen to paper sketching. That’s the beginnings of a full series of paintings - nine in total! Got to be quick taking advantage of such quiet moments. Now to just find time to commit the sketches onto parchment… (May08)

Expanding

admin — Wed, 28 May 2008 09:43:59 +0000

When you’ve settled into a certain path, such as making books, it’s easy to start to expect that’s what you should be making. With all your creative time. I’ve always been, I suppose, “creatively easily bored”. I always thought I’d find it difficult to make limited edition work, to make many of the same. When I’ve made a unique piece, there’s nothing to add to it - to make another one, I’ve felt, would somehow steal from the originality of the first, the unique. And even if some of the techniques and details most certainly will carry over to future work, I would avoid repeating something identically. The closest to a limited edition I’ve made, was late last year with eight pieces of this cast tin necklace. Still - true to myself, of course - each has slightly different surface details so they’re not truly identical. I’ve only got one left, so maybe there’s something to be said about making many… (May08)

Earth Tales - ‘Night Flowers’

admin — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:33:44 +0000

The Earth Tales came about purely as an expression of appreciation for the natural beauty of our world. The pages are visual moments illustrating the age old story of Gaia, shared by us all. Each page is intended as an individual connection to this ongoing story.

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