As you have probably noticed by now I am a little weak about Sweden, Swedish craft, crafters and designers. Yes, to be honest – about everything Swedish! I’ve been brought up with Astrid Lindgren´s Pippi Longstocking Pippi Långstrump, Emil of Maple Hills Emil i Lönneberga and stuff like that and I’ve read the same stories for my own kids when they were small. I’ve spent several summer holidays in Sweden and it always makes me feel a bit envious. Swedish nature is so much bigger and more “unspoiled” than what we have in little Denmark. We have no big forests and vast areas. In Denmark every spot of soil is cultivated and seems a bit overcrowded so to say… and even more important: Sweden seems to embrace it’s artists, designers, crafters and hemslöjd devotees in a way we don’t do here.

Luckily Sweden is very close, our neighbour, and it’s very easy to go there. So let me be constructive now: it’s not fair to compare, it’s better to enjoy the difference and to look at it as a source of inspiration!

A place I´d like to draw your attention to is Säterglänten another craft centre not far from Leksand where you can go for both 1 year courses and as well as for short week courses. During the summer you even find courses for children. In other terms: it´s possible to bring the whole family!
Of course you’re also welcome to just drop by to visit the students´ exhibitions, the well stocked craft shop and the summer café.

Another high light from my summer holyday at Öland was a visit at Capellagården an independent, residential school for creative work founded almost fifty years ago by Professor Carl Malmstenin in the village of Vickleby on the edge of an extensive heath known as Stora Alvaret on the southern end of the island just off the Baltic coast. As you can imagine it’s a wonderful, unique and calm location – a place where you can loose yourself in your crafting passion, and that’s the explicit idea behind Capellagården: Living, working, studying and experiencing “hand and mind in vital collaboration” and to “unite beauty and function in crafts”.

The school offers three-year courses in textile craft and design, cabinet making and furniture design, ceramics and even ecological gardening as well as shorter summer courses. Originally it was meant as a meeting place for young people from Sweden but today it has developed into an international meeting place with students from many different countries.

Every summer Capellagården arranges a beautiful exhibition and sale of handicrafts, furniture, textiles and ceramics that have been made at the school in the course of the year. The exhibition is held in the old school by Vickleby Church and of course it always attracts a large numbers of visitors.

I can warmly recommend a visit there if you ever go to Öland.

Yesterday I found a bunch of mislaid photos, cut outs and brochures from Sweden. It was wonderful to find it all again – it made me relive the highlights of some hot and inspiring summer holidays at Öland a couple of years ago where one of the absolute top peaks was a visit at VIDA – the modern Museum of the island housing a permanent exhibition of works made by the glass artists Bertil Vallien and Ulrica Hydman-Vallien. Especially his metres-long, sand-cast ship forms totally took my breath away. Looking deep into these sealed boats of massive glass is like having a glimpse of eternity or the very existence of mankind.

The Valliens have been married for more than forty years – and have been glass makers a little bit longer. The couple lives out a dual role as both industrial designers and free artists.

They happen to have a big exhibition HE and SHE right now Marts 30 – July 8 at Rockford Art Museum in Illinois. Go and see it – and get youself an extended view on what can be expressed in glass…

Kids are great – they always provide you with a lot of new information and contacts. So thanks to my daughters I know another woman with very special knitting ideas. (This time we have kids in the same music school.)

May I introduce: Marianne Joergensen, a gifted Danish artist who often uses her surroundings as a starting point for her art. In her work she connects events from the public or political stage with her individual and private life using techniques as sewing, knitting, gardening etc.

Last year she organized a major knitting project. Volunteers from many European countries and USA contributed nearly 4000 pink knitted and crochet squares. Outside Nikolaj, Contemporary Art Centre in Copenhagen, a small group of people sewed it all together and covered a tank with this piece of pink patchwork – as a critical statement on Denmark taking part in the Iraq war.

Knitting and crochet is as far away from war thinking as one can possibly imagine. These traditional female crafts signals quite other values such as home, care, proximity and time for reflection… whereas political involvement seems to be a quite overwhelming affair: where to start and where to end? However, most people can knit or crochet a square of 15×15 centimetres – and so a lot of people managed to state their opinion on war – by crafting!

Finally, the process of stitching the squares together over the top of the WW1 tank was documented with a video that was later shown at the exhibition TIME at Nicolaj.
Next Tuesday 10.th April at 20-22 it will be shown at Aarhus-filmvaerksted together with other videos documenting Marianne´s works. Afterwards there’ll be a discussion – where you can meet Marianne in person – if you should happen to drop by…

Have you ever considered creating your own money?

That’s what a Danish artist, Lars Kraemmer, did back in 1997. His studio was booming with dusty art, his wallet was empty, he didn’t have enough money to pay his bills and no promise of an income in sight. How to make ends meet? That became the starting point of art-money and BIAM, short for Bank of International Art-Money.

The conditions are simple: You apply to become a participating artist of BIAM, and when registered you start creating your own currency according to some general guidelines on size, conduct, etc. using whatever technique and media you usually prefer.

What you actually create with each art-money is a small piece of original artwork that represents a purchasing value equal to 27 euro / 34 US$ / 200 Danish Kroner. You can use Art-Money in shops and businesses all over the world, and when buying art from registered art money artists.

The idea maybe started as a bit of a practical joke and a critical comment on economical politics, but as it turned out this underground art project was taken quite seriously and art money became a reality. Today the art money network is rapidly growing world wide and the project is noticed with great interest by cultural institutions and the Media.

These days Lars Kraemmer, has been invited to speak as an expert at a conference on art and culture celebrating the 50th anniversary of the EU. Meanwhile there’ll be two exhibitions in Brussels: The first one is simply a “show off” representing 300 artists with one art money each from the BIAM collection, the second exhibition is by invitation only from the Danish Cultural Institute, and will represent 30 artists each with 20 art monies for show and for sale.

I’ve been part of this project for 3 years now and it has been so much fun and a challenge to develop my art and step forward. Maybe you´d like to join? Check it out at: art money and join the revolution!

Hello, my name is Hanne, I’m a new writer here, but you might recognize my designs from December and January’s “gifts and decorations” and February’s “recycled” Whip Lash…

I´m a Danish artist, crafter, teacher and blogger. I live as a single mum with my two teenage girls in the countryside south of Aarhus where I´m educated both at the Academy of Fine Arts and at the College of Education. I´m lucky to have my studio at home but I also have a part time out-of-the-house-job as a teacher at a nearby secondary school in order to keep my economy above the waterline and because I like teaching and communicating…

My art involves a broad field of mixed media materials and techniques. Especially I love recycling projects and ideas and most often I try to incorporate second-hand material in my creations. It can be everything from old postcards to bus tickets, press cuttings, extracts from photo albums, vintage fabric, etc. etc. I find that the scrapped, faded, wry and uneven pieces have invaluable significance in the proper context by simply adding personality and authenticity to my designs. Moreover it’s great fun to hunt scrap and to put it into new “settings” and create something new out of something old.

My plan for this forum is to write different articles on mixed-media, recycled fabric, redesign, arts and crafts in general and whatever I find interesting along the way. I have a lot of ideas but, please, bear with my language as you’ve probably realized way back – English is not exactly my mother tongue. Hope I’ll be able to convey the message though.

If you’re a lover of knitwear please go and enjoy some of these pieces

at: website

It’s all designed and hand knitted by Gitte Lyng, a woman I have the luck to know as we both have kids at the same school., and from several times co-working at the yearly Christmas Bazaar / Spring Market at “our” school.

Gitte is a great all-over-skilled crafter but her absolutely top talent is to knit – right out of her mind, with no pattern. She knits her way through – from dresses to jackets. As she says: “It’s very simple, I start in one end and ends in the other”. And with her speed and a hang for thick sticks and thin yarns in kid mohair, silk and cotton – that means she knits at least half a sweater in a night. She combines her freestyle knitting with vintage ribbon and embellishments, and sells her unique pieces online. Check out her at wonderwho.