'lifestyle' at Finderskeepers

/
 

Actually, I’m not very keen on the word lifestyle when preceded by the word designer as it smacks too much of advertising and too little of design but then it is too easy to think of design for the home as just being about furniture or lighting and tableware. There are many other things that deserve to be and are carefully designed and well made. 

There were several companies at Finderskeepers that produce leather goods including Silleknotte with their bags, key hangers, loop handles and shelves hung from leather straps and Ham/Lerche of Aarhus produce a range of leather boxes and desk tidies. It was someone on the Ham/Lerche stand who said, as I was looking carefully at their designs, “Go on … you can look with your fingers” … maybe an odd phrase but an extremely important idea as so much good design, particularly in wood or leather, doesn’t just look good but is tactile.

As well as tables and desks, Christoffer Jørgensen of Manufakture, makes linen-covered pin boards with frames in oak, ash or Oregan pine; matching black boards or chalk boards and a range of linen-covered boxes for papers and documents in sizes from A5 up to A1.

 

ceramics at Finderskeepers

/

 

It was interesting, so soon after meeting several of the ceramicists behind Den Danske Keramikfabrik, to see the work of more from the group at Finderskeepers at TAP1 last weekend including Birgitte Ran Bennike Mayall and Tina Marie Bentsen. 

In fact, pottery and ceramics and ceramic sculpture were well represented at the event so it was possible to see just what a wide range of styles and forms and colours are possible in ceramics. 

Works included among others the crisp, white, faceted vases by Dorte Kjettrup and Susanne Holmvang of Piece of Denmark; the tightly folded works, almost like textiles but in porcelain, by Helene Søs Schjødts or the translucent vases decorated with fern fronds or leaf studies by the same artist; the tablewares of Birgitte Ran Bennike Mayall, Mette Duedahl and Kristina Vildersbøll or the studies in deep concentrated colour from Tina Marie Bentsen.

For many ceramicists, having a stall or display at a design fair for the public, rather than at a trade fair, is an important way to reach a much wider audience and possibly slightly different audience to the customers who might visit a studio or a gallery.

 

Birgitte Ran Bennike Mayall

 

Mette Duedahl

 

Kristina Vildersbøll

 

Tina Marie Bentsen

 

FINDERSKEEPERS at TAP1

/

 

FINDERSKEEPERS has been promoted as “an indoor market where innovative design meets luxury secondhand clothing.” 

The clothes are a mixture of retro/antique or good second-hand (neither term derogatory) along with hand-made clothing or clothes from a small-run by an independent producer. That was mostly in the back half of the huge hall and across the front half were crafts and design of all types and between the two a lively and really good food area. What’s not to like for a Saturday afternoon.

The venue itself, TAP1, is a large industrial building on the Carlsberg site - where the brewery was, to the west of the centre in Copenhagen, before it was moved out of the city in 2008. 

It was all pretty amazing and pretty inspiring. It’s a sort of alternative Northmodern and I hope that is taken in the way it was meant - as being very very positive about both.

Design included leatherwork, textiles, ceramics, some surprisingly substantial items of furniture (including armchairs and tables) along with lighting and all from small and young independent companies and craftsmen.

Ceramics from Tina Marie Copenhagen Handmade

Here again I come up against this slight problem I have with the term craftsmen. Maybe it’s an English sensibility because I've seen too many poor-quality craft “fairs” in the UK. The word I keep coming back to is makers but I really don’t know if that translates into Danish.

Here, at FINDERSKEEPERS, the maker or, to use the Danish term, kunsthåndværker … art handworker is the clumsy literal translation into English … is also an entrepreneur and again that is used in the most positive way. Talking to people and looking at the stalls, it made me realise that everyone, with usually a very small team of people, has to design and make packaging, design and maintain a web site, deal with the finance and business side, cope with marketing and spend their whole weekend at an event like this, working hard, and that's all on top of designing and making their work.

Looking at the internet site for the venue, this event was organised through TALL GROUP and their “vision is to create sustainable companies that thrive on a global market, achieving this by encouraging pioneer thinking, guts and a clear path away from mainstream alternatives.”

Really the main point to make is that although most of the work here was 'hand made' rather than being from a large-scale factory manufacturer there was an all-pervading sense of professionalism, real commitment and self belief with a clear sense that each designer is working towards a carefully-considered and distinct style that carries across all their products, and there was, overall, great presentation, packaging, labelling and graphics. Having lived in Copenhagen for over a year now, none of this comes as a surprise to me … I am simply spelling it out for anyone who is not fortunate enough to get to the event.

What is also important is the crowd that was queuing at the door to get in. These were mostly couples and groups of friends in their 20s and early 30s. The event was packed and people were buying so obviously there is a very serious demand for high-quality design that is slightly different, more unusual than what can be seen in a store. Of course, many of the companies here sell through conventional outlets as well as their own on-line sites but people coming to the event certainly seemed to be looking for something that says a lot about the person who made it and probably, they hope, quite a bit about the taste and interests of the person buying. 

 

BLINKENBIKE ApS

 

Finderskeepers opened on 26th September 2015 and continues on the 27th

TAP1

FINDERSKEEPERS has photographs and links to the internet sites of the designers. Note that Finderskeepers hold comparable events in Aarhus and Odense so see their internet site for dates.

Den Danske Keramikfabrik

/

photograph published with the permission of Tina Marie Bentsen, Den Danske Keramikfabrik

Continuing with the theme of manufacturing and the production of design locally or at least regionally - see the post Den Nya Kartan about a project in Skåne in southern Sweden - I was recently contacted about a new ceramic factory that will open early next year on the Danish island of Bornholm. 

Den Danske Keramikfabrik will be owned by sixteen ceramicists, professional potters and designers who all have their own small businesses, and their goal is to produce high-quality ceramics at competitive prices not only for themselves but for other potters and designers and design companies. This means that the factory will develop products in close co-operation with skilled craftsmen to balance design, craft skills and technical skills.

There is a tradition of producing ceramics on the island and the new factory will be working in close co-operation with the Bornholm Kunstakademiets School of Design in Nexø. 

Initial publicity from the group has set out their aim …. “to create high-quality products based on professionalism, knowledge, curiosity and thorough knowledge of materials, techniques and craftsmanship. The diversity of products range from something unique, sculptural and experimental, to ceramics for everyday use in large and small series with a focus on form and function.”

“Our goal is to become a manufacturer who can sustain Denmark's reputation for good quality-conscious design and design that reflects the respect and knowledge of the material and especially mastery of the ceramic craft.”

They feel strongly that “for Denmark to maintain a leading position in ceramic design, it is essential that we have the knowledge, expertise and understanding of all stages of the design process. Including understanding materials and mastery of techniques.”

In part, this will be achieved by bringing to commercial production the workshop experience of craft potters to ensure “high quality and constant innovation of craft and production methods.”

There will be an emphasis on both reliability, as a manufacturer, quality control and flexibility in the factory so they will be able to produce different quantities of a design, from large runs of one design through smaller orders to unique pieces and with the ability to work on prototypes which need a close collaboration between the designer and the factory. This close working relationship, between designer and producer, and their understanding of the market combined with flexibility on the technical side should mean “rapid adaptability and the quick production of new designs that make it quicker to get to market.”

It will also be important to ensure that production is environmentally sound and ethical so they have already joined the Bright Green Island strategy where the aim is for Bornholm to be CO2 neutral by 2025.

Ethics extend to labelling and the group are already reminding people that actually "Made in Denmark” should not be used for products that are in part made abroad and “Handmade" should not be used by any company where the product has been made in part by machine. “Honesty and transparency of production methods gives final customers the opportunity to choose what products and brands they want to buy.”

Initial publicity talks rightly about a wider and more general need to respect the expertise and the designs of others - so here, from the start, is a strong statement against the growing problem where some factories simply copy the designs of others.

 

photograph published with the permission of Tina Marie Bentsen, Den Danske Keramikfabrik

Ceramics produced by the factory will be porcelain or stoneware and their expertise will cover technical drawing in the initial stage or 3D models, processes such as form work, plaster casting, slip casting, hand turning, throwing and dip glazing, spray glazing, double glazing, decoration with slip, painting and silk-screen printing with underglaze colours.

I will be meeting some of the ceramicists behind the project next week and I hope that I will be able to visit the site on Bornholm and report on progress at intervals as they produce their initial collection to demonstrate the range of designers, skills and technical expertise available.

Den Danske Keramikfabrik

Den Nya Kartan - Form Design Center Malmö

/

 

An initial report by Jenny Nordberg, begun in 2013 and completed through 2014, looked at how small-scale production of furniture, ‘gadgets’ and other design objects could be part of a sustainable community within Skåne, a clearly defined and relatively small region. The report considered ethical values in consumption and looked generally at production and at manufacturing skills surviving in southern Sweden. In part it seems to have followed a growing desire that more food should be produced locally. 

One aim of the consequent project is to reduce transport costs for both materials and for finished goods but also it was hoped that focusing design and production locally would also mean that there would be fewer intermediaries in the commercial chain. 

Early in 2015 twenty-four designers were selected along with twenty-four manufacturers to collaborate in the project. They were chosen in part for their curiosity about the project but also for their openness to trying new business partnerships.

Many of the designers had worked both locally and internationally and the manufacturers ranged in scale from craftsmen, who are generally geared up to small production runs, to companies organised for larger-scale production. Each partnership was given freedom to determine what they would produce and how and much came down to developing personal as well as working relationships.

This project has also been about testing the form of collaboration, between designer and manufacturer, and aimed to establish a more equitable financial arrangement that moved away from the normal pattern of royalties for rights to reproduce a design to agreements where the designers and manufacturers share the expenses incurred in development and initial production but then also share the revenue.

Items or objects produced through the project cover a wide range of materials and manufacturing techniques including blown glass, ceramics, metal work, leather work and textiles and a wide range of items from stacking boxes to storage jars to lighting to jewellery and a champagne table.

That last item emphasises one curious aspect of the works presented. It would appear from the introduction to the exhibition that the designers and manufacturers were given freedom to choose what they would produce. Jenny Nordberg, who also curated the exhibition, commented on this:

“As a curator, I imagined that most people would design and produce saleable inexpensive items to show that it actually does not need to be particularly expensive by local production. There, I thought wrong. It has instead been mostly projects where both designers and manufacturers wanted to challenge themselves and show the breadth of their skills. Many of the projects … are unique, conceptual, luxurious, on the verge of unfeasible and overall, just amazing.”

 

Biophillia - Stoft & Zol Art

Unisex-kimono-kofta - Liv Andersson & Biommiga Gredelina

Vaporware Fluid

Andréson & Leibel och Humi-Glas (samt JFKemi)

SpegelrörPetra Lilja & Wallåkra Stenkårlsfabrik

Spegelrör

Petra Lilja & Wallåkra Stenkårlsfabrik

Transformer

Milan Kosovic & Thomas Alexandrsson

Stilleben

Sophia Lithell & Herman Andersson Plåt

1L=

Patrik Bengtsson & Genarps Lådfabrik

 

It is not clear if this shows that designers or manufacturers were concerned primarily to showcase their skills but that seems unlikely given the well-established careers and reputations of most. Possibly they wanted to use the opportunity to produce things they would not normally be able to work on. It could be more of a problem, in terms of ongoing viability and the possibility of extending the project, if they all felt that reasonable financial returns would only be possible through producing more expensive items or if they thought that their potential market would not be interested in buying just basic items. Perhaps it is simply that, at this initial stage in this project, more basic designs - so everyday household items such as tableware - actually need a much larger production run to return a profit.

 

All the designs are available through the web site.

The exhibition continues at Form Design Center in Malmö until the 15th November and then transfers first to the National Museum in Stockholm and then in 2016 to Vandalorum in Värnamo.

Den Nya Kartan - The New Map

Cabinetmakers' Autumn Exhibition 2015 - Petite

/

The Cabinetmakers' Autumn Exhibition has just opened at Øregaard Museum in Hellerup. This year the theme for the exhibition is 'Petite' - as in refined and elegant - and works had to be free standing and were restricted in size to less than 60 x 60 cm.

The exhibition will also been shown at Maison du Danemark, Avenue Champs-Élysées in Paris from 27 January to 3 April 2016.

The exhibition continues until 18 October 2015

Hjemlighed .... homeliness

/

 

Ten designers, architects and craftsmen have come together to exhibit their work in a private apartment in Lavendelstræde - a street in a tightly built up area of historic buildings just to the east of the city hall in the centre of Copenhagen.

It is an amazing apartment spread over two upper floors and the attic space of the tall, narrow 18th-century house with a striking mixture of original parts, including the roof structure, but with modern features such as an open metal staircase, a long wall of modern kitchen units and an area of glass floor between the attic bedroom and the kitchen and dining room on the level below.

The kitchen area opens onto a large roof terrace with views over the Copenhagen skyline looking towards the tower of Vor Frue Kirke. 

 

 

This is not just a chance to see a very striking apartment but, of course, to see the works displayed in a home, in the rooms of the apartment, along with books and furniture and kitchenware of a very real domestic setting.

Perhaps we have created false divisions between craftwork, such as tableware, that we can use in our homes, and the works of artists working in the crafts that we see as gallery pieces. These works, in this exhibition, were not, specifically, designed and made to be contained in an art gallery or museum - although many of these artists have their works in museum collections - but they can and should be seen and appreciated in a home. These pieces stimulate comment, attract admiration, stimulate discussion, stir people to decide if they love, like or even dislike the pieces. Owning and enjoying original art and craft pieces is not exclusively the prerogative of the public gallery or the private wealthy collector but original works of art or of craftsmanship really do have a place enhancing our lives in our homes.

Works shown here range from ceramic multiples through printed cotton squares displayed on a clothes drier on the roof terrace, to a bench in smoked oak supported on upturned stoneware vessels and there are monumental architectural urns in stoneware. Porcelain lights over the main table are a homage to the iconic Danish PH lights and striking jewellery in braided or plaited white plastic beads, forming deep ruffs for the wrist or ankle but set in a framework of a house, reflect the title of the exhibition. The one odd work, and only odd because it was large and set diagonally it fills and dominates the space of the bathroom it is displayed in, is a long narrow glass case with an arrangement of single socks with no pair.

This piece, Finds by Morten Sørensen, illustrates really well one very important role of art which is to point out or isolate something that either we have not thought about or points out an absurdity or a universal experience that we rarely even think about. Other works show how artists experiment with materials and forms pushing boundaries that really should not be there and multiple works are a really good way of emphasising subtle differences or step changes or variations.

toPHøj in porcelain by Anne Tophøj

Indretning in stoneware by Marianne Nielsen and Kristine Tillge Lund

I tid og utid by Anne Tophøj and Theis Lorentzen

Base in oak, aluminium and stoneware by Anne Dorthe Vester and Maria Bruun

 

Architects, designers and artists taking part include:

Anne Fabricius Møller, Anne Tophøj, Anne Dorthe Vester, Maria Bruun, Johan Carlsson, 

Katrine Borup, Kristine Tillge Lund, Marianne Nielsen, Martin Sørensen, Theis Lorentzen

 

Hjemlighed ... an exhibition at Lavendelstræde 8, 1462 København K continues until 15th September.

Kunstforeningen af 14 August at Paustian

/

 

Works by twenty artists selected by Kunstforeningen af 14 August are currently on display at Paustian at Kalkbrænderiløbskaj in Copenhagen. 

As well as furniture, sculptures in glass, ceramics and jewellery, the pieces shown here include a table textile by Margrethe Odgaard, a woven Alpaca textile by Karina Nielsen Rios, a framed textile, Flag Domestic, by Vibeke Rohland, a bench seat by Rud Thygesen and baskets by Bent Vinkler.

The exhibition continues through until 5th September.

 

Kunsthåndværker Markedet, Frue Plads, Copenhagen

/
 

Concentrating on writing up my thoughts on northmodern, I have only just got around to posting a few photographs of the annual Kunsthåndværker Markedet - Craft Market - on Frue Plads in Copenhagen that was there from the 13th to the 15th August. With 124 stalls around the square, the market showed the works of makers from all over Denmark with jewellery, glass ware, ceramics and so on.

Although I’m not a great one for ornaments of any kind, I do admire the works of craftsmen-artists, but, generally, I’m more interested in the practical items of tableware or those pieces that fit in that interesting area between art and industrial design so hand-made glassware or table pottery.

 
 

As at last year's market, I was drawn to the work of Anne Mette Hjørnholm, the basket maker from Hjerm, and this year I took a business card from Rasmus Cold … his hand-made frames for glasses are amazing and will be considered when I need to change my reading glasses.

 
 

The black and white, tightly-patterned ceramic pieces by Ane-Katrine von Bülow are striking.

 

What was so impressive again this year was not just the range of crafts on display and not just the high quality of the works but actually the crowds of people who attended a fair spread over three days showing clearly how strong and how popular hand crafts are in Denmark.

 

Kunsthåndværker Markedet

the Biennalen for a second time

/

At the weekend I went back for a second look at the Biennalen for Kunsthåndværk og Design out at the Carlsberg site. My first look at the exhibition was at the crowded opening so it was good this time to see the works with fewer people around but also I wanted to take some extra, specific, photographs of the pieces by Helene Vonsild to add to the profile of her work that I have posted here.

The exhibition continues at Bryggernes Plads until the 29th August.

the very best of Danish design at northmodern

/

 

northmodern provides an opportunity to see, together in one place, the huge range of furniture, lighting, tableware, kitchenware and so on that is currently produced in Denmark … the works of individual designers, the products of Danish workshops and manufacturers and the current catalogues of major design stores. 

Some new young designers, like Overgaard and Dyrman and Makers With Agendas, have been discussed in other posts, so those reviews are not repeated here and obviously some major companies were not showing at northmodern this year, so, this is a personal selection of outstanding Danish design from established designers or well established companies that was shown at northmodern in August 2015 and exemplify why the Danish design industry is so strong.

 

Ole Palsby

Caroline and Mikkel Palsby have established their company to produce and market designs by their father but have also launched appropriate new ranges, focusing on tableware and kitchen knives, including the cutlery range ICHI. 

In the early summer they opened a new studio and shop on the outer side of the lakes in Copenhagen, in Ravnsborg Tværgade, and there will be a longer profile of their studio and work on this site next month.

This is the very best of design where quality and attention to every detail is paramount and these standards are being taken forward to build on an important part of Denmark’s design heritage.

OLE PALSBY DESIGN

 

OneCollection

The furniture company Hansen & Sorensen was established by Ivan Hansen and Henrik Sørensen in 1990. They changed the name of the company to OneCollection in 2007. 

They both came from a background in making and selling furniture and it is interesting to read the introduction to their company on their web site where Henrik Sørensen explains that the ”cornerstone” of their company is “our fervent passion for furniture and design - this is why we are often called furniture nerds.”

This explains, in part, their focus on Danish design history. Early pieces produced for the company were designed by Søren Holst and Henrik Tengler but in 1998 they were approached by the widow of Finn Juhl to make one of the Juhl sofas - the Model 57 - and this led them to explore and study Juhl’s archive of designs. They relaunched the Poeten sofa and then the Pelican Chair that originally had only been released in a very small run. OneCollection now holds the rights to all designs by Finn Juhl.

At northmodern they showed the special anniversary edition of the Pelican Chair and on their main stand the Nyhavn Dining Table designed by Juhl about 1950, with his award-winning Reading Chair from 1953 and a 53 Sofa.

A curious characteristic of this furniture is that if you know it only from photographs, then the impression is that it is quite large - the Pelican Chair looks almost monumental whereas in fact it is relatively compact - and by setting the furniture within a room-sized space at northmodern, defined and contained by bookcases on what would have been open sides of the stand, it showed how well the furniture would work, even in a relatively small apartment.

OneCollection

Glove Cabinet by Finn Juhl designed for his wife in 1961 and shown at the Cabinet Maker's Guild exhibition the same year

 

 

PP Møbler

The family-owned joinery workshop was established in 1953 and has focused on craftsmanship and developed and deliberately sustained their understanding and real appreciation of the qualities and characteristics of the timber they use to make their furniture.

 

They continue to produce classic designs by Hans Wegner … pieces that are so well known that, exhibited at northmodern, they needed no labels. Upholstery and some colours or the choice of specific woods have been updated if appropriate but the construction and, more important, the quality of workmanship maintains the standards set for the original pieces.

PP Møbler do produce works by contemporary designers with furniture by Thomas Alken, Søren Ulrik Petersen and Jørgen Hoj and again it is the quality of construction, the quality of the timber used and the standard of the craftsmanship and finish that are paramount.

 

Bar Bench, PP589, Hans Wegner 1953

 

In the main central gallery at northmodern there was a stark and revealing exhibition, also by PP Møbler, with a line of their framed chairs designed by Wegner that visitors to the fair could try but with, in addition, a cut-through section of the back rest with a profile of the human spine to show exactly why these chairs provide support and are so comfortable. 

Wegner’s criteria, when judging any chair, was that not only should it look good when viewed from any angle but that it had to be comfortable - not just in the five minutes after someone sat down but as they twisted and moved around as they ate sitting at a dining table or as they sat over a long period as they worked at a desk.

PP Møbler

 
 

The very best designs combine aesthetic appeal with quality of production and, ultimately, with practical utility: it is not enough that a piece of furniture or an item of tableware should look good but it should be well made, the design and the method of manufacture should, at the very least, be appropriate to the material but should, if possible, exploit and enhance the natural qualities of the material and the piece should do what it was designed to do and do that well. Simple to say ... not so easy to realise.

biennalen for kunsthåndværk og design 2015

/

 

This is a dramatic exhibition and not just for the pieces in the show - the venue in a warehouse out at the Carlsberg site in Copenhagen is quite something.

Dating from the late 1960s, this building was a warehouse, Lagerkælder 3, a bottle store for Carlsberg brewery, and has a massive concrete structure, to support all the weight of beer that was kept here before it was transported out. Climbing up to the top floor by the concrete staircase it feels, in its abandoned state, like a multi-storey car park or an abandoned factory that might have had a role in The Killing. There is a huge steel lift but the stairs gave me a chance to explore a bit. The warehouse is about to undergo a massive refurbishment as offices and cultural spaces by the architects Gottlieb Paluden as part of the ongoing redevelopment of the whole Carlsberg site.

 

 

Emerging at the top floor the contrast is dramatic with white-painted concrete, extensive lighting and a new wooden floor for the exhibition space.

For Kunsthåndværk og Design - the Danish Craftwork and Design Association - the contrast between dereliction and swish display and between the architecture of industrial mass production and the highly individual skill and quality of the craft works on display must have been almost too good to believe as the venue for their biennial exhibition.

The theme for this year is Making is Connecting and the expressed aim is to explore new technologies, new materials and new techniques and to promote new connections or new collaborations between different disciplines within the professional works of craft, art, design and architecture.

There are new works from 28 craft artists or in some cases the works are a collaboration by two designers or makers.

At the opening of the exhibition these works, that I've reviewed briefly below, caught my attention and seemed to reflect best the interests and themes explored on this site but the exhibition as a whole is incredible.

Carlsberg Byen, Bryggernes Plads 11, 1799 Copenhagen V

The exhibition is open daily until the 29th of August. For more information see the Biennale web site.

 

Barndom

Connecting Childhood by Annemette Beck and Mette Maya Gregersen

A collaboration between a ceramic artist and a textile designer using PVC rings and porcelain knots ... presumably the title suggests that returning to a more open or child-like way of playing with materials, exploring ideas without the restrictions of preconceptions, has produced something new and less conventional.

Coh&Co bicycle

Mette Walsted and Poul Harder Cohen

Here wood and carbon fibre replace a traditional metal frame to create a bicycle that has a level of craftsmanship normally associated with the work of Danish cabinet makers.

"Hand-built in Copenhagen using local materials, this is a sustainable injection into the throwaway culture that is prevalent in much of the cycle production industry. The aesthetic beauty of the bike compels us to take care of it."

Coh&Co

Nominated for the Biennial Award

Connections

Lone Bedsted

Elements in wool with two colours for each, knitted on a jacquard machine, and connected in different ways.

Colours and patterns within each piece were inspired by trawling nets of local fishermen and Nordic knitting patterns.

Cross Roads

Vibeke Rohland

Vibeke again contrasts the heavy manufactured material of the backing - one of her 'commercial' designs for Kvadrat and the other a cotton denim - with the application of a thick apparently free-form impasto of silk-screen prints and paint. The Cross Roads of the title here refers to the "unpredictable factor that arises during the production of new work, where strict craftsmanship meets art in a free unfolding of expression".

The layers of pigment create complex levels of depth and changes dramatically the way the textile hangs and moves to show a complex relationship between freely applied areas of colour that over a large area take on the distinct qualities of a repeat pattern.

for other posts here about the work of Vibeke Rohland

De fire Temperamenter

The four temperaments by Helene Vonsild

Here weaving becomes an incredible combination of virtuoso skill and intellectual games. The same weave pattern is repeated in all four pieces but with very different materials - one is a heavy linen - one with fine wool and a silver thread - one with paper cord and a synthetic fibre so it curls and changes in unpredictable ways with any movement and one in silk with a waxed fibre that produces an incredible textile that has shape memory so it can be set into a position that it retains rather like working with paper for traditional Japanese paper sculptures.

For all four fabrics, the weave was adjusted and deconstructed on the loom and all four were conceived from the start as costumes whose form and cut was an integral part of the weaving process .... so concept, craftsmanship, mastery of technique and the execution of the design are absolutely and indivisibly united.

The designs represent the four temperaments of Melancholy, Sanguinity, Irascibility and the Phlegmatic.

See profile on Helene Vonsild for more about this piece and her work

Det er ikke svinets skyld

It is not the pig's fault by Inger Heebøll

Here multiples are used to give the modern breed of pig some sense of an individual personality although the text for the work points out that 20 million pigs are produced in Denmark each year so it becomes impossible to see them as individual.

These heads are contrasted with the freedom and naturalness of wild boars also modelled as part of the work.

Hjertet er Rødt

Red is the heart byJørgen Hansen and Bent Vinkler

Large concentric rings of interworked willow branches tied with braided bark encircle a gigantic vessel balanced on a rock. It is the striking contrast of textures and surfaces and the strong colours that make this piece mesmerising but it is the sweeping lines that seem to define and break and expand and constrict the space. The scale and the drama of the work challenges any attempt to define the work specifically as either sculpture or as a craft work. 

Ingen tite

No title by Søren Thygesen

Bricks that are sheared and then stacked to form an almost organic and sculptured shape.

Again this work challenges preconceptions that bricks, particularly modern bricks, should be rectangular and uniform: surely if bricks combine, they combine to form a flat vertical wall or a floor? ... but here bricks become the soft fluid surface of a structure as if seen through the distortion of water in a pool.

"The smooth bricks are sheared in profile where they conjoin. This method translates organic form into the aesthetics of the bricks." Søren Thygesen

Lamper

Lamps by Lisbet Frills, Uffe Black Nielsen 

"Friis&Black's Nordic lamps exist at the crossroads where handcraftsmanship and architectural elements meet."

There are five rings with LED lights mounted on the second and fourth ring of this large lamps 840mm across and 360mm high.

Lighting has always played a strong part in Danish interiors and there is a long and well-established tradition of complex designs playing with directed and carefully controlled light and playing with the contrast between parts that are opaque and parts that are brightly illuminated.  

Tekstilt finér

Textile veneer by Else-Rikke Bruun

This work takes as a starting point the technique of weaving but translates it from textiles to timber with a solid wood warp and bands of veneer for the weft. The screen has a beautiful sinuous line and has a very strong texture that creates an amazing and dramatic contrast between the natural tone of the wood and deep shadow.

Things Change

Maria Bang Espersen

Five glass vessels appear to be conventional vases but the form is deliberately crude and each uses different materials for decoration with shards of glass, brick and stone. These alien materials cause the thin hand-blown glass to stress and crack and possibly, over a period of time, break into fragments.

Trellis

Åsa Alm - carpenter Andrea Stokholm

Made in ash, the design of the chair plays clever games with conventional forms by using less common details of construction so here the overall shape is reminiscent of a good, well-made, country chair with a spindle back but the arms are robust, sweeping round and down with horizontal bars below the arm rest that echo the rails between the legs to give the piece much more character ... it is more like a sculpture and here that is emphasised by the dramatic light and shadow.

restoration of wall paintings at Moltkes Palæ

/

 

At the end of last week Heidi Zilmer invited me to see her work on the restoration of wall paintings in the Gamle Seglsal - an antechamber to the Store Sal or first-floor great hall in Moltkes Palæ. The palace is now owned by Haandværkerforeningen, the association of craftsmen, and the room was decorated for them shortly after they bought the building in 1930.

Set on the corner of Bredgade and Dronningens Tværgade in Copenhagen, Moltkes Palæ dates back to the late 17th century when the first house on the site was built for Jørgen Henriksen Gosebruch, a Chief Customs and Excise Officer.

In 1696 the house and gardens were bought by Frederik Gyldenløve, half brother of the king and Governor-general of Norway. He rebuilt and extended the house and it remained a major town palace for a sequence of wealthy and aristocratic families through the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1852 the palace was purchased by Count Moltke, Prime Minister of Denmark, and his name is still used to identify the house.

In 1930 the property was bought by Haandværkerforeningen and they commissioned the architect Gotfred Tvede to alter the main entrance from Dronningens Tværgade and the main staircase, both on the south side of the palace, and to construct a new north range containing a new first-floor great hall for events and major dinners of the association and at the same time Tvede remodelled the courtyard side of the earlier street range to create this lobby or antechamber to the new hall.

Decoration in the room is painted directly onto the plaster and with time areas have been damaged or the paint has lifted slightly - hence the need for a programme of restoration works.

Heidi Zilmer is a very skilled restorer of historic hand-painted wallpaper as well as being a talented and prolific designer of new wallpapers. Here, in the Gamle Seglsal, the first stage was to consolidate loose paint and then fill and prepare areas of more extensive damage. After restoring the base colour, Heidi marked out the missing areas of the design … surviving areas of the pattern, to be reproduced over the damaged sections, were traced in pencil onto thin paper and then, the outline was pricked through with a line of closely spaced pin holes and graphite powder used to transfer the design to the wall - a technique known as pouncing. Original details of the artists brush strokes for line work and pronounced strong brush strokes in areas of blocked-in colour have been imitated exactly and pigment has been carefully and precisely matched to the surviving colours where they have faded or changed in different ways.

 

 

That evening I went out for supper with Heidi and her assistant to discuss their work.

As I have said elsewhere, I first met Heidi last Autumn at Museumsbyggningen when she showed her wallpaper designs and demonstrated historic painting techniques such as trompé l’oeil and imitating wood graining in an exhibition called The Time is Now. And I talked to Heidi again at Northmodern in January and saw her at the 3daysofdesign event called Re-framing Danish Design where her wallpaper was chosen by Danish™ for their exhibition.

As well as restoring historic wallpaper and historic decorative schemes in major buildings, I knew that Heidi also teaches design history and has designed an extensive range of modern wallpapers. I just assumed that she had studied at university in Kolding or here in Copenhagen.

It was only as we talked that I realised that in fact she had followed a traditional craft route and had completed a full painter’s apprenticeship. She is proud, justifiably proud, of that because it is those tangible skills that inspire all her designs and those skills and knowledge of her craft that has brought her international recognition - she was invited to participate in the annual meetings of the Salon of Decorative Painters exhibiting her work first at the Salon in Bergamo in 2009, in Versailles in 2010, in Tokyo and then this year at the Salon in Lecce.

Copenhagen Crafts Fair

/

The annual Kunsthåndvækermarkedet, or Crafts Fair, was held just over a week ago on Frue Plads in Copenhagen - that is the large long open space on the east side of Nørregade with, on one side, the north front of Vor Fruhe Kirke ... the cathedral of Copenhagen ... and on the other side,  the main building of the university. 

The fair is organised by Danske Kunsthåndværkere (the Danish Craft Association) and this year it was open over three days with over 130 stalls displaying work by ceramicists, textile designers and carpet weavers, glass makers, and jewellers. Many of the exhibitors were from Copenhagen but exhibitors had come from all over Denmark and there was a goldsmith and a ceramic artist from Malmö and seven makers from Iceland. 

Representing education and training in the crafts of ceramics and glass in Denmark there was a large display from the the Danmarks Designskole on the Baltic island of Bornholm - since 2011 a department of the Danish design school of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

The work of Anne Rolsted of Regstrup

The works displayed ranged from modestly-priced pieces, that are meant to be used daily, to expensive and unique works that were aimed at serious collectors; the range of styles and the quality of the work and the very large number of visitors to the fair showed clearly that the work of craft designers and makers in Denmark has strong support.

The basket maker Anne Mette Hjørnholm from Hjerm

Two prizes were awarded - the jury awarded the prize for the best new unique work to the jewellery designer Helle Bjerrum and the prize for best new product to Sally Xenia Christensen for her “beautiful and simple” drinking glasses.

What was interesting, above all, for me was to see how many exhibiting their work here have the same problems as product designers working in the furniture and ceramic and glass industries. That is not surprising because, clearly, there are no obvious demarcation lines: someone who produces a single piece and signs it is usually defined as an artist or, if working in wood or silver or clay, a craftsman; make ten or twenty similar pieces and you are a maker and presumably 100 or a 1,000 makes you a designer and thousands and thousands of identical pieces defines you as a product designer.

Also, of course, many crafts people had a formal training in design and then chose the freedom and independence of opening a workshop and many if not all “commercial” designers take as their starting point the knowledge and experience they gained in their training working directly with wood or wool or linen or silver or clay or glass to produce one-off pieces to understand completely the materials they are working with and to understand what can or cannot be done with those materials.

The divisions and definitions do not seem, to me, to be clearly defined or, come to that, strictly relevant. I spoke with a number of the makers or craftsmen at the fair and over the coming year I hope to profile a number of craft designers and craft galleries … to visit them to explore their attitudes, find out about their training or background and discuss the starting point and development of their work and their problems marketing and selling craft pieces.