Last winter I had the pleasure of getting to know Anne Karin Jortveit. She was one of the artists who held process demonstrations on our Slow Nesting stand at Nordic Living. Since then, we have kept in touch and quietly planned new joint projects. Anne Karin Jortveit is a visual artist, exploring what she calls "the tension between aesthetics, tradition, everyday life, consumption and labour." I could have added that she also works in the span between past and future, the vulnerable and the delightful.

CONTEMPLATIVE RESEARCH

Anne Karin is concerned with traditional crafts and manual processes. At the moment, she mainly works with wool. She starts off with raw fleece which she then washes, spins and dyes with plants and other organic materials she collects herself. It gives her great freedom to control the processes of extracting the dye colours and shaping the threads.

“Hand spinning gives me the expression I want. It gives me opportunities to experiment, and I like to think that I work with thread as a sculptural expression.” she says.

In this way her various sculptural wool based installations are also an expression of nature.

“Regardless idea and expression, I always try to work from an ecological and sustainable platform in my projects. Finding links between tactile and specific knowledge, hands-on actions and reflective and poetical exploration is important to me”, says Anne Karin.

Photos from Anne Karins webpage is published with kind permission.

It is incredibly inspiring to learn about her work, and feel the strength of her innovative art, rooted in ancient techniques and traditional craftsmanship.

Her projects also embrace a feeling of melancholy. A gentle, soft and beautiful and at the same time authoritarian protest, and a warning of what we are in danger of losing.

Anne Karin has occasionally been a guest teacher at the Academy of Arts in Oslo (KHIO) and lucky are those students who get to take part in her knowledge and commitment. I feel very privileged myself to have the pleasure of working with her and getting to learn from her.

This autumn, we will organize a down-to-earth "festival" on magic Hovedøya in Oslo. The festival will run from 13.-15. September. More information will follow on this project. You can read more about Anne Karin and her wonderful projects at annekarinjortveit.no