I thought to illustrate here the battle with time I often have. It is about needing to get some own work done amidst all the family and other work commitments that compete for my time. Being an artist with children at 5 and 1 years of age is not always easy. Luckily my bookbinding studio adjoins our home. It is the only way I can hope to get any creative work done. If I waited for long stretches of undisturbed personal time to spend in the studio, I’d never get any own work done – because I’d never make it into the studio in the first place. I currently need to be content with snatching ten minutes here, a half an hour there, and only occasionally getting a luxurious few hours at a time. But the need to create is so deeply engrained, growing so fervent at times that a few minutes here and there is better than none at all. I always thought I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything in such broken bits. It’s amazing what necessity facilitates. I have learned to switch in a fraction of a second into deep concentration that seamlessly carries on from the last such moment. And the miracle of it is… several ten minute moments do eventually build up, and a little by little a personal project completes, ends up a finished piece. Which wouldn’t exist if I waited for those several undisturbed studio hours at a time.

This is the first and only time I have ever recorded to the very minute a project takes. Writing down all the start and end times, this is how one of my recent projects got completed in just over 40 hours:

Day 1
9.30-10.05 | 10.35-11.50 | 15.30-17.40 | 23.15-00.15

Day 2
8.55-9.10 | 10.00-11.00 | 11.15-12.30 | 13.00-16.20 | 17.05-18.00

Day 3
11.55-12.40

Day 4
13.35-14.00 | 18.35-19.15 | 19.45-20.00

Day 5
11.20-12.20 | 20.40-20.50

Day 6
18.30-18.50

Day 7
8.40-12.00 | 13.30-14.45 | 15.10-18.00 | 20.55-23.15

Day 8
9.00-10.00 | 10.50-12.30 | 16.00-17.00 | 17.50-18.50

Day 9
8.20-9.45 | 10.10-12.50 | 13.30-17.20 | 18.30-19.40 | 22.00-23.45

Day 10
21.40-21.55

~
Artist book: a scroll triptych
‘Mother, Daughter and the Holy Spirit’
acrylic & ink on stitched canvas, 2010

Making books got more difficult when we moved here. I cannot just walk into a store to replenish my stock of millboard, archival PVA or other specialist materials I used to have easy access to. It is costly and a headache, especially in case of liquids, to organise delivery from Europe when needed. And this year I ran out of some essentials a few weeks before holidaying in the vicinity of bookbinding supply stores again. I’ve always liked the idea of using what’s readily available in any local environment so I have been fervently thinking how I might possibly start to use more of what I can easily get my hands on here.  Although I haven’t (yet) been inspired to make anything out of sand, seashells and stacks of colourful fabrics. However, being currently more obsessed about stones than I am about books, I have found the perfect summer break from the bookbinding studio in learning more about semi-precious stones. Making many fascinating discoveries on this different creative path, some of which may indeed end up taking a book form eventually but a lot of them won’t. And I’m quite happy about that.

After posting this blog entry, I had a Twitter conversation with architect and author Anthony Lawlor, whose wonderful comment I want to quote here:

“Stones are books. So much can be read in the shape, color, texture and sound of stones.”

Before we moved to Dubai, I had never been here. The first thing that struck me at the airport where we landed, was the amount of golden shiny details everywhere. Historically, gold-tooling has been a large part of traditional bookbinding, in the skills of which I’ve had my due initiation as well. However I have always had some sort of aversion to using gold in my work, whether tooling or otherwise. It has felt a bit over the top, certainly not quite “me”. But as usual, I like to give myself the challenge to see how I might make peace with anything gold…
As there’s something golden everywhere I turn here, I have become practically desensitised to it now. In my visual thinking, gold has taken on the role of just another colour. I see details in all the colours of the wheel, just combined and mixed with gold here and there. As I have come to see it, where I live, gold is the fouth primary colour. Mixing it with different colours produces shine and shimmer of all possible tones. There’s red gold, green gold, yellow gold, purple gold, blue shimmer, orange shimmer, brassy shimmer, sparkly light tones and darker glows. Thinking of gold as one colour among the others, makes it more palatable for me, an additional tool to my palette which I’m just getting to grips with. Another artistic journey.

I rarely work on more than one book at a time. This is because each is unique and requires my full focus and concentration. Not as much from technical perspective, but from the creative viewpoint, the thematic and symbological. I tend to hold a dialogue with the book in the making, and like with people, I’d have difficulty concentrating on two intense conversations simultaneously without one or the other suffering. While making a book, several stages require waiting. It would be sensible to use the time well and be working on another book while one is in the press, drying. So I’m entertaining myself by making something entirely different in the meanwhile. Like… I might relax and enjoy myself by making a set of runes or a Tibetan style mala. These are also much more instant gratification than my books that take hours and hours to complete.  Works well, keeping the creative stream flowing.

How would it affect your viewing of this image, if this was called “Untitled”?

Or would you view it differently, if it was called “Lady and Feather”?

And would you see this image below differently if it was titled “Untitled” or if it was called “Soldier”?

When I was studying art, I kept noticing in exhibitions how many artworks were given the title “Untitled”. There were so many around it felt to me almost like it was in fashion. Or that if you called your artwork “Untitled” it meant you were a really cool and serious artist. The notion seemed to be that an artist should give space for the viewer’s imagination and not restrict the viewer’s associations about the artwork in any way. Of course, there’s nothing wrong if someone wants to release their artwork into the freely associating mind of the viewer, maybe it is very generous, maybe it has become expected. But why?

Giving any kind of descriptive title to a work no doubt affects the way the viewer looks at it – and it leads them to see the way the artist did while making the work. Why would it be a good thing to discourage that? If I want a free reign for my imagination to create meanings out of unintention, I can look at clouds or anything else in my environment, I don’t need to see an art exhibition for that. In artworks, I look for intention. So all this untitledness always bothered me in some indescribable way. Having seen countless of “Untitled” artworks, I can remember about three which really, truly carried off that title – works that actually could not have and should not have been titled anything else.

Very often, of course, viewers see the work without even knowing what the title might be. In fact, I have recently posted some of my latest artist books on my Facebook page purposefully without any titles. In that context they are momentarily “untitled” as I do also believe that an artwork needs to stand on its own visual merits without a need to be explained in words, titles or otherwise. However, having mulled over photographer Ian Talbot’s writings about the ownership of artwork and intention, I have come to realise what my untitled unease was about all those years ago. It is easy to call the work “Untitled”. When it comes to titling artwork, it is easy to give up, offer the ownership to the viewer. To me the title is one detail of the artwork just like any other element. I own it, I consider it, and just like I wouldn’t let my child into the world without a name and let everyone call her what they please, it is natural for me to want to title my works as appropriately as I have intended the artwork itself. The title points the viewer to the direction of my intention, gives a clue as to why I made the work in the first place. It is about my intention and communicating that intention to those who might be interested in it.

Here’s a series of images. I believe my intention could make them art, should I choose that act of intention. And I believe they are not art, unless I intend them to be. Giving these images a title would constitute intention (even if the title was “Untitled”.) If I intended these to be art, I might call them “Departures I, II & III”.

But I didn’t set out to make these images, and I didn’t make exactly them. I merely discovered them, even though it is ink from my brush. Of course, one aspect of art is discovering. Seeing something differently. I was dyeing paper for an artist book when I started to look closer. And like one sees shapes in clouds, I started to see meaning in these random blotches of ink. These images were an off-piste trail for me, a sudden tangent, after which I returned to the artist book I intended to make. The 36 long pieces of paper I dyed (of which four are photographed below) are material to me, not art. Framing and naming parts of them was entertaining, yet not quite art for me, as I’m still not intending them to be so. But the resulting book I intended, I indeed mean to call art.

When I studied art and bookbinding, I got very interested in the philosophy of craft. I liked to analyse the process of making, to write about it, and to ponder it. I also wrote my degree dissertation about the learning process in craft. Then there came a point when the pondering and writing started to feel very far removed from the actual making. What I experienced while in the state of creating didn’t match any combination of words I could think of. Words have served an important purpose for me while learning the specifics of my craft, and clarified many issues in my mind that indeed have affected the way I approach actual studio work.
The fact that I again agree to think with the means of words and sentences in addition to the interplay of materials, colours and textures, has been inspired by the incredible group of artists of all disciplines discussing their process on Twitter, and particularly by reading the Objectively Speaking :: Blog of fine art photographer Ian Talbot. His in-depth, straight-talking analysis of his own works have been real revelations to me. They have also spurred me to raise many questions about my own work, and to realise I might need to dig out some answers.

As I’m not a writer or a poet, there will always be an unbridgable gap between words and my visual work. I also feel that whatever I might hope to transmit to the viewer deals with the end product, not the process – that is, I don’t aim to communicate anything about my process to the viewer, the only thing that matters in the end is what the final book in its final form might be saying, if anything. And I shall ponder that somewhat more from now on…

I keep seeing things, fleeting visual snapshots in non-moments along the process of making. I have always thought that abstract artists are very brave. And if I was as brave, I would make abstract artworks. Now I make covertly abstract works, hidden within the understandable shape of a book. For no particular reason other than simple visual delight, I enjoy the play and combination of elements, lines, shapes, textures and colours arranged into representing nothing. There may be a book in the making, but in another dimension, the elements are living independently, offering themselves as individual absract works complete in themselves. A kaleidoscope of images that cease to exist as soon as the making process takes another step toward the recognisable form of a book.

Sometimes it’s good to take one step away from books and look at the familiar materials arefresh. The kind of books I make always take a long time. In fact, even if I decided to quickly make one for checking out some thoughts and ideas, I still end up taking the book more seriously than a test piece and devoting more energy to it than I originally intended. A book for me is always a full process – I cannot seem to let one leave my hands as a test piece. So I feel much more free when working out some ideas away from books. At the moment also too many ideas and inspirations are fighting for attention in my mind and for my time in the studio. Not all ideas are worth spending time on and not all books fully formed as thoughts are worth bringing into physical form. While I’m working out idea priorities, I’m relaxing by stringing some materials together – into necklaces instead of books. And enjoying myself immensely!

After finishing a bookbinding, it’s the final tidy up time. There are always bits and pieces left and it feels almost difficult to throw them away as they have been an important part of the process I’ve delved in for weeks. For a while now, I’ve been saving a few offcuts of materials from each book I’ve made – they are a great physical record of the creative work gone into each. And the only thing left for me once the book has been sent to its owner. A somewhat backwards way of keeping a sketchbook, but it also serves a function – it ensures I don’t need to throw out test pieces and templates that might come in handy as memory aids in future projects. These are from a very special recent commission I completed, which is now shown in the gallery section together with a full case study – see the engagement book.

Beginning a new project yet again, I put words to what I have been pondering recently.  I thought there would be some sort of change in the visual language of my art after living a while in Dubai. I tend to welcome the influence and inspiration of my surroundings, wherever I am. But what I now see is that my work is becoming just more of what it already was going to be.  My works of today may be interpreted as having acquired some Middle Eastern tones, yet when I compare them to some of my works from 15 years ago, the roots are already there. I’m quite surprised. Maybe that’s why I feel such an affinity with the visuality of this place. It resonates with something I have already been exploring for quite a while… And I will carry on. What an adventure.

This is a reminder image, a note to self. Ideally to keep my eyes open in the first place, but failing that, to at least look again in search to see. If I was a photographer, I may have taken this image on purpose, who knows. However, being an accidental snapper -most often in a hurry- I only spotted this blue window afterwards. Because of this realisation and the myriad of metaphysical storylines my mind embarked on as a result, this image is one of the most meaningful seeds of inspiration in my digital sketchbook.

The third version of my website is now live. In 2004 the first version was launched on white background. In 2008, we thought it might be great to see the work on dark background instead. And now it’s back to white… May eventually decide! Content is still the same, with some reorganising so information is easier to find and read. The biggest change being the now completely visual navigation in the gallery section.  Some new images are added for those bindings that I was able to get access to. Unfortunately many bindings in the archive are long gone and I have no further imagery, nor high-resolution files, to show. The blog section now allows comments. Some may find interesting the new addition of links in the awards section: you’re able to see which book won which award – again of those works that I have photographs for.

I am of course, as ever, indebted to the master web designer behind all three versions of my site. His vision and skill have always spearheaded the way my work is represented online. And I am indeed very lucky and grateful to have such a creative pioneer for a husband.

For all my adult life, the time around year change has been the most meaningful for me of all annual celebrations. I can feel the different energy and I use it as a fuel to propel me towards a year of brand new possibilities. I reflect and I project. I create visions in my mind, weigh them, infuse them with intention, plant them, care for them and return to see at the end of the year what grew of them. I do this in writing, in a special annual journal in which I only write at this time of year, and have done for the past 19 years. Unless one has a clearly defined goal, it is impossible to aim accurately. I’m so excited about the year ahead because I feel I’ve managed to focus my direction in a very purposeful way which creates a lot of enthusiasm to get started. Creative times ahead!

I enjoyed photographing these fireworks on the first minutes of 2010. The abstract compositions of colour and light sparked my mind off on new paths of creative projects and endeavours. They will also remind me of the beauty of staying focused on my path, to enjoy the journey and to always marvel at the details. For the wondrous whole is all about the perfect balance and interplay of the minutest details. Each detail contributes to the big creation, each tiny step takes me closer to my goal. (Jan10)

Bits and pieces, boxfulls of materials, some – if briefly opened and glanced at in the three years since our move – still more or less in oblivion. I have been discovering in the studio lately, not just ideas but various treasures I had forgotten I had. Last week I thought of something I’d really need for the next project, but didn’t even think to hunt around in the studio. Yet a few days later happened to open a random box just to find exactly what I wanted. Perhaps it is so in life as well – maybe we have just forgotten and all we need to do is remember. All we need really is there already, to be found just around the corner. (Nov09)

The further I get with a binding, the messier my studio gets. The messier the studio gets, the messier my thinking gets. Tidying up in the middle of a work flow clears my thinking and steadies the hand that holds the tools. But when it gets too late and I get too tired, there’s nothing to be done but give up and sleep, otherwise the whole next day will be wasted correcting mistakes made when too tired. Over the years I’ve learned the point in which to give up, but I occasionally still test it… and re-learn. It’s so much easier and time-efficient to do things right in the first place. (Oct09)

Today I started to paint some parchment in preparation for book covers for my current binding. The two main colours of my design are red and black. I’ve always liked the way ink settles on parchment and this time the black sumi-e ink reacted rather nicely with the red calligraphic ink. So much so that I started to look closer and examine the lines and shapes. Then it occurred to me – it looked exactly like hot molten lava exploding from a volcano. Was this a coincidence… my current obsession with rocks and stones brought a piece of lava stone to me just last weekend. I love the way subconscious works. (Oct09)

A display of the various aspects of traditional Islamic bookbinding is on show at the moment at the Cultural Foundation in Abu Dhabi. An article in the National gives an overview of what to expect. The Art and Craft of Islamic Bookbinding is part of “Islam Faith & Worship” exhibition and will be on until 6th October 2009 from 9.30am to 12.30pm and from 4.30 to 8.30pm daily. The Turkish experts are also giving demonstrations.

One of my ways to get started on new creative work is to organise materials, bits and pieces, which have no particular meaning, into some sort of visual order. One example being my three dimensional sketches. Another one is my collection of rocks. I’m completely besotted with rocks and minerals, their texture and beauty. And since mandalas are such a centering concept, I often focus myself by making a stone mandala, always a different one. Each stone takes its own place and the feeling is exactly identical to what it is like to put together a book – fitting together various textural and visual elements until it all “clicks”. Just with stones the process is much easier and is therefore the perfect way to release me into making freely. (Sept09)

The Farjam Collection gallery at the Dubai International Finance Centre is showing a wonderful exhibition of historical illuminated Qurans. There are some breathtakingly beautiful books on show – I was particularly intrigued by the scrolls, displayed hanging open on the wall. The exhibition is open at the moment, during Ramadan from Sunday to Thursday 10am – 8pm and Saturdays 12pm – 8pm (Fridays closed). (Sept09)

It’s fabulous to be back! On this year’s extended family tour in Europe, I realised that time away from making art is no vacation for me. A true vacation would be extended, uninterrupted hours in the atelier… If anything, such a long break made me even more convinced that I just could not not make art. Yet I’m going through a lesson of patience at this point in life, when some days the most I manage, is an hour in the studio at night – sometimes only a quick glance around deciding what I’ll do when not so tired. Most of the creating is therefore happening in my head instead as I haven’t yet figured out how to make a fine leather binding with the help of a 9 month old. And blog posts are kept short as I really do need to get a book sewn before midnight. (Sept09)

Over the years, while working with paints and inks, I have always secretly admired the accidental by-products such as the waste paper that has been protecting the work surface underneath the actual piece that I’ve been making. Specifically I remember this from the printmaking studio. When the plates were rolled with ink, the colours, textures and compositions on the paper underneath were often unbelievably delicious. I always wanted to save some for an undefined later purpose but talked myself out of it – after all, it was ‘just waste paper’.

So I’ve been enjoying immensely these days, making such ‘waste papers’ on purpose for my next artist book. Also for the first time I now have a proper helper in the studio which makes the work even more fun. White paper was first painted with black ink, random patterns ‘printed’ by pressing wet papers onto each other, crumpled up, splashes of colour added to the white areas and opened flat to dry.

Now I have a stack of very pleasing papers and can enjoy their abstract landscapes of colour and texture without having to throw them away after the ‘real’ work has been completed. This is just the beginning, another book will eventually emerge. (Jul09)

Over the years colours have been intuitively appearing in my work, I don’t choose them, rather they seem to choose me. Even more so with painting than books. Already before getting into making books, I tended to paint very colourful and with plenty of black. Recently it’s been mainly black, with a hint of red and gold… So I’m pleased to welcome back the colours – they’re inviting themselves back into my brush and onto the paper again. (Jun09)

With heart-felt thanks to those special individuals who have deeply inspired me in the past few weeks. I wish you all the best on your creative paths wherever they may lead.

The prize winning bookbindings of this competition can now be seen online at the Designer Bookbinders website. Well worth taking a look if you can’t make it to Oxford to see the exhibition itself.

In Finland there’s a certain tradition at New Year. People melt horse shoe shaped pieces of tin in a metal ladle, then quickly pour the molten tin into a bucket full of cold water. This makes the molten tin solidify in a random shape. When done at midnight, when the year changes, you can then view the shadow of the new tin piece against the wall in candle light and predict the upcoming year’s fortune from what you can see in the shadow. Since my very first artist book, I have often used this principle to create free-form, organic tin pieces for my books. And I’m at it again… I even happened to have a few “horse shoes” left from last New Year’s. Over the years I have also experimented by casting, but there’s really nothing as exciting as just pouring freely onto a wooden surface and very quickly manipulating the shape before it cools down. I like the immediacy of it, the surprise, the organic feel – as opposed to more controlled casting. Often I need to melt a piece several times over before I get something I’m happy with, and sometimes it turns out even better than I could have planned. (Jun09)

Creative life has its cycles, the ebb and flow of reaching inwards and outwards. After completing a large project, I always need time to fill up the creative well – to do other things, and to be patient. Still, after all these years, during the inward-reaching times, I tend to experience a fleeting worry that the “creating” won’t come back and the well is dry forever. I should trust the process by now, really! Because when the time is right, the well just overflows. In fact, at the moment I’m experiencing this cycle like a dam been burst open from the force of water it cannot hold any longer. I just paint, paint, paint like I could never stop. I will need to remember this, when it’s time to recharge the creative batteries again. It’s just the opposite side of the same coin.

I will, eventually, post full images on this site. But for now, it’s all just shapes and colours for me – the details close-up even more interesting. Maybe there’s a new process indicated… I should paint large, then cut up into pieces as I tend to find the individual crops more interesting than the whole… (Jun09)

Yet again painting some leather-laminated parchment, just so I can cut it to pieces and construct some book covers out of it. I’ve been hesitant to use a certain beautiful ink, purplish black shade, which I found in Venice some years back. Hesitant as it will not last forever and I fear the day it runs out! It’s a calligraphy ink and I’ve just discovered I might be allergic to it… But even itchy fingers are so much better than brush sometimes! (May09)

Was talking with someone about my logo and promised to dig up the original sketches I made. It is my miraculous luck then, that I also happen to know an incredible designer to convert my drawings into a final graphic which just instantly hit a chord with me. So this post really is a heartfelt thank you to Nick Jones, my constant inspiration, who’s also the digital magician behind this and the earlier GalleriaMia website. I’d regard him as a creative genious whether I was married to him or not. (May09)

An Asian carved wooden mandala, over a metre in diameter has been inspiring me on our wall for over two years now. Of all geometric shapes I’m most drawn to circles. Maybe a circle as a shape has a very universal, deep reaching quality, one only has to look at the history and meaning of mandalas. I use the shape of a circle for some meditative, abstract doodling, the flow is better than when doodling within a square or rectangle format. I have found this type of drawing a very powerful way of gaining insight. It bypasses the logical brain and gives you solutions you wouldn’t otherwise have discovered. Oddly enough, some of my materials even, like these antique buttons, find their way into the shape of a circle in an idle moment.

Something quite extraordinary happened in the middle of me writing this blogpost. Synchronicity certainly, where I was given an answer before I even realised to ask the question. Via Twitter I came to know of these amazing Energy Mandalas that just blew me away. Do take a look: http://energymandala.com/

I’ve come to a standstill. Occasionally happens for the most trivial of reasons. This time I cannot seem to decide whether the text should be in Finnish or in English. Maybe for this particular reason I very rarely have text in my books and prefer to tell the story using other visual means. But there are many peculiarities with this book. I’m doing my first round book and realise now the vision I originally had of the finished piece requires me to abandon many things I’ve been taught. For example about the opening qualities of a binding. Obviously a (normal) book needs to open easily and well to facilitate reading. Sculptural books can be different… And this one must not open well. It does require all my technical and structural knowledge about making books in order to discard it to achieve something that differs this time. And then there’s the language issue to solve… I’ll get there, eventually. (Apr09)

I never got around to taking a photo of this book I made for our daughter over four years ago. And I’ve not yet got around making one for our son – but I certainly will, already knowing what it will look like. This particular book is a simple case binding. It’s covered with deer skin and the couched thread across the covers symbolically depicts the journey of life. Our daughter has known this is her very own book from a very early age and is fascinated by the hand-written content accumulating as years go by, occasionally carrying the book along with her like a teddy. This is one book I’ve decided not to be precious about, it gets handled and sometimes mis-handled but so be it, the signs of life add to the binding… just see the marks already on the front cover, left by little buttery fingers. (Apr09)