Mapping.
Now that I live and work in Sydney after six years of London life, my new home has proven to be welcoming, but full of uncertainty. Like tensing a muscle for a long time and only noticing it once relaxed, I am full of anticipation, longing for that moment when I see the signs that I belong.
Valentine
Four more days. As I started packing a good two months ago, inspite the possibility of seen as a complete nut by others, I can safely say I am very, very excited. Although England is now quite an upgrade with its January weather to the last three weeks in Finland, where Jess and I discovered the difference between -20C and -25C was that in the latter your nostrils freeze pretty much shut. I will miss London but I shall not miss this rain, rain, rain.
2011
The Bold And The Beautiful
Weaving and planning, planning and weaving. Working towards a brief that got me so excited I can barely feel the frostbites that creep up on my poor toes in this god damn cold London weather. Brrrrrr.
Himmeli
This christmas my friends and family will be receiving something from me that will turn the woolly socks around; for once I am on time with some christmassy thoughts. So no more last minute odd ball cards that arrive a few days before the new year. No no, mine will be there as the first ones to arrive, for once.
Himmeli is a traditional old Finnish Christmas ornament hung from the ceiling. It’s made of short strips of straw tied together with strings to form a complex three-dimensional structure. Back in the day the Himmeli was hung above the dinner table to ensure that the coming rye crop would be plentiful. There are many different shapes and sizes of himmeli: the bigger the size, the larger the rye crop would be.
More Medium
Silk screen printing on to a silk screen mesh proved to be trickier and a lot messier than initially expected, but we got there in the end with Nathan’s good mixing of secret ingredients. The mesh dried in less than a day and were cut to fit the format of the catalogue, a nice silky addition to place between the pages.
Save the date in your Diary!
Lost Knowledge Prints are in the making…
Screen printing for the Lost Knowledge print event that will be taking place on the 30th of October in the Well Gallery, Elephant&Castle.
Points of Transition @ Anti-Design Festival
Sipping tea and listening to discussions about work as a designer, interning with no pay and hearing some really interesting points of view about the gap between graduation and landing that first real job (or making one instead of taking one). If You’re near by , come and have a look at our workshops! (or non-workshops, I can’t be so sure anymore) 28 Redchurch Street, London
INFO: Running parallel to the London Design Festival, the ADF will attempt to break twenty-five years of cultural deep-freeze, and reverse the model of culture=money, providing an outlet for new risks and creative exploration in art, image, design, product, film, fashion, performance, 3D, digital and sound through a series of events, publications and venues.
midnight sun keeps me up
So the exhibition came and went, such a great night, lots and lots of good stuff from all pathways! Now, enjoying the nightless nights and the mosquitos in their gazillions in the country side of Finland. Next week, back to work. I hear London is boiling, can’t wait!
Here’s some photos we snapped of our 20/20 publication.
Duct tape is like The Force. It has a light side, a dark side and it holds the universe together.
Work going up, have been painting and building all sorts in the New Gallery this week, and the Private View will finally be tomorrow! I can guarantee that at six in the evening (and very likely not a moment earlier, us graphics people seem to like leaving things to the last minute) it will all be shiny and ready for the world to see!=)
Sweet Deal.
So posters have now gone to sale in the LCC shop, Jess and I got to printing this morning and it’s all looking pretty (and) tasty. =)
Love letter
Silk screen printed a loveletter, selling small postcard size prints in the shop shortly.
what gets You up in the morning?
Screen printed with coffee this morning with Jess. The poster is a first of series of three, limited edition of ten each. If you wanna get one, better head to the lcc shop in June, smells gooooooood…….=)
Power of Ten
So, deadline went whooshing past. It felt pretty frickin’ good I have to say, I spent most of that weekend in a horizontal position. Started work placement on Monday, which proved me that the pre-hand in pace of work was just a stretch session for the big run. Now, having a moment to relax in LCC, with Nathan and his lovely set up of screen print workshop ‘Lost Knowledge’, helping him out here and there. Open for public, until the end of June this summer, really worthy checking out, especially during the exhibition times. Sean, meanwhile, is letterpressing with the other typo lot outside of uni, I might go and make a print in a bit, I’m thinking Univers with some insanely fluorecent-screaming colour.
(to buy some pretty amazing prints, head to the print shop in the ground floor. )
24 hours to the deadline. No, I’m not Jack Bauer, but close.
The Dex is starting to look alright. . I wish I could have tested it on someone but I’m afraid I’ve now run out of time. I keep taking pages off and adding new ones, I’m aiming to fill it completely, leaving blank pages as well for the user to make their own marks and notes, to do lists and maybe even add pages to it, ripping my old ones away… Maybe I’ll give it to someone who’ll go on to their final year, and in a years time ask if it was any help.
d as in day.
Power of Twenty Book is now nicely bound. Rolodex is coming along, although very slowly. 1 day, 13 hours left.
Bottoms Up.
I got three paper cuts today, almost lost a finger tip to a scalpel and managed to staple my leg, but all this blood sweat (and so far no tears) paid off. The six-spine book is done, the transformers book is now bound, and all I have left to do is the humongous task of the six hundred page rolodex. I wish one needn’t sleep. Jacky recommended a party drink for Friday; redbull-cava. Tutor knows best, I can’t wait!
2 days, 10 hours to go.
‘keep buggering on’
3 days, 12 hours to D-Day. I had to stop drinking red bull, I started getting too high highs and way too low lows. So now I’m eating pumpkin seeds and lots of milky non sugary tea. ran out of ink yesterday, which is both good and bad. Good, as in I have now three books printed and more or less bound, thanks to Naoyki’s steel steady hand and nerves, I got my books sown together with the biggest sowing machine I’ve seen. It would eat my fingers for breakfast if I went near it myself.
The last unfinished project is the Expect the Unexpected one, which has been one experiment after an other. Now trying to make a final outcome, something I should have done weeks ago. I titled the project Fail Safe ages ago, now I’m hoping it won’t live up to its name. Here is one illustration for the book of six spines, I’ll get on to making the Oblique Strategies Rolodex tomorrow!
sketchbook. tube sleeper.
Two books done, Two two go. Five days and 22 hours to deadline.
8 days & 11 hours to go. I better not run out of ink. and Nothing better crash.
Now with a printer that takes more space in my room that some furniture would, I never have to leave the house again. Except in eight days; I will sunbathe until I burn, drink so much cider I’ll live to regret it and sleep in marathon.
I think I might be related to reindeers. I am from the Arctic after all, so its not THAT unlikely.
Body clock »Biological clock. A Circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle in the processes of living entities and they are adjusted to the environment by external cues, the primary one of which is daylight.
Reindeers have abandoned use of the daily clock that drives biological rhythms in order to survive the extreme conditions in the Arctic. They can’t tell if it is night, or day.
A little peak into what’ll be in the book of 20/20.
In an attempt to visually research and pay more attention to the rhythm of our daily life, we conducted an experiment where ten people were to photograph themselves every morning and evening. Some of the images we got back were full of detail of the persons surroundings, and intimacy that the routine of picture taking allowed was displayed in many. Some gave us images that were missing a few here and there. The day had been exceptional, something unexpected would have taken place and the reminder would be ignored. Some images were too dark to tell where or who it was of, only the time would be registered.
Body clock works like a pacemaker for the brain. We all have a rhythm of sleep and a time of day when our alertness peaks, and it is no coincidence that it usually takes place when the sun is the highest. What is around us is light reflective, which allows us to feel the time of our surrounding. Long periods of time spent in a certain light must have an effect on how we are, and how we experience time. Were the experiment to go on for longer than a few months, we would no doubt be able to map the aspects of our subjects lives, such as what kind of light they have portrayed and surrounded themselves in and how they have experienced their time.
11 days, 10 hours, 42 minutes, 37 seconds.
The countdown is now painfully visible, to see the busy bees working away visit the website http://www.supergraphics2010.co.uk/ Have been running around town for two days now trying to find the printer of my dreams, if tomorrow goes well I should have a new addition to my tech family. Layouts for books are almost there, some last minute stress and hassle is looming unavoidably in the coming days, Jess and I are consuming more tea and redbull than a small nation would, and I have started to dream about paper. In my nightmares, it gets folded badly. Some sketchbook work, doodling still feels pretty good. Not producing anything else than the finals now so for a while, doodling is all I can share. 
Today was one of those days that all that could not work would not work, in print. Had my second attempt at 3d ink printing with a silk screen, baking the printed paper in the oven and swearing with the lack of patience that the pressure has now brought out. anyhow, will work on that one once all else is nicely packed and ready to go. Did get one final poster done though, so there was some light in the end of the day (and no one is allowed to tell me about the sunshine London is bathing in nowadays, for I will not get to enjoy it just yet). Hand drawn, silk screen printed, A1 for my memory hole project. It is a cross stitch pattern (X’s and O’s), and the one I’ll use for the sequence is printed in white, on a mouldy-ish yellowish sugar paper.
Twisted Nerve.
17 days, 17 hours, 48 minutes, 21 seconds
Ohh yess, finally. its been a few days, the D-day is looming. Expecting sleep deprivation, red bull shakes, and lots of absent mindedly gained paper cuts. Got the final posters printed with Jess today, we were like the dream team of sweep-squeegee-come on press fast!-sprinkle salt and voila. Three different kinds of posters, embossed by sand and salt, the tastes of the brighton beach. In a weeks time, fingers crossed, we should have a publication in our hands, hot from the press.
Power of twenty.
Lots of folding and cutting and gluing today. Jess didn’t think I’d make the best production line worker but we managed to put the prototype of our icosahedron together.
Twenty repetitions from twenty perspectives, placed on a twenty faced (ico.) grid. Location the old west pier in Brighton, or better yet the remains of it. The visual Rhythm of the past, distorted into a present moment.
Now, we can’t wait to make the colour one, getting on with that bad boy tomorrow.
if you can’t fix it with gaffer tape, is it really worth fixing?
So I was meant to fly home today, but the volcano had other plans. The one box I didn’t think I’d need to fill on the travel insurance was ‘natural disaster’. A perfect sample of not expecting the unexpected. right. back on the project then.
The project has now come to a point where I’ll start making the layouts, and hopefully in a couple of weeks will give birth to a book that sums up the experimentations, including the moving image. Instead of a glorious one final piece, mine will be an offspring of many ideas. Sketchbooks are where my ideas find home first, even before I can make them into a sentence I doodle them on my books and start by making things. Today I started putting my books together. still readable, but once I’ll get them all stuck to each other they will hopefully work as one; a process/progress/ a new idea.
sing Sing with the decibels of a thousand kings
Jess and I are drawing a type family amongst other things, our baby, called the Pier. (Thanks Michael for all the eagle(type)eye advice today as well. )I’ve held on to a brush with ink for the past seven hours, I think we’re getting there but there’s a lot more to do, experimentations fill our to-do list. Looking forward to my birthday dinner with Ping this evening, a well deserved binge on food I reckon. =)
power of twenty/icosahedron/pinhole camera
To see Jessica’s blog.
sneeze/please/squeeze/these
So the hayfever has now reached a magnitude where there’s no denying the fact that summer is here, the long cold winter can be erased and working indoors has become a challenge quite big to battle, when all I want to do is run outdoors in slow mo with the wind in my hair. Today though, no bouncing up and down, my birthday party last night ensured that today is a day for doodling and a big sunday roast. speaking of which, (I will now get out of pyjamas) and go and feast on.
if all else fails.
early mouse gets killed first.
So the spring is definitely here now, we have new mice in the house (in with the new and all that ..) and I got to go out without a coat on. Not spending much time in the sun though, yet an other studio day. Going through the stuff I’ve done, and finishing off bits and bobs. Can’t do much else than draw now, for print and animation facilities are still on holiday, which gives me time to start building that all important portfolio in a box. . .
oh! and I finished the animation for Expect the Unexpected project. Its a 4ish minute long digital poster that I will be projecting, built only of the very basic graphic forms such as circle, star and squares. ( 6 still images on the bottom) Now, I can start working on the publication (book) and voila. =)
I just learned that back home, shared time all over the country didn’t exist until the late 1800s. Before the railways that would connect one town to an other there was no way of knowing the time of others, so all towns would decide on their own. The time was measured at mid day by reading the position of the sun, and then set on the clock tower of each town’s church. It meant that every household would have their own, approximate time zone. What a lovely thought. The eastern side would live half an hour or so ahead of the western time, but that was of no one’s concern, who really needed to know the accurate time anyway? For a little while, the important looking new buildings with high towers, the train stations, were relied on telling the right time. Maybe that’s where the saying we have comes from, that ‘the train waits no one and is never late’. I bet. Maybe I should live on my own time zone. That way I’d always get everywhere on time.
creme or cream egg?
Happy Easter y’all! I am spending mine in pyjamas, eating my heart out (creme eggs) and drawing. Its my turn to cook dinner, Nao wasn’t happy about my chocolate-only menu, so I might have to swap slippers to shoes and go and get some food into the house. 
Pier.
Jess and I braved the wind and cold and with the little support of sips of finlandia, we shot the area near the west pier, images that we will use to construct our visual interpretation of the perception of time. lots of drawing ahead of us, lots of type, and the exciting moment when we get back into the darkroom and see how our twenty year old film did, as well as the icosahedron pinhole camera.
onko värillä väliä.
seeing sound.
So I went from drawing, to moving image, to painting like there’s no tomorrow, to realising it actually looked okay on a computer screen, so why not draw it and then vectorise. I think I’ve come a full circle with this one. And I think I’ll put my brushes away for now and take out the digital ones. Oh, and ofcourse about five minutes ago I managed to get fixated with the idea that it should really, really, be done with a silk screen print for a nice finish. So. Barbara will be thrilled when I hog hold on… how many. . umm.. six of her biggest screens? and I’ve never printed more than a two tone one before. uh-oh.
The still images of the moving image look quite good on their own, but I think I’m happier without all that accurate info, instead I’ll feel my way through this and colour the song as I like, hence the grid that is waiting to be filled. I’m reading this book by Donald A. Norman called Emotional Design, its a pretty good read.
Brighton tomorrow, yay!! Can’t wait to photograph with the 20 year old film roll Natalia gave me!
transformers.
power of twenty.
mind boggling. I am no Einstein, that’s for sure.
I started the day nice and early with some silk screen printing, finishing one of the final posters for Memory Hole project (yay!) and after yet an other delightful (very little-nutritious, tesco style) lunch me and Jess went through our to do list once again, talked talked talked, and after my brain hurting just a bit we set a date; shoot on friday, post production and posters for the next week and a bit. Whether we’ll manage, will be seen, but I do feel good. Gooood. It’ll be good.
working in the studio with Jess, making our little creation into a pinhole. . .
Rhythm (any measured flow or movement, symmetry) is Movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions. While rhythm most commonly applies to sound,such as music and spoken language, it may also refer to visual presentation, as “timed movement through space.”
As an experimentation on Time, I asked ten people to take a photograph of themselves every 10am and 10pm. Successful an experimentation in the sense I have not laughed this hard for a long,long time, but also, it provided me imagery that led me and Jessica to re-consider the rhythm (of) how we perceive time/space.
I want to thank Sabina, Nathan, Anne, Anna-Maria, Hana, Hanna, James, Naoyki, Ping, and Nicola. I shall make sure you all get a copy of the publication. X
every breaking of habit produces a change in the machine.
expect the unexpected=chaos theory=butterfly effect
One Time Too Many
Me and Jess will be noting down some things that are said when we work together, some key words and moments when we have gone ‘A-haa!’ =) (and then produce some posters of them, if time allows it. . .)
Looking forward to our week together, and the location of project which will be near the water, in Brighton.
whistling away.
Easter break and end of term is here. The boys were discussing today how they could successfully stay inside the premises for the night,covering motion detectors and coming up with the most delightful ideas for a loo. So that when we say we ‘pretty much live in uni nowadays’ we could really mean it too. This is where its come to. I miss those days when ‘a month’ sounded like an eternity.
Finished some drawings that are to interpret a song, this is for the transformers project that is moving image, thought it would be nice to have a book (concertina) to support it. I will also take some stills and make them into standing pieces of their own, maybe using some type to go along. This is all in my easter to do list.
Also, really excited to work with Jessica, a collaboration project that will be including lots of building of things and photographing with a twenty year old film. We have been going back and forth with ideas and concepts for a while now and today had the A-ha moment when we could see a project in the end of the tunnel! yay!
studio day.
we’ve been inside these four walls for a good nine hours now, I think the windowless space with too many energy drinks is never the best idea. 
In the middle of Difficulty
I had a lovely day being over fed by Juliet. Maybe its the spring doing that I’m really actually looking forward to the week starting, not dreading the To Do list at all! =)
Did some drawing on the moleskin over the weekend as well, finished some sketches I doodled ages ago and scanned them in.
mapping sound.
For the Transformers project I’ll interpret the song, my driving song as Tim would say, in a more sort of free hand, systemeless-ish way. This little exercise got me to an idea which will be just colour, bunches and drops of it, like a dance of my own I suppose; on print to support the moving image.
