GOLDEN RAKU – LIMITED EDITION
Collaboration between Björn Weckström and Karin Widnäs
As a small boy, Björn Weckström painted with burning passion in his childhood home on Temppelikatu, his artistic works filling the home from floor to ceiling. He formed small sculptures from the blue clay he had dug up from the seashore. Weckström proved to be artistically talented already as a child. The writing was on the wall; a life long career as a designer and sculptor awaited.
Ceramic artist Karin Widnäs has always admired Weckström’s sculptures and jewellery. She came up with an idea to propose making ceramics as a collaboration. When two artists passionate about the creative process combine their visions, something unique is created.
Weckström found the proposal for a ceramics collaboration inspiring and interesting. He arrived at KWUM with a small wooden box containing 6–12 cm tall female figurines carved in plaster. Karin Widnäs made plaster casts of the figures, which one can sense were inspired by the sculptural art of the Olmecs who lived in southern Mexico and the Aztecs who lived in the Mexican highlands. Weckström has carved similar figures in large scale for his studio home garden in Espoo.
For one piece, Weckström wanted a square, tall vase with elongated female figures on its sides. The subject of the other two are ponds: one square and the other one is round. There are also sitting female figures on the banks of the ponds. Weckström defined the diameters of the ponds. The fourth work depicts a miniature sculpture of a woman, which was also found in his collection of carved figures, who stands by an antique wooden trough, resembling a pond.
After these definitions, Karin Widnäs was given free rein for her own artistic work. She had previously developed the so-called “matt raku”, sometimes producing golden results, to be used in her Magic Island pieces. The most characteristic color in Björn Weckström’s works is gold. That gave Karin Widnäs the idea to develop GOLDEN RAKU.
Both artists are very satisfied with the result of the collaboration. “This journey has been incredibly rewarding for me – you always learn something new in ceramics,” says Widnäs.
STONEHENGE
Nuutajärvi factory manager Jorma Tallgren invited Björn Weckström to make glass for Nuutajärvi in 1976. Tallgren presented the invitation without telling Kaj Franck, who was the artistic director of the factory and a great authority.
The management of the factory thought that a bright new artist was needed, especially for the art glass department. Weckström was internationally known and it was thought that he would bring publicity to the glass factory.
Weckström was taught by Jaakko Niemi and Olavi Nurminen, who worked as blowers in the glass cabin. They advised how to work the glass, and Weckström quickly grasped the idea. Weckström created unique art glass for the Nuutajärvi and for his own gallery, which differed from the mainstream. Additionally serial production lines were designed, e.g. Himalaja and Everest glass sets and the Kanerva glassware series. Weckström designed glass for Nuutajärvi until 1983.
Weckström returned to work with glass in 2010, when the Stonehenge I glass sculptures were created in a workshop organised for glass professionals in Iittala, where the artist guided the creation process of the works. The sculptures were exhibited in Galleria Bronda in April–May 2010.
The Stonehenge II works created in Riihimäki in 2016 with master glassblower Kari Alakoski and glassblower Marja Hepo-aho continued the understated artistic expression of the previous works. ”Once again, the archaic monumentality of Stonehenge and the gate symbolising renewal and purification inspired me to design a sculpture collection made of glass,” said Weckström in his opening speech of the exhibition held at Galleria Mafka & Alakoski.
Weckström felt a burning need to return to the Stonehenge theme in 2019, when the Stonehenge III sculptures were born. They were exhibited for the first time in Weckström’s solo exhibition organised in 2021–22 at the Didrichsen Art Museum.
The sculptures were inspired by Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument located in Wiltshire, England. It is a Neolithic and Bronze Age stone circle consisting of megaliths that has been in use for 1,500 years, the construction of which began around 3,000 BC.
Photo: Kalevalakoru Oy / Mikko Rasila
