The GLASS STUDIO ON Tåsinge
In 2016, I visited Swedish maker Lena Ljungar and Danish maker Jesper Sødring on the Danish island of Tåsinge, where they have been blowing glass f
or more than forty years.
I came to borrow glass for the cookbook MÆT (FULL), which I was working on with Katrine Klinken. During my visit, I also photographed their working process.
Lena and Jesper work together and separately, side by side. They are each other’s extra pair of hands, and they each have their own individual expression.
I have known Lena and Jesper since our paths crossed in a creative collective shop in the Danish city of Odense in the early 1980s. We have maintained sporadic contact ever since.
Here, in the countryside, life and work come together in balanced harmony. Everyday life has found its own particular rhythm in a beautiful house where they have lived for many years, and where they raised their children, who are now adults and have long since moved out. Nature is their closest neighbour, and their workplace is just a stone’s thrown from their home.
The studio, where they work tirelessly and with the same enthusiasm and dedication as when they first set out many years ago, also serves as a shop.
Customers stop by to supplement their collection or place their orders by phone or email for delivery by mail.
Lena is a member of the Stockholm artist collective ‘Blås och Knåda’, which has a shop on Hornsgatan in the Swedish capital. Lena points to three different benefits from her membership –artistic feedback and networking, a pipeline to her Swedish customers and, not least, an opportunity to stay in touch with her family in Stockholm.
Over lunch in the conservatory, Lena and I compared notes from our respective personal experiences as a Swede living in Denmark and a Dane living in Sweden; a topic I never tire of. From an international perspective, Scandinavians seem quite alike; viewed from inside, our differences outweigh our similarities. Lena likes living on this island in the archipelago south of the larger Danish island of Funen, but we both find that, as we get older, the nature and culture we grew up in calls to us with a stronger voice. To me, this means that on Funen, the wind whispers a familiar song, while Lena feels at home and at ease on rocky ground in the company of pines and birch trees.
November 2016
Jeg besøgte i 2016 svenske Lena Ljungar og danske Jesper Sødring på Tåsinge hvor de i mere end 40 år har blæst glas.
Mit ærinde var at låne glas til kogebogen MÆT som jeg arbejdede på sammen med Katrine Klinken. I samme forbindelse tog jeg et foto af deres arbejdsproces.
Lena og Jesper arbejder sammen og ved siden af hinanden. De er hinandens ekstra hænder de er kunsthåndværkere med hver sit individuelle udtryk.
Jeg har kendt Lena og Jesper siden vore veje krydsedes i et kreativt butiksfælleskab i Odense i begyndelsen af 80erne, siden har vi haft en sporadisk kontakt.
Her på landet flyder livet og arbejdslivet smuk sammen til en harmonisk helhed. Hverdagen har fundet sin egen sælsomme rytme i et skønt hus, hvor de har boet længe sammen med deres fælles, nu fraflyttede børn. Naturen er nærmeste nabo, og arbejdspladsen ligger et stenkast fra hjemmet.
Arbejdspladsen eller glashytten, hvor de blæser utrætteligt og med præcis samme begejstring som da de startede for længe, længe siden, er også rammen om deres salg.
Kunderne lægger vejen forbi for at supplere deres samling, eller de ringer og skriver og får sendt med posten.
Lena er desuden medlem af kunstnerkollektivet ”Blås och Knåda” i Stockholm. ”Blås och Knåda” driver butik på Hornsgatan. Medlemskabet har en tredobbelt betydning for Lena, hun får kunstnerisk sparring og netværk, hun forsyner hun sine svenske kunder med glas og ikke mindst får hun lejlighed til at passe sin stockholmske familie
Over en frokost i udestuen udvekslede Lena og jeg erfaringer med at være henholdsvis en svensker i Danmark og en dansker i Sverige, et emne jeg kan få meget tid til at gå med at tale om. Set ude fra den store verden er vi så lig hinanden i Skandinavien, set indefra er forskellene større end lighederne.
Lena trives i det sydfynske øhav, men vi deler en oplevelse af, at jo ældre man bliver, desto mere trækker den natur og den kultur man er vokset op i. For min del betyder det, at vindene på Fyn hvisker mine sange, og for Lena betyder det at klippegrund, fyr og birk føles trygt.
Related stories
LOCALLY MADE
pre-order bookazine no. 9
RESET MATERIALS
