Sophie Smallhorn

Earlier this summer, when I took one of my rare strolls down our inner city walking street Strøget, a shop window really made me stop. Now, it was in a shop I usually check out, but this was different!

It turned out to be this really cool creative collaboration between British artist and visual concept maker, Sophie Smallhorn, and the Swedish fashion brand COS. 

In flagship COS stores in Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Seoul, London and Los Angeles, Sophie Smallhorn made site specific window displays with these stacked, geometric color forms - basically taking up a lot of window space and thus upstaging the clothes completely, but with such wow effect, that it had the exact opposite effect.

If you know a bit about COS's particular kind of colorful minimalism, the windows worked like an abstract depiction of the brand DNA. So brilliant and so beautiful.

Above, the shops in Copenhagen, Seoul, London and Honkong (couldn't find the L.A. one).

These displays are based on a series of small and quite delicate wall hung acrylic and aluminium sculptures - a theme she has worked on for a number of years - only in an enlarged version.

Her graphic and sleek style just makes me jump with joy, see much more of her work here, and she proves to me yet again, that playfulness and orderliness are not necessarily adversaries!

Here are a couple of examples of her 'Components' sculptures:

And here's a nice little story to end this post with....

I snapped a picture of the Danish window and posted it on Instagram. I saw a suggested hashtag in the window (check it out: #cosxsophiesmallhorn), and used it, to properly credit this fine work.

I actually didn't notice, or only vaguely so, anyway, that I entered a competition - and only found out, when COS contacted me, and told me I had won two Sophie Smallhorn prints!

Yayeee!! I am picking them up next week, and they look like this. Lucky me, don't you think?
Maybe I should start buying lottery tickets?

Oh, those Plop Plop Balls...!

The most wildly popular paper project I have ever shared here, must be these: the so called 'Plop Plop Baubles' from December 2015. I just checked the blog backend, and I can see that the post have been visited almost fifty thousand times, and they are also the most re-pinned design I have ever put up on Pinterest.

I have had sweet messages in my Instagram mailbox, and have been tagged by others, who wanted to share their ploppy projects with me. See a couple of them here

Well, I'm so super glad to have shared something people seem to like - but the reason I take them up again, is that I saw that a popular Danish magazine have produced a video tutorial on them! 

It's on YouTube, right here.

That's great, because I would love to do video tutorials, but I simply don't have the time or the setup to do them - not right now, anyway.

And they also came back to me, because I just cleared out some of all the shoe boxes full of paper things I have produced for this blog. I usually keep just a few items for myself, the rest I give away as small host/hostess gifts in the holiday season - but I still seem to have boxes full of the stuff. 

So I decided to make some little gift bags for a very nice Red Cross charity gift shop we have here in Copenhagen, hoping they might bring in a few kroner for good purposes. If you are an over-producer of such things, as I am, you could do the same! 

A subterranean must see in Cph: Sambuichi 'the Water'

Very close to where I live, an old system of underground water reservoirs have become an art space, some years back - and every year Cisternerne present a new wild and overwhelming installation, created specifically for this cavern-like dark and wet space, hiding secretly under the park clad hill by the castle, that I have written about before.

This year it is the Japanese architect Hiroshi Sambuichi, who has created the installation. It's called 'the Water'. I went to see it yesterday, and it was so incredibly beautiful. My absolute warmest recommendations, to anyone living in or going to Copenhagen, and it will be there until February 2018, so no need to rush.

Yesterday was a sunny day, and this is a really dark experience, in the literal sense of the word. You crawl down the narrow stairs to an almost physically tangible pitch black nothing at first - all you sense around you is this cool and drippingly wet cavern and an almost overwhelming scent of fresh cedar and cypress wood - and the peculiar, metallic smell of wetness. Blinded by this sudden shift from blazing spring sun to underground cave, I almost crawled into the space. I couldn't see a thing.

But then the most elegant and mysterious world started to materialize before my eyes - like a dark forest or an underwater shrine. The whole space is transversed by elevated, cedarwood walkways in traditional Japanese style, and here and there they lead you to surprising vistas; the lantern lit curve of a bridge, an island of deliciously green fresh moss. Sudden pillars of natural sunlight, led underground by intricate mirrors. And constantly the sound of dripping water.

It was actually a bit hopeless to photograph, except in the parts where you could see, by sunlight - the semi-dark places just couldn't be done any justice by a camera. Go see for yourself, it's great! 

Links and info after the images.

There were a lot of references to traditional Japanese architecture and to their perception of the elements - and of course some philosophical layers in the whole concept of the installation, which will grow and evolve as nature wills it, in the period it's there. Read about the whole thing here on the Cisternerne (as the place is called) website.

In the heart of the space there is a very, very dark area, where a different kind of rope line the walkways, and seem to border off a kind of center of the grid - where apparently nothing is - but I saw that the rope was the very rough, handmade hemp kind, that you see around shinto temples, and that white strips were hanging from them. I actually had to take a blitz photo to establish this.

There was something that felt very magical about this roped off centre, and I am sure that the kami were abundant there. I could almost not bring myself to leave, but in the end I was freezing (bring a sweater!) and had to get back up into the sun. To be blinded all over again. 

FindersKeepers

I'll be at FindersKeepers on the weekend 19-20 November - a really nice designers market. This time it's held in the old green grocers market hall in Valby, and it's much worth visiting: lots and lots to see (and buy) - and great food stalls too!

Proud to be included in this really great company and looking much forward to it. In my little stall, I will be selling my 24 Days Advent Calendar Gift Wrap, of course, and I hope to see you there!

Read all about it right here - and take a peak at all the great potential Christmas shopping you could do there.

FindersKeepers on Instagram (images above are from here)

Spring favorite # 2: The Flower Queen

Marianne Eriksen Scott-Hansen is a Danish fashion artist / designer / stylist / general creative explosion - known by anyone who has followed experimental fashion here in DK for the past two decades. She works in all kinds of media, but her almost superhuman ways with the scissors are somehow central to much of what she does. When you read interviews with her, she often explains how she works intuitively, with very few templates, work drawings or such. She simply lets the scissors do the talking, and incredible things happen. 

At the moment she works almost entirely in paper, and her wild, textural visual style has really taken off in her current project: doing enormous flower installations in cheap tissue or crêpe paper. She emphasizes how she insists on working in the standard materials her local paper shop stocks (although the amounts of paper that she uses are not quite standard - she must be a wonderful customer for that paper shop!!), and how she does everything herself and by hand. 

I am simply breathlessly impressed and full of awe and wonder! It is stunning and abundant. The workload almost incomprehensible - and, it's all from plain paper and a pair (or several pairs) of ordinary scissors. Paper truly is a magic material (as I keep insisting on).

Please enjoy these few pictures of Marianne Eriksen Scott-Hansens Easter decor in the Royal Copenhagen flagship store - and, I think, from a backdrop for the ELLE style awards (just two of her many, many supersize flower extravaganzas).

All photos are from her instagram, where you should follow her and fall in love with her work as well.

Think XXXL

I've been walking the streets of Copenhagen and Malmö these last few days, and have seen a lot of holiday decorations in the public spaces and in all the shop windows. I have some absolute favorites, and as I was checking them out in my camera roll, I saw that they have something in common: they use some little ordinary thing, and just blow it up to XXXL!

Check the paper loops in Cph dress maker Stasia's shop - they are just brilliant, I think! Paper loops are like a low ranking Christmas tinsel variety: any kid can do them (and does). I still think they are kind of cute, and in giant size and gold foil, they just look plain glamorous.

After the loops: Enormous baubles (the big ones are crazy big - like almost a meter in diameter!) outside Cph department store Magasin. The one insanely big lamp, that sits in the middle of Malmö's small square every Christmas - and in the last photo: giant, gleaming nylon stars filled with air, in Malmö's Central Station. Beautiful.

The Circle Bridge

Copenhagen has a new wonderful pedestrian bridge, 'Cirkelbroen' - or the Circle Bridge. It opened last week and has been on it's way for years, but it was certainly worth the wait. 

It was designed by Olafur Eliasson, mentioned before on this blog in several contexts. He explains how he, when asked to design a pedestrian bridge, immediately dismissed the 'straight line from A to B' style, but made it an exploration of meandering, walking slowly. He made it a pleasant room in it self, a place to stop and take in the view.

I think the result is just beautiful. I love the tall ship references and the red railing, and it looks stunning from all angles. I sailed under it a few days before the official opening, and it even looks great from underneath!

The Bridge connects two points in the busy Copenhagen harbour, and needs to be able to let ships through, and does so in a most unusual manner: it pivots! 

You can see a short time lapse here, that shows the final construction work, and in the end of it, you see how the bridge actually works. 

See map for location. 

And lots of more info here.

(all images here are by Anders Sune Berg, copyright Studio Olafur Eliasson)

Cherry Blossom Viewing in Copenhagen

It has been an unusually warm and sunny week in Copenhagen, and everybody seems to have been struck by mild spring craziness. Cherry Blossom Viewing was the thing this whole past week, and much like in Japan, the most perfect cherry trees made the TV evening news. Hereabouts, the cherry blossom alley in Bispebjerg Kirkegård  (the park and cemetery near the impressive Grundtvigs Church), was the most popular site for an improvised hanami.

I took these pictures a few days ago, and today we will be checking out the Copenhagen Sakura Festival at Langelinie, even though the weather looks a bit dodgy. They have a lot of activities the whole weekend, and it is a really fun place to visit, I did last year!

Instagram and facebook were bursting with pink flowers as well, most popular hashtags were apparently #sakuraweekcph and #bispebjergkirkegaard - I checked out the first tag a couple of days ago, and this is what it looked like....

Pink, pink, pink. One of my favorite colors. And spring is indeed here.

Epiphany or Twelfth Night and absolutely no more Christmas for now

Today, January 6th, is traditionally the last day for Christmas trees, elves and tinsel. We haven't quite gotten rid of all of it, but almost. Our tree is still in a corner, looking like a hung over drag performer or some such thing. It was more or less demolished on New Years Eve, where we had a fairly crazy dinner party, and the young ones sort of bombarded it with paper confetti poppers and glitter streamers. It survived, however, in an almost prettily trashy way. Now it is completely dried out, and I just know that if I attempt to lift it, every one of its needles will drop to the floor. Just couldn't be bothered today. Maybe tomorrow.

I will post the last Christmas reference for this season - this photo of a Christmas tree I took Saturday in SMK, the great art museum here in Copenhagen, where it was still standing in the beautiful sculpture hall, looking pretty. Two bits of cardboard can make a nice tree, indeed (no needles to worry about), and all the decorations are made in the children's workshop. I find it adorable.

With this, I will thank you all, for visiting the blog during November and December, and for all the nice feedback I have gotten on my creative projects this (= last) year. Keep coming back, if you feel like it, because I will be blogging on, as I did last year (for the first time), about all kinds of other topics that take my fancy.

So see you later, right?

Winter in Copenhagen

Some grey winter mornings I cross this bridge....

....to go to this fantastic place. It is called 'Helgoland' and is a traditional public ocean bath house.

And then we jump in. Here, my friend is on her way - into 4 degrees Celcius. I hadn't been in for several weeks, and I really didn't think I had it in me, but it was just wonderful. We even swam a few strokes. Sauna and tea afterwards!

Kasia Gasparskis FLOOR PLAANs

The other day I was walking along one of the small streets in central Copenhagen, and passed some of my favorite dream windows - and you all know what I mean by that! They belong to the fantastic goldsmith and jewellery designer Kasia Gasparski, and I have been coveting her jewellery as long as I can remember, especially her gold pieces with red enamel. In the windows were these fantastic filigree like objects, which turned out to be little architectural silhouettes, when you looked closer....

There was a small note in the window about them, but the shop was closed, and I went home and googled, but found nothing. A couple of days later, I went back and knocked on her door, and found her busily at work on these very interesting objects! Here is what the windows looked like, from the inside, maybe that gives you a better idea.

So, I got the story. Kasia Gasparski has always been fascinated with architectural images in her work, and has made some wonderful pieces using that very basis for all architecture, the floor plan, as a motif, sometimes symbolizing something very intimate and private, and sometimes things much grander. A couple of examples:

The gold brooch is based on a modern Danish family house, and the silver brooch depicts the plan of the old Copenhagen Castle, which stood from 1370 to 1713! Now, she is a very interesting artist, indeed, and I urge you to google her work, and find out more yourself, for her work is both humorous, philosophical, sensual and much more. And very wearable too! She explained that her website is under reconstruction, but I will give you a link anyway, because a new one will definitely emerge here:
Kasia Gasparskis website, www.kasia.dk 

I will try to stay with the subject, and not talk much about her jewellery right now, even though it's hard (that would require so much more space), but about her FLOOR PLAANs, as she has named her invention: the floor plans of some of the most significant and beautiful churches in the world, done as hanging ornaments. She has just started a commercial production of them, and was working on the first batch, fresh from the people who precisely laser cuts them in wood. Then Kasia herself will sand them, base coat them, sand them again, and finish with a layer of matte white. 

They end up looking so crisp and almost snowflake like, and if you have an interest in architecture, they will make you rediscover the magic beauty of the plan. They could be Christmas ornaments to some, icons or crosses to some, and architectural mobiles to others. I just love the idea, and I think you are welcome to read into them what you feel like!

She told me that she is working frantically on making them available online, but until now, you have to buy them in her shop in central Copenhagen. They start at around 32 euros.
Adress: Kompagnistræde 25, DK-1208, Copenhagen K. Phone: +45 33 14 16 80.

She has made two series, one of churches from Istanbul, Aachen and Jerusalem, among other places, and a series of Danish churches. I will end this post with the Danish series. 

FLOOR PLAN website on its way here

A Facebook page is here (and probably the best place for info right now).

Danish churches from top: Roskilde Domkirke / Grundtvigskirken / Vor Frelser, København /
Skt. Bendt, Ringsted / Vor Frue, Kalundborg