Momentary sensation
“In my work I see a clear connection to experiences of nature, even quite early ones. I seek that absoluteness in which lies the strength of my childhood experiences. It is important for me to simplify, condense the mood. I never try to copy what I have actually seen in nature, merely convey my experience of it, stripped bare to allow only what is essential to come to the fore. This essential element is the experience.
I was four or five years old. We lived in the countryside. I had an empty glass jar in my hand which I put on the lawn. I turned it with my foot, kicking it forward. As the blades of grass bent under it, suddenly it occurred: light, brightness, bent grass, a deep green colour. I shall never forget that moment when the elements of light and grass, brilliance and earth, mingled.
In my work I always try to highly simplify the final result. At first sight it may seem that what I have done and those powerful experiences of nature which are so dear to me do not have much in common, as my works are so ascetic, severe. Nevertheless, the experiences which lie behind my work are visually extremely rich.
I was a few years old. During the week, my father worked for weeks on end as a coast guard far from home, and I was always unspeakably happy when he returned. One day I was confused by my father’s sudden return in the company of strangers. I could not face them. As my feelings of happiness seethed within me, I dashed out to the back of the house, to a field, a meadow full of blossoming globeflowers. I was so tiny that this sea of waving yellow flowers was at eye level. I ran among them and suddenly realised that moment of colour, that yellow mass of flowers around me and their overpowering smell heightened by the arrival of dusk’s dampness. It was then that I saw, sensed, what colour in its deepest meaning really is. Colour may be an overwhelming sensation, a spreading surface, a mood of light and fragrances.
For me seeing and feeling are one and the same. One could even say: It suddenly dawned on me. For in that sudden moment, that split second, the experience was complete. To speak one word takes longer. In my work I often struggle for this kind of instant.
Sensing nature is still a human right. In my work I seek humane messages, I desire to give something to weary people. I would like to convey to them, for instance, the summer light on the surface of the sea, the song of the waves, the reddish hues of the skerries and the burning heat of the sun, the warmth of the rocks under the slow moving clouds. In many of my blue-white linen textiles I have sought these fresh sea sensations.
Materials are of primary importance to those working with textiles. The difference between light and heavy, smooth or coarse, can be felt by hand. Even the contrasts of different materials, and combining them together, are enough to inspire one to seek the source of sensation. In my ryijy rugs, with the aid of an austere range of greys, I have tried merely not to describe the boundary between the sea and the sky, but the moment when I sensed it within me. The moment when the spring winds stand still, clouds cover the sun, and one knows from the dark watery spots where the snow has gone that soon the ice will melt.
When I use nature as a medium, I at the same time want to communicate that we all have the right to experience nature, and that we also have the right to stop the destruction of our environment. Today we are at the point where the worry for our environment and the shattering of its equilibrium is known to all, BUT – how can we put an end to this shortsighted senseless striving for progress?
My last works are outcries. The Sky is Crying is an exclamation mark.”
Maija Lavonen
This article was written by Maija Lavonen for the “As I saw” series, published in the cultural pages of the national newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, August 12, updated on December 4, 2017. Translation: Tomi Snellman
