I have realised that I am living and working on the margins: I am a single mother, I work as a textile artist, and I only use recycled materials in my work. People may wonder how I manage the choices I’ve made, but it all comes naturally to me. I often forget that most people don’t care about the environment or environmental issues, but this has been important to me since I was a child. My mother used to sew clothes for me and my siblings, usually from the materials from her old dresses and clothes. And my father crafted most of our furniture.

EVERYDAY EXCELLENCE

My mother passed away in November 2015 at the age of eighty. I lost my father fourty years ago when I was a teenager. I was an orphan and alone in the world. After those losses, I have become the oldest member of my family.

After my mother died, I began working on my Everyday Excellence installation. The installation consists of crystals and thirty-one pieces of old, black-painted wooden tools, including scoops, whisks, hammers, and more. Everyday Excellence represents one month: the first month after my mother’s death.  The six-meter-long installation hung in the window of Taitemia gallery in Kuopio.

The second part of the Everyday Excellence installation was exhibited in the Culture Centre Poleeni in Pieksämäki. This ten-meter-long installation, also made of black tools and crystals, was a continuation of the first installation. The second installation includes forty-seven tools. Some of the larger items in the installation, such as an oar, a digging fork, a large saw, and a plane, I found on the island of Liukonsaari in Leppävirta, where our summer cottage used to be located. All the best memories of my childhood are connected to this summer cottage and the island.

 All the items in the installation are connected to my family heritage, including spending time in nature, picking berries in the woods, rowing the boat and fishing. There are also items connected to memories of our everyday life, such as washing laundry, baking, cooking, building wooden furniture, cutting wood for the open fire, and going to the sauna. All these simple and precious things were a part of my childhood when my mother and father were alive.

By Tarja Wallius