Tahko

After arriving at the snow resort of Tahko we were introduced to our snowblocks - 3x3x2m, they were a lot bigger than the ones we'd practiced on. We formed into groups of 3 and were asked to create a to-scale model of our sculpture from plasticine before starting on the real thing. Deciding that it was an instantly recognisable symbol of Finland, our group chose to create a Moomin (holding a teacup, to incorporate some English culture into it!)

We had a very slow start, as shifting the snow was hard work and we had a lot to remove. However, with some help from the tutors, by the end of the first day the basic shape was there. We spend the second day smoothing and perfecting the outlines. Admittedly the end result did look more like the Pokemon Snorlax than Moomintroll, but for the size and scale of it I think we did pretty good.

Other groups created sculptures based on natural forms (feather and flower, above), the northern lights (below left), and the word SNOW (below right).

SnoWork Prep.

Next week a few of the exchange students here at the design school are taking part in a snow sculpting competition called SnoWork. We have been invited to spend 3 days at the Soko's hotel in Tahko creating pieces that will be on display outside the hotel entrance.
In preparation for this we've spent a couple evenings in the school courtyard learning the basics of snow sculpting and getting to grips with what can actually be achieved through this medium.

We created a giant snow block using wooden planks as a mould, and packing snow into it until solid. Easier said than done, 2 people had to stand inside the mould (which stood 3m tall), and be bombarded with the snow we were throwing in over the sides. To speed the process up we also pushed snow from the smoking shelter into the mould, which was then stomped down by the 2 inside.

Leaving the mould overnight, we opened it the next day when the block was solid, and began our sculpting. We worked in pairs to decorate the sides of the block using the theme of Finland, whilst other students hollowed out the middle and created a small entrance. The purpose of this being for 1 person to enter at a time, cutting out background noise and focusing on 'silence' (which is a notion very important to the Finns).

Me and Leigh carved the "reindeer' on our side, not too great... but it came out better than expected! I'm really excited for the competition itself but it's going to be hard work, we will be working in teams of 3 and on a block almost double the width of our practice one! And we're expected to sculpt an actual 3D form rather than just carve into the sides! But it will be an experience none the less!

Something for the Weekend

Long gone is the December period of 3 hours of sunlight a day. Since the winter solstice, the days are getting longer at a noticeable rate - just over 7hrs of light today! It's also a lot warmer. Supposedly, January and February are the harshest months weather wise, with temperatures creeping up to -30 in some cases. However, this winter seems to be much much milder than usual, thankfully!

Just before Christmas we only really left the apartment to go to school (it was always dark and -18 at the warmest). However it's now much more manageable to be out and about, and the city looks beautiful; the clear blue skies and fresh sunshine are an amazing contrast to the 2 feet of snow that's accumulated on the ground. From this, we've decided we should get out and appreciate it more!

We're trying to find things to do each weekend, when we're free of school work and have the whole day to get around. Today we took a walk along the harbour - we hadn't visited since summer and it was crazy how different it looks now. The beach where we swam now coated in snow, and the lake frozen over - there was no differentiation between land and water anymore!

It was also amazing how many people were up and about doing outdoor activities. Finland is such a healthy country, and each season brings new sports to get involved in! Whole families were out cross-country skiing, ice skating, kite flying, sledging, and snowmobiling.

We crossed over a frozen part of Kallavesi, then got a coffee and doughnut inside a boat-cafe frozen into the lake. Here we discovered that ice skates were available to hire for 5€ an hour - that's next week's activity planned!

Return to Kuopio

After spending just over 3 weeks back in the UK, Leigh and I made our return to Finland last Monday.  Being home was lovely; getting to see everyone I'd missed, catching up on terrible TV, fixing my food cravings, and getting some long overdue film developed!

Since getting back to Kuopio there has been a few minor problems in relation to what courses we wish to take this semester. Originally planning to study the jewelry, metal and precious stone workshop, we were confused when we arrived to class to be greeted by a lot of boys and some heavy metal welding... apparently the jewelry module was full up so they'd put us in the next best thing... Industrial Design. This was clearly not suited for what we wished to achieve this term, so we arranged a meeting with the head of textiles, Kaisa. 

Although I wasn't very stimulated studying textiles here last term, I believe it was because I wasn't driving myself to try knew things enough. We decided that if we were to return to textiles, we should somehow see if we could incorporate ceramics into our work as it was something we both enjoyed from last term. However, after speaking to Kaisa it became obvious that there would be no way to fit this into our timetable, seeing as the whole 3rd semester is very written based and few workshops actually run. Disheartened, we decided to use our time to create some samples in the ceramics department anyway, while we arranged a meeting with the head of Ceramics, Merja, for the following week.

This meeting went much better; similar to textiles, the ceramics department also runs mainly academic-based modules within the 3rd term, although instead of suggesting we join these classes (as Kaisa did), Merja proposed that we make full use of the empty studios to work on an independent project. This was the best possible news to hear, as it was basically what we were going to ask her permission to do. The fact she suggested it to us without having to convince her at all was brilliant!

As no practical lessons are being held, we can use the empty workshops and kilns any time any day, and Merja will be giving no classes this term so she is free to come along and help us out whenever we need.

Our projects are to be marked in accordance to a work agreement she will write up for us, and by meeting the outcomes set by her we will gain our credits for this term.

I intend to explore the relationship between textiles and ceramics during this semester, experimenting with techniques and materials to pursue an innovate and interesting result!

 

Lappi - Lapland!

After a 5am start we finally arrived in Rovaniemi- on the Arctic circle border, at around 1pm. We visited the Arktikum Science Museum where we learned about Sámi life and a little bit of the history of Rovaniemi. Getting back on the coach we headed to our final destination of Saariselkä, much further north east, near to the Norwegian border. After another 4 or so hours we finally arrived.  We were staying in a log cabin which slept 10, the only issue there being 2 double beds so me and Leigh opted to take one, apart from that the cottage was really cosy and everyone we shared with was friendly enough. As it was cloudy out we decided to ditch plans to look out for the Northern Lights in favour of a sauna (with snow rolls) and straight to bed.

The next day we were up early to get on a coach to Bugøynes, a small fishing town in the very North East of Norway, on the Arctic coast. This was another long coach journey, taking around 6 hrs. We had a brief stop at some grocery stores in I believe was a town called Nuorgam - the most northern point in Finland (and the EU), before passing over the border into Norway.  Shortly over the border we could see the landscapes already changing quite drastically, fewer forests and trees and much more plains and craggy mountains (Finland is a fairly flat country). We also had a short stop the Rovijokfossen(?) waterfall, before heading on to the coast. When we arrived at Bugøynes it was 1pm Norwegian time and already the sun was setting. The village itself was tiny and very picturesque, all the houses were cottage sized and brightly coloured! The main reason everyone had travelled here was to swim in the Arctic Ocean, so as soon as we got off the coach we all undressed and ran into the -8 water! It wasn't as bad as I'd expected because the water itself was much warmer than the air temperature, but getting out and back to the coach was a different story. After a little while in the village we headed back to Finland and were in Saariselkä by 8pm.

The sky was pretty cloudy that night and we didn't see anything, but we did have some fun sledging and playing in the snow until it got late and cold! We had another sauna to warm up (obviously) and headed to bed.

Sunday morning we were taken on a snow shoewalk through the Urho Kekkonen National Park, which is home to bears, wolves, reindeer, wolverines, and many other critters! Our guide Visa/Visä(?) showed us how to survive if we were lost in the park - what we could eat, how to create a shelter and start a fire etc. He also pointed out tracks of different animals and told us tales of his times trekking in the wilderness. We had a soup lunch at a cabin cafe and then headed back via cross country skiing. I've downhill skied in the past but this was a lot different and a lot more hard work! Finally getting home we decided to head out with our cabin mates to the local swimming pool (we'd been given a voucher by the tour leaders), this also involved a Turkish style steam room and a good old Finnish sauna. Yet again we were unlucky on the look out for Northern Lights so had an early night.

 

The next we had a husky ride on a 2 person sledge. This was pretty scary at first as we had full control of the dogs! The ride lasted around 45 minutes and I must say I felt pretty bad for the dogs, they seemed to be struggling at times but we didn't push them to go any faster.  Back at the cabin we had another sauna (might as well, as there was on in the cabin). Later that night our tour guides had arranged a farewell get together. While everyone was waiting around outside to be picked up we were lucky enough to see a band of green in the sky!!! Even though it wasn't too strong I'm still amazed I got to see some of the Northern Lights - something I've always wanted to do. We were taken to a wooden tee-pee like structure a little out of town, where there were sausages bbqing on an open fire and hot Glögi for everyone! We were taught a Finnish Christmas song which summoned Santa himself! Who dispensed gifts for everyone (I got a shot glass...) and we soon left as it was COLD! The walk home lead us to this very open piece of land which had almost no light, the view was amazing - I felt as though I'd never seen so much sky in my entire life! There was a 360' view of the stars (there were a lot!) and it blew my mind a little. If only we could have seen the lights there.

Our last day involved visiting a reindeer farm and learning a little bit about the Sámi's relationship with the animal. We also had a reindeer sleigh ride which was nice :) We then headed back to Rovaniemi to visit the Santa Claus Village. This was pretty fun, we got the meet the man himself, although we didn't get a photo as it was like 30€, rip off! We also sent some post cards and got our passports stamped form the Arctic Circle. When our time here was done we finally departed for home arriving in the early hours of Wednesday. Now to catch up on the uni work we missed!!!

KALPA vs. JOKERIT

Today I went to my first ice hockey match! Actually, it was everyone's first ice hockey match - even the Finns! We went to support Kalpa (the local Kuopion team) play Jokerit (Helsinki's team). And we won! It was pretty exciting, but brutal! A fair few injuries and many fights broke out, funniest was probably when there was one man down and a crowd of opponents beating him with their sticks!

In other news, school is getting even better! We just started classes on the pottery wheel and I'm a lot better than I thought I'd be (I've only tried it once before and it didn't end too well) -  along side hand building clay techniques. Our glass classes are also progressing now and I can finally (sort of) make a rose :D

Keuruu

This weekend Maarit was kind enough to invite us to her parents cabin in her home town of Keuruu, (us being Myself, Leigh, Gerben, Stef, Peet, Jacopo, and Eleonora - we were also joined by her friend Kaisa). After a 3 hr train ride and a stop off at the citymarket for supplies, we arrived at the cottage. In true Finnish style the first port of call was to heat the sauna ready for use! As it was already dark outside we got cosy with a few drinks and some games, and took turns of the sauna (boys/girls). This involved reaching 85°c & naked rolling in the snow to cool down... COLD! Also, Maarit's brother Ville came round and brought the Monty Python edition of Fluxx which was played before we headed to bed (all of us in one room, it was like a big sleepover!)

We woke up the next morning and had breakfast like one big family, then got our hats and scarves on ready for an early afternoon walk as we left the sauna to heat. Maarit showed us parts of the surrounding area and a snowball fight erupted (of course). We then returned to the cabin ready to sauna again (it was definitely needed after the time spent in the snow), and this time we jumped into the semi-frozen lake between sessions. Another night around the dining room table this time playing Bandu (amazing game involving stacking wooden items to make the tallest tower), and a Finnish-English translation game that we adapted from one of Peet's family traditions.

The last day was spent lazing on the sofa watching 2 and a half men while the boys took a final sauna, then we headed to Maarit and Ville's parents home (and horse ranch). Here we were introduced to the equestrian family members and, most scarily, took turns to ride a horse!! This was a pretty weird experience and although the trotting terrified me, it was fun nonetheless. Finally packed up the cabin headed back to the train station - Kuopio bound.

I had a really nice time and I'm very thankful of Maarit for allowing us all to experience a true Finnish weekend in a cabin in the woods! It was a really beautiful place and was shared with good people and good times!