Marketta Luutonen: Beautiful and not frivolous
Research Manager, docent
PhD, Lic.Soc.Sc.
Master´s Program in Craft Design
University of Joensuu, Savonlinna Departement of Teacher Education
This study outlines the textile artist Sirkka Könönen and her production in the context of sustainibility. The knitwear is dominating her production because knitwear is her idea of a good product: useful and warm and it can also be funny shaped in a lasting way and it is used up or is recycled. This is a case study but it also informs of the general functioning of an artist-entrepreneur: as an artist’s means of expression, medium, occupation, subsidiary trade, and way of making profit and as an expression of culture.
As material for this research has served the artist and her picture archive and articles published on her. The phenomenon is opened by exploring the first impression given by the press and then looking at the reality, the process that started this phenomenon and finally interpretation and result, which is then placed as a part of the previous research. The headlines of the articles gave an impression that the journalists were describing the personal feelings they got from looking at the sweaters. The emphasis in the articles was on Könönens personality and talent, on the enchantment raised by the sweaters, and on the international fame. In the light of the articles published it seems that she has been able to make ordinary sweaters into something else more like handicraft and textile art. I interviewed Könönen many times towards the ending of the year 1998 and the beginning of the year 1999. Using the interviews as a way to build an image of Könönens world with the meaning to interpret her and her production and look for meanings.
Knitwear production is made by hand with knitting needles and a machine. Handwork gives possibilities to various alternatives. In the production network belong besides the designer and the knitters also tightly the yarn corporation, the many dealers and the accountant who has been working for Könönen since the beginning.
Könönen is known to have a spectacular sense for colours that can be compared to the absolute ear for music. She uses colours to express different atmospheres, to create feelings and landscapes and also plays with them. Yarns are important and Könönen only uses natural fibres. Part of the yarns she finds from the contractors yarn map but more than a half of the colours is her own. In one sweater there are about 40 colours. This is why the sweaters seem to almost glow. At the same time this also makes the knitting more difficult and adds to the costs but keep people from making exact copies of her products.
Nature means a lot to Könönen and this can be seen in her works and in the way she chooses her subjects and also her way of living. Könönen´s main product, sweaters, corresponds to her concept of a good product, one which is necessary without burdening the environment, but at the same time it is equally important that the product is beautiful and adds a dash of joy to people’s everyday life. Ecological responsibility comes up in the way she has organised her production and even in the reasons of her operation. To her the enterprise is her own way to realise the dream of making the world more beautiful and also a better place. In her products you can see her thought and at the same time the personal skills of those making in her network. Sustainable crafts means for her beautiful and useful.