Exhibition / Inhibition

Hello to all friends and a happy new year! Just a quick visit to promote an art exhibition opening tomorrow, Friday, Jan 20 7-10pm at Control Room 2006 East 7th Street in Los Angeles, California, curated by Tommy Høvik, my cousin's talented son:

Crystallomancy brings a group of artists from the emerging art scene of Oslo, Norway to Los Angeles. Curated by Tommy Høvik and Zac Tomaszewski, the show brings together disparate practices across a wide range of media united by a bedrock engagement with ideas of perception and expanded reality - whether by referencing sci-fi tropes or the paranormal, or by trying to craft perceptual experiences that are surprising to apprehend, for their novelty, confounding nature, or overwhelming aspect.

The exhibition will run for a week, from Friday 20th January to Sunday 29th January.

I owe you all an explanation for my absence and a deepfelt thank you for all your friendly (but unanswered) requests and good wishes. It's here: It's not that I don't care anymore, but I can't write! My husband is helping me even with these few lines.

Did that sound like I'm living in some sort of personal hell? I'm not. I'm fit and well, and I've been doing all sort of fun stuff that I want to show you when I'm ready. The main problem is that my mind goes blank every time I try to write something personal. And taking photos gives me earache of all things. I think it's because a demanding year at work has worn me out. It's been a satisfying year, though, with interesting projects, but perhaps a little too many at a time. And it doesn't help that age finally caught up with me and I had to start wearing glasses. I'm still not used to it and get terribly tired after a day in front of the computer screen.

I'm getting better, or else I couldn't have done this post, and I hope to be back soon, but I won't risk anything by starting too early.

Please comment. If I freak out, I promise I won't say anything.

If one man can show so much hate, imagine how much love we all can show together

I guess most of you have heard about the bomb in the government quarter in Oslo and the horrible massacre at the labour party youthcamp on Utøya. I posted the following first as a comment, but thought I should make it a post of it's own as well.

My husband and children are okay, but I'm sad to say that my cousin's 17 year old son was killed on the Utøya island together with almost 70 others. They came from all over the country, and we're so few here in Norway, so I don't think there's many of us who don't know of someone that was killed that day.

We were in Wales with no TV or newspapers when my mother called, telling us about the bomb and the massacre on the youth camp, and we didn't come home until recently.

But it has been a comfort to see the way the Norwegian people have been mourning. There has been huge gatherings of more than hundred thousand people with roses holding hands. And there has been no talk about revenge, but about not letting the massacre destroy our Norwegian values, the open, egalitarian society we cherish. A young girl said the most quoted sentence these last days "If one man can show so much hate, imagine how much love we all can show together"
But of course, the real test will come in the long run.

All by myself

It has been a great year for Karl Edo. But with the success of Spook House, he found his shop too small to meet the increasing demand -- and he wasn't very happy with the location either. Not that he didn't like his neighbours in the building, like Osvald Halving in Gjengangere, Bart Ender Barton in the pub and Glenn Closenough and Sean Kommer'u in the adjacent assembly rooms. But the style of all of these businesses are a bit old fashioned if truth be told, and Karl Edo had for some time thought about building a real Spook House, and when it was opened to build on a ground nearby he went for it. His friend Arne Vaa wasn't hard to ask and designed a new Spook House for him in a jiffy.

After a busy spring, here is a proud Karl Edo in front of the newly finished building. And instead of a party, he's inviting you in to celebrate the opening with an Asian themed display, with some of his favourite design furniture, all in the Spook House signature colours red and white.

Credits: In this last year, I have received so many wonderful gifts from blog friends all around the world. I haven't had the time to blog about them so far, because of a very hectic spring at work, but I thank you all and have gathered some of the fabulous gifts in this post, and more will come in the fall. Tomorrow we're going to the UK on holiday and we will be away until the end of this month.

Arne Jacobsen seven chairs from Minimii. Super ellipse table is a selfmade gift from Cocco.

Shelving made of lego. I was inspired to make this after seeing this fabulous desk Carol (Pepper) at MitchyMooMiniatures made for me after I was so lucky to win her give-away! The drawers even open! Thank you so much, Pepper's husband (Salt?), for the draw!

The doll in kimono is a gift from Cocco. The lamp is an altered Re-ment lamp. The laptop is also by Re-ment. Seven chair from Minimii. Tiny Hello Kitty in a Japanese costume is a cell phone ornament. Selfmade George Nelson ball clock.

On the counter is another Hello Kitty ornament.
Inside there's a Re-ment plate and some moon lamps designed by Cocco.

Heart chair by Reac, a gift from Sans, I love it, thank you so much! The Piero Fornasetti plates on the wall are made using a photo from the Collectors magazine, a give-away I won from the fabulous Shopping Sherpa who was interviewed in the magazine and featured in the TV show as well! Sadly I didn't manage to make them as neat as she did hers. Shelf by Re-ment. Vases by Elisabeth Causeret and Re-ment. If anyone knows the artist who made the painting I would be grateful, I just found it on the Net. The facade of Spook House is (of course) made of lego.

I wish you all a very nice summer!
United Kingdom Come!

Meet Jon Line - On paper and on line

Recently Jon Line, Polly Line's little brother, came to town. He's studying computer science at the university (when he's not reading comics or building miniature ship models). Polly put her plans for a home office in her spare room on hold and turned it into a one-room apartment for him instead. Which means that the result is more her idea of the perfect bachelor pad than a nerdy student's idea of accomodation.

As you may can tell because it's so tidy, these pictures were taken before he moved in.

I had to take another photo of the kitchen to show Jon Line's housewarming gift. Can you spot it?

She invited Nora and Helmer over to meet Jon and to be the first to use her colourful new garden furniture. Jon's unhealthy complexion made Nora concerned about his health, but Polly said it just came from Jon staying indoors with his computer all the time.

The sliding windows to the roof terrace.

Jon Line in his typical position.


On sunny days he can be seen through the reflexion in his window.

Polly Line was asked to present her house in the Finnish magazine Nukkekoti, so the bachelor pad was decorated in a hurry before the deadline. She had many photos of her house from before, but none of them were in print quality, so she had to rephotograph most of her rooms -- and even the exterior. Here are copies of the six pages from the magazine:

The new outdoors photo was taken in late winter, so I had to recapture it on the livingroom table. Two bed sheets did service as sky.

Real outdoor photo

The new outdoors photo for the Finnish dollhouse magazine.

Credits: The furniture in Jon Line's apartment and on the roof terrace is mainly new and vintage Lundby. The sliding opening windows to the roof terrace are made of picture frames. Eames Elephant by Reac. Accessories are Lundby, Re-ment, Playmobil and Lego (the coloured drinking glasses on the terrace). The Donald Duck comics and the ships on the window sills are made by my son Bendik.

Stockholm 2011

In the previous post you got to see the tourist side of Stockholm with the old parts of town. But Stockholm isn't at all stuck in the old days, and has a lot of modern design to offer its visitors. Because of Easter we were lucky enough to get a relative cheap room at Nobis, the "Elle 2011 designer hotel of the year" in Sweden. It also had a great location, with a short walking distance to most of the central city.

When we first arrived I wasn't sure if it was a shop for designer lamps or a hotel. They had a collection of globe lamps from all over the globe! Very beautiful!

And even on cloudy days there's a beautiful light in the restaurant!

The Vitra Cloud Lamps are designed by Frank Gehry and assembled on the spot.

The lounge in the old backyard.

The ceiling is based on a photograph, looking up at the sky through the treetops.




A little angel was looking down upon us from the top of the wall over the bed.

Some of the other design treats I found.

On a walk to Kungsholmen we saw the new Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre by White Arkitekter. We were so lucky to get a private tour in it by one of the staff from the adjacent hotel. The conference hall could serve dinner for 2000 guests at once, catered by the hotel. We also got to see a junior suite on the top floor of the hotel. Unfortunately the photos from the suite didn't turn out very well because of all the bright sunlight from the windows.

We also visited Moderna Museet (the Museum of Modern Art) with a photo exhibition. In the restrooms/toilets there was a 1:12 miniature model that was filmed and displayed on a little TV outside. I almost didn't dare going inside in fear of being photographed "in action" and was relieved (!) to find the model inside.

Moderna Museet shares its vestibule and shop with Arkitekturmuseet (the Museum of Architecture ). Its permanent exhibition of models in different scales displays the architectural history of Sweden.

Some even seemed to be in dollhouse scale. Wouldn't it be great to play with these ones?

Stockholm and Indian Jazz funk

I still have little time for miniatures, the newest reason is that my daughter Mari performed with her dancing class at the annual show of the Communal Culture School today, and there's been much to prepare. She dances jazz funk and her class should all be dressed as American Indians, sort of, and I, who can't sew a straight seem, had to make her a costume! Luckily we found an old brown blouse at a charity shop, she also had some old brown trousers which could be used and finally our large collection of beads came in handy! Here is the end result, with heavy stage makeup and darkened hair for the occasion. The blouse hangs freely, it's just tucked in on the sides a little bit by her arms.

The concert house was full (about 700 persons) and being the proud mother I am, I have to tell you her dance group got the longest and strongest applause from the audience. I tried to take photos during the show, but since there were no lights except on stage, and we weren't allowed to use the flash, the camera decided to go artistic instead (if you look very closely, you can see Mari dancing to the left).

This weekend we'll be visiting family, so rather than showing the miniscenes I don't have, I thought I'd show you some photos from our holiday in Stockholm, Sweden. With all you folks out there with a new or old Lundby Stockholm dollhouse, I think it's appropiate you should get to know the eponymic city a little bit better :-)

Gamla Stan (The Old Town) skyline

A closer look

Stora Torget (the old Main Square)

Old Town streetviews

Down to the left from here is a nice little shop with lots of miniatures.

For those who didn't get enough pomp and circumstance last Friday, here's the Royal Mounted Pageantry of Sweden.

And for those who miss miniatures in this post, here's a weaver in a bottle. Genius!
(Seen in one of the many antique shops)

One of Stockholm's many islands; Kastellholmen (Castle Island).
We went for a walk around that and its neighbouring island, Skeppsholmen (Ship Island)

At Moderna Museet (the Museum of Modern Arts) anything older than 50 years is considered garbage and thrown away.

While the Vasa ship, which capsized and sank the minute is was launched is rewarded with a museum of its own.

Torsten likes garden gnomes.

We left just in time to miss out on the blossoming of the cherrytrees in Kungsträdgården (The Royal Garden).