23/06/2026
Happy Midsummer 🌿🔥
— here with the world’s smallest bonfire, photographed in FISKARS VILLAGE for HÅNDVÆRK bookazine no 10
Bookazine no. 10 will introduce you to practising artists and their work as well as the artisans and craftspeople whose knowledge and skills make their artistic production possible. You will also meet an art academy rector, a museum director and a gallery owner and as here visit the artist community in the Finnish village of Fiskars.
In my talk with designer Birgitte Due Madsen, she introduces her materials-based approach, which she calls ‘from one-of-a-kind to more-of-a-kind’. With this, she taps into a long tradition of artists and craft makers alternating between creating unique works of art and collaborating with companies that put their pieces into serial production. A well-known practitioner of this combined approach was Axel Salto, whose work, at the time of writing, is the topic of an exhibition at CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark. You can in the bookazine meet Rikke Salto, who joined the Salto family through marriage. She talks about her work creating chas- ubles in cooperation with Selskabet for Kirkelig Kunst (Danish Society for Ecclesiastical Art.
‘A small number of people do really well, but it’s not enough to be a good artist, you also need to understand the dynamics of the business and have good social skills,’ Søren Ellitsgaard underscores. Since 2003, he has owned and run Litografisk Atelier (Lithographic Studio), which publishes lithographs for several ac- claimed contemporary artists.
Before choosing the life of an artist, it is important to consider and accept the likely prospect of living with a patchwork economy.
What patches might be combined in such a composition is a topic I discuss with visual artist Pernille Kapper Williams.
Welcome to a bookazine about art and its underlying premise, about the urge and passion to create, about per- sistence and confidence, about clay, bronze, hare glue and pigments, about textiles, wood and stone.
