Making in its core is problem-solving. The more you work with different materials and tools the bigger your problem-solving arsenal gets. And there are few better feelings than solving a problem in the most elegant or, even better, creative way.
I come from a family of glassblowers. My dad is a glassblower and, disregarding a two generations gap, all our forefathers before that were also glassblowers (17th century is where the trail gets really hard to follow).
Considering the history I started blowing glass rather late, in my early twenties. I kind of have an obsession with mastering the things I get into. That’s what kept me off of glassblowing for so long. I knew it would take years of practice to even get decent. So why bother? I tell you why.
Everyone who has tried glassblowing knows it’s among the most addictive substances known to man. That’s what happened to me too, I got hooked. It was obvious that to get good at glassblowing it has to become your profession.
There are all the other materials and then there’s glass. Glass in its molten state differs greatly from all the other materials I’ve worked with. What makes glassblowing unique is the intensity. It demands all your attention. There’s no taking breaks or losing focus even for a second. It’s also hard. Really hard. Every tiny bit of progression you make keeps you wanting to continue learning.
With other materials, I’m more concerned with the end product while in glassblowing it’s more about the creation process.
In music, the art itself is composing and playing the music. You can then make a record of the song you play. I view glassblowing the same way. The finished blown glass piece is just a record of the creation process.
Puukkos
I got my first puukko knife at the age of three. That’s really what sparked my interest in hand crafting. As a kid, I went everywhere with my puukko. And when school started I was upset I had to leave it home.
I’ve been making puukkos and other knives as a hobby for a few years. Knifemaking for me is the polar opposite of glassblowing. There’s no rush and you can take all the time you need making fine adjustments until you’re pleased with the work.
Knifemaking allows me to work with different techniques and materials, such as wood, metal, and leather. Together they combine into a meaningful and purposeful piece.
In 2018 I decided to take part in the Finnish puukko championship and won bronze medal with my knife.
All my puukkos are made to be used, not only to be looked at. To me, a Finnish puukko represents a perfect design object where form and function meets. It’s one of the simplest and most versatile tools.
Web design
At the age of fifteen, my newly formed Action Quake 2 clan was in desperate need of a website to announce the world how awesome we were. (The clan name was Tactical Wombats by the way. That’s how awesome.) I was already a maker back then and eager to learn new skills so it was inevitable that I would try and make one.
Back then there were none of these fancy modern web design programs we have today. It was purely done in Notepad, one HTML tag at a time. Couple of years and way more clans later I decided that our clan needed a content management system to post past battles, add members and keep the site updated. No such CMS existed back then, at least none that would please me, so again I had to make one my self. I had to learn some basic PHP and mySQL. The code was really sketchy, but hey, it worked.
Nowadays of course I cheat too, using mostly WordPress for building websites. The background of actually coding sites still helps though. I’m not stuck with stock themes and features. At least I can tweak them a bit.
So if you need a cool new custom website, hit me up!