Glass in Finland

My trip to Finland in February was amazing. I was lucky to have befriended a native who knew all the "places to be" for glass there. Even though Sweden and Finland are right next to each other it was quite a journey. We decided to take a boat cruise from Stockholm to Helsinki, which is an economical and popular way to travel between the two countries. All and all it took us a taxi, train, bus, train, and finally a boat to get to Helsinki. I think the travel time ended up being 28 hours. I would say that at least we got to sleep on the boat, but you don't do much sleeping on the Silja or Viking Line. The boat trip is a time for party. It was worth it.
And the traveling did not end there. Our guide wanted us to see the Ittala factory and museum, the Nuutajarven factory and museum, and a handful of glass museums and schools. This meant that we traveled pretty far north working on seeing all the sites as we made our way back to Helsinki.
I want to discuss the differences and similarities between glassworking styles in Finland and Sweden, but I am still figuring that out. Until then I will show what I saw and maybe that will get my mind working.

Factory floor in Nuutajarvn.

Factory floor in Iitala.

My tour guide and friend, Anniina Tenno. Big thanks to Anniina!

Factory/Glass Pics

Here are some of the factory pics that I promised long ago. I have internet at my apartment now (whee) so I should be better about posting pics, and posting in general.


Here is the factory floor.

This is one of the molds, it is set in the ground,

water sprays after each use, all operated by foot pedal.

This machine pulls out the stems for wine glasses, though a lot of the work is still done by hand.

These last three pics are from a private studio in the region.

Very cozy in the woods and seemed like an awesome place to work.

Last Semester Wrap Up

After a bit the novelty of the blog thing seemed to wear off. I think that I became a bit too involved in my Swedish lifestyle to care about the writing part. But now that I stepped away and went home for the winter break I feel like writing a bit again. Plus it will help me remember the details in the future. I don’t think much about details until I write things down. Leaving Sweden and then coming back made me appreciate it a bit more. Little things like smelling the forest instead of smog. I couldn’t smell the forest after I had been here for a while. I had a good end to last semester. I went to Norway for a bit and then to Stockholm. Norway is an extremely beautiful country, and expensive, and all the people are beautiful too. Before I flew to Chicago I went to Copenhagen for a few days and had a good time. I was traveling alone and I think that it was a good test run for my backpacking that I will be doing this summer.
This semester I plan to go to Finland, so after that I will have visited all the Scandinavian countries minus one. I am especially excited about this trip because it will be glass oriented, visiting glass factories and museums with my friend who used to work at the Ittala glass museum/factory. It will be like having a personal behind the scenes tour guide. I guess it takes a certain kind of person to get excited about factory tours. I think it’s cool.
This semester I am working in the student section of the factory. Orrefors has a school building where the students are typically beginners, and then the third and fourth year students work in the factory. Then there are random international people like me who get placed wherever works at the time. I wanted to work in both areas during the year just to see everything. I started working at the factory this week and I really like it. I went back to mold blowing and realized yet again that it is a lot harder than it looks. But by the end of the week I had a pretty good handle on it.
Though I enjoy working at the factory I feel that it is bittersweet. Before the Christmas break three hundred people from the Afors, Kosta, Orrefors factories were laid off. When I returned they found out that an additional two hundred would lose their jobs, 117 at Orrefors alone. The building is so quiet and different than what it was when I first got here. There are still people working, but barely. Production will pretty much stop after the next lay off. I know that this is not uncommon anywhere right now, but it is still sad to see. And knowing that there are other factories of all kinds stopping production in the region, and with so many people losing their jobs, I just wonder what they will do.