Martti Rytkönen

MARTTI RYTKÖNEN

It is with obvious warmth that he talks about the cold. About northern Karelia in Finland right on the border with Russia. There he sees water in all directions and sparkling ice in the winter. Here, Martti Rytkönen was enchanted by the clear and clean, by shiny surfaces and transparency.

Orrefors Kosta Boda 2014.

One of his sculptures is a massive cube of clear crystal that balances elegantly on a corner. Some exact sharp inserts in the glass create endless shifts and reflections depending on the angle you see it from. That's why it's called "Angle". Simple and clean. It could be made of ice.

Martti Rytkönen is the master of pure glass. When he uses colors, they are transparent.

The glass craftsmen gather around him in the cabin. Martti sketches eagerly. The craftsmen must give his sketches a body, not only with three dimensions but a body with four. Because when the clear surface of crystal gets a ground or etched detail, a fourth dimension arises.

It is far from Karelia in Finland to Kosta in Småland. But Martti's own journey is much longer.

In 1967 he sat in the village school in Ilomantsi and screwed himself on the bench. He is 7 years old and it is crawling in his legs. He just wants out. Out fishing! He wants to stand there alone in silence with his fishing rod. Do not sit in the classroom and fill the exercise book with numbers.

- One was the most difficult number to write, Martti remembers. I did not get it straight. Why does it have to be straight? I thought. It can be bent in slightly different directions, right?

The great loneliness

It is drawing and music he is best at. And language.

The family lives in a small house that overlooks the water in all directions.

It's like living on an island. With so much water around, he often sees rainbows arching over the lakes and marveling at the colors.

For Martti, real life is out there. He talks about the "great loneliness".

The one he seeks voluntarily and becomes humble before the greatness of nature. There he can gather his thoughts.

- I have to go to the big loneliness quite often, he says.

Now Martti is in the heat with his colleagues at the mill. They make color samples for "Oval" a vase that Martti works with. Clear glass and transparent purple and green. But he is not happy with the tone. They do it again.

Good communication on the floor in the cabin is crucial. If it does not work, it does not matter how good the sketches are. It was difficult at first. When he came to Orrefors twenty years ago, he certainly spoke fluent Swedish, with the language here in Småland coming from another planet.

- Hauä nulen dö vau? they shouted at me and I said; va? Mä kusen så hä! Dä? shouted someone else and I said; va? In the cabin they thought he did not understand Swedish very well, and began to speak louder and slower to him in a simplified language. But he also learned Småland.

Back to Karelia, 1967.

Martti is the second youngest of seven siblings. The father is a forest worker and a raftman, the mother takes care of the home and children. They have a cow, a dog and a cat and they grow their own potatoes and some vegetables. They pick mushrooms and berries in the forests and then they fish. Mom's hot fish soup is a favorite.

- And Karelian pasties stuffed with potatoes! Butter fried vendace! Have you tasted it? Oh that's so good. Martti disappears into food memories. Pepper risk with fried onions! Why do you not eat pepper rice in Sweden? That it is considered toxic, he waves away. It's just to boil.

Death under the skis

Ilomantsi means "the happy village". But the winter is very long in Karelia and can be inhumanly cold. He knows what the snow looks like when it is 30 degrees biting minus and every breath hurts.

- It strikes sparks around it!

Martti, who always looks at things closely, sees that the sparks crackle in different colors.

To keep the cottage warm, they push up snow drifts against the outer walls.

Inside the window glass, ice crystals grow in magical patterns.

How do they get such beautiful patterns?

When the full moon is shining, it happens that they pick up their skis and glide across the lake in the middle of the night. For Martti, those nights are magical. But also so scary that the neck hair rises. Under their skis on the lake floor are the dead. The Russian soldiers who were stopped right here in Ilomantsi during World War II. Their spirits go again. And there are those who claim to have seen a man with a horse and carriage ride through the woods at night.

Legends, anecdotes, rainbows and ice. Howling wolves and ice crystals. Patterns on window glass, sparks from the snow, and everything else he studies curiously will set the tone of his glass. But of course he does not know that. He's just drinking the world.

Martti packs everything when he leaves Karelia for a job in healthcare in Sweden. Eventually, he will bring the stories to life again. He will make the ice burn, catch the crystals and make rainbows dance at Orrefors glassworks.

But it is not in his wildest imagination that he, a simple floating son from Karelia, can become a successful glass artist and designer.

In the evenings, he takes a turning course at a study association and discovers the joy of form and dimensions.

One day, an old piece of paper singles out of his jacket pocket. It is an advertisement for an artistic line at Kyrkerud's folk high school in Värmland. Yes of course. Why not try. He searches and enters.

Does not fit in my skin

For two years he develops his painting and works mostly with ceramics. Then he applies to the line for ceramics and glass in art subjects, but strongly doubts his ability.

- I did not even intend to retrieve the recommended letter with the message, he says. It felt completely pointless. But a friend forced me.

He had come in.

The training included a shorter period of internship at Orrefors glassworks. It was there and then Martti fell in love.

- The glass seduced me immediately, he says. It's the light. How it is refracted and reflected. It lives its own life. You can never completely decide on it. Think of glass with air bubbles in it! They are preserved there for thousands of years. Same air! Maybe there are voices encapsulated in the bubbles that can be liberated one day?

At Orrefors, Martti gets to use his storytelling joy. His thesis becomes a large dish in clear glass, "A day in Hagaparken", where he engraves pictures from his diary notes. With the dish, he wins a competition and is later rewarded with a scholarship. When he has his degree exhibition, he is offered to continue working at Orrefors.

- What a huge joy! I could not understand it! All my stress ran off. That pressure to go out and make a name for yourself.

Then he suddenly stands in the cabin and is a co-worker with some of the famous glass artists he has looked up to. His first production will be a small greeting to Karelia. The Volfie series with etched wolves.

After a while, he gets to go on a signing tour in the United States. Martti is proud. Calls home and tells me he's in Beverly Hills now.

Mother's first question: - Have you eaten?

Kosta 2014

Now the color samples seem to be on the right track. The glass should be cooled, then you will see.

Martti is satisfied after hours in the cabin. Takes a few dance steps on the paved farmyard.

-– Oh it's so funny !!! I can not fit in my skin!

He always carries his sketchbook with him. Nature flows with images that can be turned into glass.

There are dreams he wants to realize. One is to place a large glass sculpture in a secret place deep in the forest. Maybe a giant Angle? In a clearing where the light suddenly penetrates the branches, it is only there. Mighty and brilliant in the purest glass. It is mossy and a little damp. Fog. And whoever is lucky enough to see it, should feel chosen and be filled with clarity and light. In the great loneliness.

By Eva-Pia Worland