Netherlands

I am a Dutch woman, living in Norway. Norway is a beautiful country to live in, we live on a mountain, 720 meter above sea-level, this is a rather high place to live for Norway, the treeline is about 900 meter. So we have long winters, beginning in October and ending in May. This give me the opportunity, to dye a lot with snow and ice, in the summertime I do a lot of eco printing.

I love to make things and produce jewellery, handbags and some experimental wall-hangings from the fabric I dye.

There is a lot of handcraft in Norway, most in the traditional way. I develop my own style and am experimenting a lot with different materials. Being part of a textile art group, like Fifteen by Fifteen, will give me the challenge to explore more techniques and to create things, using a theme. The size of the works makes it possible to do so. Furthermore there are the members of the group, exploring the same theme and helping each other to a higher level in creating.

Since I was a little girl, I work a lot with textile. My mother loved fabrics, so there was always a stock, and I was the one using them. I became a decorator and window display manager, did an education in teaching handcraft and followed, but not completed, an education for colour therapist.

In the 80’s and 90’s, I had my own company, developing and making jewellery, which I sold to shops in Holland, Belgium and Switzerland. During that period, a lot of my work was copied and it was in that time, that I decided to create my own materials and make it more difficult to steel my product. That is, when the textile, metal and paper became the most important materials for me and my work. It took several years, before I got the time to explore these materials, but since the last five years, I work and grow with it.

http://ekeskleurdesign.blogspot.no/