Black Heart Press

Valtteri Halmetoja
“ELÄMÄ ON KUIN PIERU, TEHDÄÄN KIMPPALOTTO”
Woodcut, Tampere 2009
Edition of 5, printed on Japanese paper.

As we all know, Finnish is a pretty awesome language. (For those who didn’t know yet - let the LA TIMES inform you: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2008/11/why-finnish-is.html). It is also a pretty difficult language at times, even for the natives. The woodcut pictured above is by Finnish artist Valtteri Halmetoja, a description of it was written by Finnish art critic Veikko Halmetoja and given to Minna Sarvanne, who cut her version of the image based on Veikko’s text.
This was also done the other way round, with Minna providing the original image and Valtteri doing a lino cut after Veikko’s description.

For more information on (and additional images of) the “Rikkinäinen puhelin / Broken Telephone” project visit:
http://www3.jkl.fi/taidemuseo/graphica_creativa/2009/broken_telephone.htm

Valtteri doesn’t only make far out woodcuts, he’s also a really cool guy who invited Swedish artist and printmaker Magnus Dahl & yours truly to enjoy the comfort of his sauna and Finnish jazz records after a long day in the printshop. Those Fins, they truly know how to live.

Further reading:

Learn useless Finnish:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Learn-useless-Finnish/102594753145129