Say Hello to the Green Thumb

Two weeks ago. A beautiful sunset. In the countryside of Western Finland...

... with a colorful sky...

... a cozy, warming fire...

... and a rising half moon.

About a week ago I decided to give a try on growing herbs. I was actually a tiny bit afraid they would never start growing since the days are so short and dark this time of the year. But surprisingly - at least what i think is basil - started growing after a few days and now after more than a week the rosemary and mint started growing. I have never really considered myself as a "green thumb" and usually all flowers I sometimes had, died quickly... but maybe I have grown more adult when growing herbs etc. has become interesting :D

/ina

Two Cones and Moss and some words about Marimekko

These cones were captured by me in autumn 2009.

Yesterday I read in a Finnish tabloid (Iltalehti) about a new plagiarism scandal with Marimekko. A pattern called Kuuskajaskari designed by Aino-Maija Metsola is claimed to resemble a ceramic work Heljä Liukko-Sundström desingned for Arabia Finland. They actually never shown any comparison between the Marimekko textile-work and the ceramic work in the newspapers, so I had to Google it myself. 

If they ment to compare these two pieces below (on left: Marimekko, on right: Arabia), I have to say they don't resemble each other that much. The same colors can be observed but the artwork for Arabia includes an island and rabbits and penguins which cannot be found in the artwork for Marimekko. But as we know tabloids and even newspapers love to make a big deal of something that might be a potential scandal, and people read it. And since Marimekko is a strong Finnish brand and plagiarism has been revealed before (which in that case was very clear and can be compared here) and when some piece of work that could be too similar to another designers work it is of course debated. A question that also was pointed out in this article was: How similar can someone else's work be that it could be defined as plagiarism?

Both pictures can be found here. Marimekko textile.

Heljä Liukko-Sundström for Arabia.

Well, when Google'ing further Aamulehti (another Finnish paper) had a real comparison of the similar artworks. Now you can see they are more similar. Still the Marimekko textile has less details compared to Heljä Liukko-Sundström's work and they are composed a little bit differently. In Aino-Maija Metsola's work the horizon is in the middle while it is much higher in Liukko-Sundström's 

Pic from here

work. The colors and shades differ... In my opinion the these two pieces of artwork are not too similar, I see different ideas. 

I see the Marimekko piece more as clubrush on a beach, where upper part below the blue could be sand (in autumn shades) and the blue part a darkened October sky. 

The Arabia piece I see as a cultivated field in August when some of the seed still is green and some has already changed to yellow.

This was only my point of view and I don't know the real deal what happened when the Marimekko piece was designed. Either Aino-Maija Metsola confesses to the media that Liukko-Sundström's work inspired her or something or then not. But both pieces are quite simple and I guess everybody at least as a child has drawn something similar, or a similar flower field, anything. Now I'm not claiming that simple art is bad or less valuable, I like it simple, but simple art can more easily be re-painted and by drawing grass or a field you are probably not the first one coming up with the idea.

Oh, I have probably never wrote anything this long in this blog :o

/ina

Countryside near Stockholm

Here's some pictures from the trip to the countryside. As we hoped, we got a wonderful weather for the whole weekend... so we managed to go outdoors for some "hiking", to get rid of the huge amount of calories we gained during the weekend (haha).

Now I just feel so relieved about passing the course exam, and I'm even more exited about travelling to Finland tomorrow. Actually, I cannot recall when it would have felt this good travelling home. I guess I could start packing now!

Fall

October 2011.