After an intense week of meetings and research in Oslo, I expected a textile-study-free weekend, relaxing at my friends Arve and Inger’s cabin in Sweden. But I was wrong. On Friday, we started a peaceful journey on a curvy highway through the forest en route to Arvika, Sweden. Right across the border, when Inger stopped for our breakfast provisions, I stepped into a crazy candy mega-store. I posted a video on Instagram of hyper-excited children trolling hundreds of candy bins.
An hour later, Marthe Kampen, a Norwegian artist whose works I like very much, wrote to me on Messenger, “If you are in Charlottenberg, that is very close to my house and atelier🤩.” We are Instagram friends and I’ve admired her abstract flower paintings for a long time. (Check out these!)
I talked with Arve. “Kampen? How old is she? I might know her father. Ask her if she knows Rune Kampen.” Once Arve’s hunting group (in the 1970s) shot an elk deep in the forest and Karl Kampen (Marthe’s great-grandfather) brought his horse to haul it out. That was odd because most horses are afraid of dead animals, but this one was not. Karl Kampen was 79 at the time.
We decided to make a swing to Austmarka on the way home from Arvika to Bjørkelangen on Sunday. We drove on a road lined with trees and occasional golden wheat fields, ready for harvest. We could have been in northern Minnesota but the shoulders are much wider in the U.S. At one point I looked at the map on the screen and thought it was odd that we were only 9 kilometers away from our destination yet it would take 19 minutes. Then we turned onto a narrow gravel road that twisted even deeper into the forest, past occasional stacks of long pine logs, newly harvested.
Marthe Kampen and her artist husband, Johannes B. Hansen, live on an old family farm in a valley overlooking a lake. The barn is beautifully outfitted as a studio for Johannes’ graphic work and Marthe’s painting and textile work.
When you meet new friends, or talk with friends you haven’t seen for years, there’s a good chance the discussion will turn to how you were affected by the pandemic. Marthe and her husband were quarantined way out in the country with their new baby and a young son. About that time Marthe discovered tufting, which she approached in a painterly way; lines of tufted wool replaced the strokes of her paintbrush. Working on a textile in the house had advantages; she could be near the baby, the materials are not toxic, it was portable, and could be started and stopped depending on the children’s schedules. Marthe commented that it has been the same back through time – a mother near her children, completing textile work. Her husband had more freedom to complete studio work.
She completed her first large work in tufting as the pandemic progressed, “For de dager som ikke kommer igjen” [“For those days that won’t come again].” The complex design grew based on their life together as a family: flowers in season, sketches by her son, and even the shape of his face as Marthe traced it.
This studio is a magic place for someone like me who is tekstil-avhengig, a Norwegian term which translates as textile-dependent or textile-addicted. Huge skeins of yarn hang on the walls. Marthe still uses a 150-year-old loom from her husband’s family.
Marthe offered us freshly-baked eplekake [apple cake] and coffee in a house that is clearly an extension of her life as an artist. The solid wood floors and walls give a solid, timeless feeling, which makes sense when you see the living room wall with exposed hand-hewn timbers, likely from the 1700s. Bookshelves line two walls and frame a reading spot big enough for adults, but especially beloved of children. A kitchen window frames a view of the lake and valley.
If I hadn’t posted the photo of the crazy Swedish candy store I would have missed this opportunity to meet Marthe and see her studio. The trip gave my host Arve the chance to drive roads he knew well from earlier years of his life. More than once he commented, “I was at a party at that house.”
And probably because I am her Instagram friend from America, Marthe said she was quite surprised when she heard back from me. “The last thing I expected is that you would ask if Rune is my father!”
Watch for an article on more of Marthe Kampen’s work in the October issue of the Norwegian Textile Letter.