Rigetta Klint

HÅNDVÆRK bookazine - master and apprentice Rigetta Klint Uk, 1.1 edition

HÅNDVÆRK promotes the living, changing practice of art and crafts. HÅNDVÆRK is about architecture, design, crafts, art, fashion and food – but most of all, it is about people. People with knowledge, skills and passion – craft makers and artisans who are carriers of culture. In HÅNDVÆRK bookazine no. 14, you will meet masters and apprentices who are passionate about their fields and about each other. Publisher, designer, photographer and writer Rigetta Klint about this bookazine: I enjoy every minute I spend making interviews and taking photographs for HÅNDVÆRK – as well as the many hours at the desk, working on my material. My work on every new issue – and every new theme – gives me access to knowledge and insights that change or shift my gaze. It is my hope that reading the bookazine will provide a similar experience. This time, my focus is on the relationship between master and apprentice. In other words: education. Please welcome a bookazine where relations are at least as important as working processes, materials and products. I have looked into the traditional apprenticeship model, which alternates between technical school studies and on-the-job learning – here personified by Kenneth Toft-Hansen, executive chef and lessee of the seaside hotel Svinkløv Badehotel, and his apprentice William Kragh Eklund, and by carpenter and journeyman Rasmus Bjørn Alderson, owner of the carpentry and restoration firm Bjørns Træværk og Restaurering, and his (former) apprentice Mathias Orlands. I also looked at other ways of apprenticing – situations that require creative solutions, in fields where the model is under pressure or not in use. For example, in textile designer Lisbet Friis’s studio, where Josefina Enevold has benefitted from Friis’s extensive experience as a textile printmaker. In goldsmith Hongxia Wang’s studio, I met Wang’s daughter, Isabel Wang Pontoppidan, who holds an MA in Art and Performance Research Studies from the university in Amsterdam. Isabel makes jewellery and enjoys having her mother as her master. A bookazine about apprentice-and-master relationships will inevitably address the personal and professional generosity that is a core requirement of the master. A big responsibility that commands respect. Apprentices and interns are not cheap labour but people you have to meet at eye level and induct into your profession. This generosity is returned as inspiration and insights into the next generation’s understanding of the field and the joy of passing on knowledge. Apprenticing, on the other hand, demands a certain degree of humility as well as commitment and enthusiasm. The bookazine is also about the masters who indirectly influence all of us through their works – their masterpieces. At the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, I met architect Nini Leimand, head of the bachelor’s programme Architecture’s Anatomy and Fabrication. She talks about learning from canonized works as well as from dedicated contemporary masters. Speaking of masterpieces: the bookazine invites you behind the scenes to witness the creation of a small masterpiece in glass. First in a conversation with designer Mia Lagerman, then on a visit to Erika Kristofersson Bredberg, co-owner of the Glasbolaget glassworks in Bro, north of Stockholm. Glasbolaget produces Mia’s glass designs. Erika trained in the so-called Kingdom of Crystal in Småland, which I also visited. Join me on this trip – along the way, the conversation will turn to ... all sorts of topics!