Nature has been important to me since my childhood; I grew up surrounded by flowers and trees in my parent’s market garden. I was already moving around the greenhouse by the age of one, and I saw how my parents treated the flowers. In autumn, I collected fallen leaves, and dried them between the pages of books; I still have some stored in a box.
My art has a close relation to nature; I have always loved natural colours. As a child, I collected flowers in bundles, and at school my classmates copied my beautiful drawings to decorate the classroom windows. I have studied colours theoretically, and I have specially concentrated on the white pigment. I am a pioneer in producing micro-cellulose products.
I noticed the malleability of clay already as a child. I played with clay and made all sorts of things with it. Clay was found in the ground. I noticed the feel of clay with microcellulose and developed a new material, Sisusavi®. It can be handled like clay, but it doesn’t dirty clothes.
My first books, which were foreign flower catalogs in which my father glued pictures, were worn from much handling. In my first school class (at age 7 in Finland), I presented adult-level poems with advice from my mother. I borrowed books from the library, and read them in the attic in peace. In my matriculation examination test, I wrote an essay on the topic “Man is Wolf to Man.” Later, I studied fiction writing in the University of Helsinki and the Orivesi Writing School.