The following is excerpted from “Slöjd in Wood,” by Jögge Sundqvist. The book begins with teaching you how to make a butter knife – a useful object that requires just a knife, boiling water and paint to make it – that will begin to unlock the world of slöjd for you.
You will then learn to make bowls, a sheath for your knife, spoons, a place to hang your clothes, cutting boards and so many more things. In the end, you will look up into the branches of the trees around your home and see the things you need.
“Slöjd in Wood” is the first English translation of Jögge’s classic Swedish book. It’s a gorgeous peek into a work that is dominated by saturated colors, crisp bevels and handmade work.
In addition to introducing you to the pieces you can make for your home, Jögge shows you how to grip the knife to produce the cuts shown in the book safely and efficiently. And shows you how to replicate the deep colors on your pieces that are positively mesmerizing. (The color photos shown here are just some of the projects from the book.)
Pigment I use oil paint because I am inspired by traditional objects from the 18th and 19th centuries, which often were painted. The makers used a very limited range of pigments.
Some color pigments have been used for thousands of years and are made from soil, minerals and plant material; umbers and ochres in nuances from dark brown to yellow and red. White soil types and limestone gave us white colors and soot gave us black. Red cinnabar, green earth, mineral green, lapis lazuli and ultramarine came from the minerals. Van Dyke brown, madder lake, indigo, saffron, gamboge and dragon’s blood came from plants. Indian yellow was taken from the urine of cattle, purple from the Murex shellfish and ink from the octopus and squid. White lead, red lead and the copper color verdigris were produced a long time ago. Chrome yellow, cobalt green and Prussian blue came about in the 18th century.
In the 19th century, many colors were developed – cadmium yellow, chrome oxide green, cobalt blue, synthetic ultramarine.
All pigments have different properties such as transparency, oil absorption and drying time that you must take into consideration.
Add a small amount of boiled linseed oil to the artist’s oil paint until you get the consistency of liquid yogurt to facilitate painting.
Shrink boxes of aspen and birch. “Ah,” Marble cup,” “The Queen,” “Heart tulip” with a sliding lid, sugar container.
Linseed Oil Linseed oil is a byproduct of flax cultivation. Oil can be pressed from the seeds and the rest used as animal feed. Linseed oil oxidizes and once it is thoroughly dried, leaves a tough film that protects the surface. This property proved useful when the oil was mixed with a pigment. I use boiled linseed oil in combination with pigments because it generally dries faster than raw linseed oil, in one to three days. I avoid the brands that contain toxic drying agents such as oxides and heavy metals.
For unpainted wooden surfaces that need finishing, I use raw, cold-pressed, sun-oxidized linseed oil (food-grade raw linseed oil is sold in the U.S. as flaxseed oil). It penetrates more easily and doesn’t yellow as much as the boiled linseed oil. Drying time varies, usually one week for surface drying and up to eight weeks to be completely oxidized in the wood.
Dispose of oily rags properly. In Sweden we burn rags or soak them in water and put them in a sealed plastic bag. The oxidization process produces heat, so spontaneous combustion of rags or paper is a danger. In the U.S., the accepted practice is to spread them out and hang them to dry. When they are fully dry, throw them away in a lidded, metal trashcan.
Paint is made up of two elements: pigment and the binding agent. The pigment gives the color. The binding agent fixes the pigment to the surface making it durable, creating luster and enhancing the color. Each combination has unique tone, opacity and drying properties.
Painting with Linseed Oil The pigment must be carefully mixed with the binding agent for the oil paint to avoid becoming grainy and uneven. Historically, the pigment was ground with the linseed oil using a flat stone and a glass muller, or in a mortar. The artist’s oil paint we buy in tubes today is ground between rollers under high pressure in a mill, mixing linseed oil in proportion to the oil absorption of the pigments. This is practical and time-saving, and gives a very smooth result.
Apply finish in a thin layer. Thin the tube paint with boiled linseed oil until it has the consistency of liquid yogurt. Then it is easily applied directly on the wood without priming.
Add oil little by little. Different pigments require different amounts of oil, so experiment on a sample piece of wood. You will find that you need a relatively small amount of paint to cover well.
The paint should be a satin finish when it has dried for one to three days. Too much oil gives an uneven, patchy surface that becomes glossy when it dries. Too little oil is hard to spread out and leaves a dry, matte surface with less protection.
If you want total coverage and a glossy finish, apply the paint in several thin layers, leaving drying time between layers.
Birch stools, “Bowling” and “Button.”
Drying time varies between pigments. Earth colors are quick-drying in general. For example, add a pinch of raw umber to titanium white or bone black to speed up the drying process. You can also add a few drops of the drying agent siccative, but it is toxic and it weakens the paint.
Pigments have different opacity characteristics. For example, you often mix titanium white for coverage with zinc white, which has better drying properties. This is called “mixed white.”
You can thin the paint with turpentine to make it easier to apply and faster to dry. Add the turpentine by drops with a pipette. Too much turpentine harms the binding qualities of the linseed oil and it is toxic. Use only in well-ventilated areas.
Always test the paint on a sample of the same type of wood and surface that you will use. Color choices are always a delicate balance between saturation level, blackness, whiteness, tone and transparency. Test samples will also give you an idea of the drying time. The best way to ensure a thin, even coat is to work first across the grain, then with the grain. Synthetic brushes give a good result.
Rosalind Cuthbert’s “The Oil Painter’s Pocket Palette” (North Light) has color-mixing charts to help you achieve any color or value you want. Mix paint in small, air-tight containers so you can use the paint for several months. Remove the skin on the surface before you paint.
Butter knives and cake slicers made of split birch wood. Decorated with chip carving and painted with linseed oil paint.
The following is excerpted from Jögge Sundqvist’s “Slöjd in Wood.” The first project (excerpted here) is a butter knife that will begin to unlock the world of slöjd for you. You will then learn to make bowls, a sheath for your knife, spoons, a place to hang your clothes, cutting boards and so many more things. In the end, you will look up into the branches of the trees around your home and see the things you need.
“Slöjd in Wood” is the first English translation of Jögge’s classic Swedish book. It’s a gorgeous peek into a work that is dominated by saturated colors, crisp bevels and handmade work. In addition to introducing you to the pieces you can make for your home, Jögge shows you how to grip the knife to produce the cuts shown in the book safely and efficiently. And shows you how to replicate the deep colors on your pieces that are positively mesmerizing.
Carving a butter knife is a good beginner project. It may seem to be an easy object to make, but the design requirements require some reflection. A tapered handle with a thin blade is important to work well.
Tools required: Axe, knife, drawknife (optional).
Carving direction for a butter knife.
Material: Juniper (Juniperus) is moisture resistant, dense and durable. Rowan (Sorbus) and maple (Acer) are excellent alternatives, as well as ring porous woods such as oak (Quercus) or ash (Fraxinus). My preference is to use birch (Betula) because it is convenient to make butter knives and spatulas from straight-grained leftovers from splitting green logs. It is also possible to split out blanks from naturally crooked blanks, if you wish.
Rough-finished and rough-carved blanks. It is important the handle fits the hand well and the blade is thin and flexible.
Select a straight-grain, knot-free piece of wood approximately 25cm to 30cm (9-1/2″ to 11-3/4″) long by 10 or more centimeters (3-15/16″) in diameter. Split it right through the pith of the wood. From one half, use your axe to rough out a piece 5cm (2″) wide by 2cm (3/4″) thick. Hew carefully along the wood grain, working down the grain so you don’t split the piece apart.
Roughing the blank.
If you need to remove a lot of material, use the axe to hew relief or scoring cuts nearly to your line. Start at the bottom and work your way up the blank. Then come down with the axe to chop this waste away. Taper the handle gradually toward the blade. If you have access to a shaving horse, it is a good idea to use a drawknife to quickly shape the form and create even bevels, or you can use a knife.
Taper the blade’s thickness from 6mm (1/4″) along the back to 3mm (1/8″) toward the edge. Feel the thickness with your fingers. A butter knife must be flexible or it will be too stiff to use. Cut or saw off the excess handle material and carve the bevels. The handle should be 16mm to 22mm (5/8″ to 7/8″) thick and have a total length of 170mm to 180mm (6-3/4″ to 7-1/16″).
Carving Away from Yourself Apart from the common elbow grip, there are some powerful and safe grips known as the power grip and the scissor grip.
Note that safety is important. The grips must be safe in your hand to give you the confidence to use the knife with the strength that is needed to cut through the wood. There are several tricks to get strength and controlled cuts, depending on the object you are making and the carving challenges. On page 102 you will find a list of 10 basic grips.
Power grip.
Power grip Hold the knife close to the blade. Drive the knife powerfully with a straight arm, without bending your elbow. Use the muscles in your shoulder and back. Lift your shoulder and carve downward with a smooth and firm movement. Tilt the tip of the blade upwards and skew the knife as you slice. The slicing action is from the handle toward the tip. Be sure that the bevel is riding on the wood. The concave bevel is supporting the cutting edge. This is one of the most common grips.
Scissor grip.
Scissor grip This is a grip providing good strength and, above all, control. Hold the knife in your hand with your palm facing upward and with the edge facing outward. Be sure that your thumb is on top of the handle. Take the material in one hand and the knife in the other, forming a pair of scissors in front of your chest. Curl your shoulders in a little and press your hands to your chest. Start the cut from the base toward the tip while you pull both the blank and the knife.
Slide your forearms along your body and feel how your shoulder blades and your shoulders pull back. This action helps your forearms to lever the cut, using large muscles. Press your knuckles onto your body. It is a combination of pulling the blank and slicing with the knife that makes the cut. If you want to make short stops, for example in the transition between the bowl and stem, press your knife hand firmly to your body, adding friction to stop. This is a strong grip.
CarvingTowardYourself
Pull grip.
Pull grip Hold the far end of the blank with your off hand and support it against your chest. The thumb of the knife hand rests on top of the handle and the tip of the knife is tilted away from the body. This way the base of the thumb hits the body before the knife releases from the wood. To provide safety, tuck your forearms against your ribs. Pull the knife toward your body and let the edge run from base to tip. While pressing and sliding with the forearm of the carving hand toward your chest, your wrist remains stiff. Press the bevel into the wood while you carve. This provides good support and a nice surface.
The crossed thumb grip (see page 108 [see below]) is necessary to smooth out the surface. Decorate and paint the handle with linseed oil paint, but don’t paint the blade or you will paint your food! Once the paint is dry, place the spatula blade in linseed oil and soak for a couple hours. The linseed oil must be food-grade – raw, cold-pressed and sun-thickened. (In the U.S., food-grade linseed oil is usually labeled as flaxseed oil.) Wipe off the excess oil with a rag or paper towel. Dispose of oily rags properly.
CROSSED THUMB GRIP Cutting direction – hybrid. Hand position – palm down, finger grip. Type of cut – shaping, clean-cutting. This grip is based on the can opener and thumb grips. You alternately carve from different directions on the work, first in a pushing phase (10a), then a pulling phase (10b). It is particularly useful when you need to control the area where straight grain and cross grain wood meet. For example, when smoothing a concave form.
10a. Crossed thumbs, pushing.
10a PUSHING – Grip the knife in your fingers so the back of the handle rests at the point where your fingers meet your palm. Be sure to position your index finger so it is about ¼” above the handle. The blade edge should line up with your fingernails. Stretch out the thumb of the knife hand to rest on the blank and act as a pivot point.
Slice across the work from tip to base. From the top view, the knife moves at a 90° angle to the work. The power for this cut comes from the shoulder and elbow moving in an arc with the thumb as the pivot point.
At the same time, place the other hand’s thumb to the back of the blade to add power. This also presses the bevel into the wood for added friction and control. As in the can opener grip, the safety stop is the index finger of the knife hand meeting the blank.
10b. Crossed thumbs, pulling (on a knob).
10b PULLING – When the pushing phase is complete, the knife edge is positioned next to the handle. Keeping this position and the thumb on the back of the blade, flip the knife so the edge is now facing away from you.
The elbow and shoulder have a pulling motion as the knife slices from base to tip. The non-knife thumb once again presses the knife’s bevel into the wood by pushing against the back of the blade.
From the top view, the knife slices across the work at a 90° angle in this phase as well. You are now back to the starting position to repeat the cycle. Remember that the blade’s edge is meant to slice into the wood, not to push it away!
This grip is very useful for carving V-shaped notches or bevels on knobs or pegs. When you are cutting V-shaped notches, first make a relief cut. Position the blade vertically at 90° to the work, and slice across the blank at the notch’s center point. If you are cutting a notch into an octagonal spindle, make the relief cut on all faces so the center mark will be properly aligned.
Proceed to cut the sides of the notches to the desired angle. For deep notches, repeat the push pull cycle until you reach the desired depth.
Carving repetitive, precise bevels is more controlled and effective with this grip.
Jögge Sundqvist (woodworker, teacher, performer, musician and author of several books) and Nina Lindelöf married 12 years ago, after having been together for 30 years. How did they meet?
“Ho, ho! It was rock ‘n’ roll,” Jögge says. “It was lovely.”
There were a lot of parties during those days. “And I saw this wonderful woman and I was so shy, I didn’t even dare to look at her,” Jögge says. “And she started to raise some interest. It was just right, totally right. And it still is.”
In 1992 they moved to the countryside, to Kasamark, about 20 minutes outside Umeå. At the time Nina had been working as a successful costume designer for Umeå’s local theaters.
“But we wanted out from the city,” Jögge says. “We had a daughter, Hillevi, who was 2-years-old, and we wanted her to grow up in the countryside, close to the forest, free.”
They spent two years before they found an 1824 nearly all-original Västerbottengård, a log house with two squared rooms on each side, an entrance in the middle and a little sleeping chamber beside the entrance. They planned to restore it.
Jögge and Nina’s Västerbotten house. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Jögge turned the old barn into a workshop to begin the restoration.
“I didn’t know much about making bigger things, like houses,” he says. “But I was very happy exploring working with logs and the ways of restoring an old house carefully and with respect for tradition.”
A restored baking oven is the main focus of the kitchen. Wooden items such as spoons, ladles and spatulas are natural items in the kitchen inside Jögge and Nina’s Västerbotten house. (photos by Jögge Sundqvist)
They lived in another house on the property during the restoration process. They had a son, Herman, in 1994. After five years, they sold the house they were living in so they could afford to move to the Västerbotten house.
Wille, Jögge’s father, Herman and Hillevi (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
By now Jögge had quit his job at Umeå Central Station, having been headhunted by the craft society to work as a craft consultant, “which I really appreciated a lot,” he says. In addition to working on his own craft he served as a craft consultant throughout Västerbotten part-time, between 1988 and 1998.
Surolle, a Sour Old Man Who Set Jögge Free Jögge approached craft and parenting in the same way his father did, never insisting that his children become slöjders.
“Because then, it would never happen,” he says. “My father was just showing me how exciting it was. He was very enthusiastic – you can do this and you can do that. He was just very engaged when I had an idea. So that was my task when I had kids – to encourage them to have fun in creativity.”
Hillevi, his daughter, enjoyed drawing, and Jögge encouraged that. And he did the same with his son, Herman.
Herman planing with a shaving around his head.(photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Herman with his ship, made in the workshop. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
“We had a wonderful period in our relationship when he was waiting to go to school and he and I had about 45 minutes in my workshop when the rest of the family was already in town,” Jögge says. “And he had a lot of ideas about what to do. And we made wooden ships and figures, whatever he fancied. Because he loved to fantasize and tell stories.”
One of the family’s favorite stories involves Herman when he was about 5 years old.
“I had a customer visiting my workshop and they were pretty upper mid class,” Jögge says. “And I knew that they were probably going to order something pretty expensive so I told my family, ‘I’m going to have a visit and you have to behave, kids.’”
The customers, a couple, came, looked at pictures and were interested in a chair, which Jögge was really happy about. They went back to the house where they found Herman standing in the entrance. The man asked him a question he heard often: “Are you going to be a slöjder, like your father?”
“And then my son, who is very talkable, looked them straight in the eye and said, ‘No. My father cuts in wood but I’m going to cut in flesh when I get old.’ And the guy looked at me like, ‘What kind of crazy kid is this?’ And I looked at my son as I had never heard of anything like this before!’ And then my son finished his sentence. ‘I’m going to be a surgeon when I grow up.’ And he is, he’s becoming a doctor.”
(The couple did, indeed, buy the chair.)
In many ways Jögge’s parenting style is similar to how he approaches his work. By encouraging a union of self-exploration of tradition and wild creativity, he makes room for good, beautiful and functional objects that are also filled with meaningful whimsy.
“My father was a trained furniture maker and that is much more precise and exact,” Jögge says. “But I was much more drawn to the older craft, to the axe, to the knife, to rougher surfaces. So when I decided to run my own business I knew I had to choose what path to take and I didn’t know where I was going.”
Jewelry box. Ash, birch. Artist linseed oil paint. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Box. Ash, birch. Artist linseed oil paint. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Book cover box. Ash, birch. Artist linseed oil paint. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Mirror top. Basswood. Artist linseed oil paint. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Armchair. Larch, hawthorn, birch. Artist linseed oil paint. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Chair. Pine, birch, glass. Artist linseed oil paint. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Box. Ash, birch. Artist linseed oil paint. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Spoons and ladles. Hook-grown birch. Artist linseed oil paint and raw linseed oil. (photo by Jostein Skeidsvoll)
Armchair. Pine, birch. Artist linseed oil paint. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
“I like colors. I like rough surfaces. I like carved surfaces. I like tradition. I like the way untrained peasants in the past had a special relationship to the material, how they picked the crooked and bent material in the woods and put it in the design so it was a special design, which I will say was the slöjd design of how things looked based on their traditional knowledge on how to use the knife and the axe and the materials and the joints that had worked for years and years and years. I wanted to go on that path. But I wasn’t sure if that was right,” he says.
When Jögge began pursing owning his own craft business full-time, he created thousands of designs and was sketching all the time. One afternoon he made a stool with a heart-like shaped seat, and three naturally bent legs, almost like they were dancing. He carved quotes and sayings on the top of it, such as “U better dance,” by Prince, and “Rock on!” He painted it bright red and the whole thing had a very traditional rock ‘n’ roll feel to it.
Kiss stool. Pine, birch. Artist linseed oil paint. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Jögge had the stool on the floor of his workshop when Hillevi came home from school that day. He was eyeing it critically, as usual, still unsure of his path. Hillevi had never seen anything like it.
“Who made this one?” she asked.
“At the time, I was really deep into thinking about my grandfather and the craft and my father and what the expression of traditional craft is,” Jögge says. “So I said to her – it just came out of me – ‘Oh, an old guy up in the mountains made this.’ And she asked me, ‘What’s his name?’ ‘Yeah, his name is Olle Olsson,’ which is a very common name in Sweden. ‘He’s a sour, grumpy old guy, Olle Olsson.’ And then she asked, ‘This Olle Olsson, what sort of animals does he have?’ Because we had a goat by then, and we had a rabbit and a cat but she wanted horses and everything else and we said no. ‘Olle Olsson, yeah, he has all of them. He has goats and sheep and horses and everything.’ And she loved naming things, so she asked me, ‘What kinds of names do they have?’ She was 9 years old by then so I finally had to tell her, ‘I’m just playing with you, I’m having fun.’ She just looked at me and said, ‘OK.’ And she ran to the house.”
Jögge continued working and about 40 minutes later Hillevi returned with drawings, “wonderful drawings,” Jögge says. Under them was a nickname, “Sur Olle,” “the Sour Olle.” She drew Olle’s girlfriend, who she named Agnes Södergran, and all of Olle’s animals, naming them too.
“And then I said to myself, I probably need a guy like that,” Jögge says. “I need someone to talk with. ‘Is this good or is this bad?’ An alter ego. So I started playing around with this guy. ‘What do you think about this stool?’ ‘No, it could be a little thinner there. The legs are splaying out too much, you have to tighten them.’ So in one way he was kind of telling me the truth but I was actually telling myself the truth. And what I realized afterwards was I was lifting off the pressure of being a very good, fine furniture maker. I was accepting that I had another path that I wanted to go, more rough, more material based, more traditional based. It became totally clear. That was the reason I needed this guy to help me. Today I think of it all as a way to approach a manner, an artistic vision that was unique and personal.”
Olle Olsson, Sur Olle, engaged to Agnes Södergran. (illustration by Hillevi)
“I used to describe the traditional wall as a very thick wall because in my world, I had so many influences there. And because it’s so thick, it can be hard to jump through. But surolle helped me saw a little hole in that big wall by telling me, ‘You just have to have fun. You have to follow your path. You have to do your own thing here. You can’t be afraid of not doing the right thing. You have to do what you think is right.’”
In 1998, Jögge started his own professional craft business.
“I needed a name for my businesses and it was totally clear it had to be surolle,” he says.
A Never-ending Exploration Today, Jögge’s business stands on many legs. He teaches classes. He gives lectures about craft and slöjd – what it is, the meaning of it. And then he has a show called “Rhythm and Slöjd.”
Rhythm and Slöjd performance, drilling the hole with an T-auger for a shrink box in rhythm to the Chemical Brothers.
“It’s a storytelling performance about 45 minutes long where I make a shrink box live on stage from the very beginning, the trunk of a tree, until it works. During the time I’m making it I’m telling a lot of stories from the craft field. The first five minutes it’s kind of heavy rock music on stage. I then do everything in rhythm. I saw it off in rhythm. I shave it on the shaving horse in rhythm. I drill the hole in rhythm. I carve in rhythm. It is all done very precisely and exactly in rhythm. So that is special.”
Beginning in 2004, Jögge has performed this show more than 30 times, at schools and for adults, at Plymouth CRAFT and Spoonfest, in Sweden, the United States, Japan and Great Britain.
“But my favorite thing to do is make objects,” he says. “That’s the main reason I’m working.” He recently expanded his shop. And lately, he’s been enjoying working on public commissions for the Swedish Arts Council: theaters, Umeå Airport, Umeå University Library, a nature trail, the Church of Sweden, Västerbotten County Council, the Nordic Museum, schools and more.
“Stairway to heaven” ladder in crooked-grown birch. Raw linseed oil. (photo by Jostein Skeidsvoll)
Littefox. Ash and crooked-grown birch. Public commission to Umeå City Library.(photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Västanå Theatre entrance. Pine, basswood. Artist oil color. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Amelia Earhart bench with back. Pine, crooked-grown birch, basswood. Public commission to Umeå Airport. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
“They pay pretty well and they’re a little bigger and so I kind of like that,” he says. “I would say right now I’m finally where I want to be.” His private commission waiting list is currently four to five deep. Clients simply ask for a cupboard, say, and he suggests designs, creates drawings and says how much it will cost. And clients almost always agree.
Jögge’s chip-carving knife, made in collaboration with Kay Embretsen. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Jögge is carving the design on some chip-carving knives the whole time he talks. He’s partnered with Swedish knife maker Kay Embretsen, who makes his own Damascus steel. A local store is selling a kit that contains one of Jögge’s books, a chip-carving knife designed and made by Jögge in partnership with Kay, and basswood blanks.
The beginning of the pandemic was “a total disaster,” Jögge says, as all his classes and lectures were canceled. But, he had just signed a contract for a new book a few months prior.
“The book was my pandemic babe,” he says. “My wife was working from home and I was working from here, just writing the book and making all the objects. I finally had all that time to make an object and realize, ‘This is not good enough – you have to make a new one – this pattern could be even better – you have to rewrite this one more time.’ You know that thing, as a writer, you have to really give it some time? I was able to give it some time, and even some more time in between that.”
Jögge’s newest book, forthcoming in English from Lost Art Press. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
The book contains 16 projects and Jögge made six or seven objects for each project just so he could pick the best ones as featured examples.
“I’m so happy because if I had so much other work at the same time, I doubt the book would have been so good because I wouldn’t have been able to go so deeply into each of the tasks, so to say. You know how it is it – the older you get, you have to have the right feeling for the design, especially the objects you’ve never made before. It has to take some time before you can really decide, ‘Was this good enough?’ So I was happy for the isolation that it actually was. Socially, it was a disaster.”
Jögge’s hope for the future is simple: To still be able to do woodwork as a way to earn a living, “as long as my body tells me it can,” he says. “I had some problems with my hips and I’ve been having problems with my shoulders and elbows. So I have to exercise. I have to go to the gym and do my work there. That’s the only worry I have in the future is not being able to work.”
Nina is a physical therapist who teaches as a lecturer at a local university, so her expertise in this matter helps. Together they enjoy spending time with their grandchild, Lova, who is 3 years old.
Jögge’s grandchild, Lova. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
“The thing that strikes me about having a grandchild – and having children – is that humans are always exploring,” Jögge says. “They want to know about the world. It’s so natural for them. She’s always thinking and raising questions, ‘Why is this?’ ‘Why is that?’ And that’s the fun part in craft – you always have to explore. And then you have to learn to control your body and the tool. And you have to know the material. And you have to find out how people did it in the early days, how they solved problems, and that’s a never-ending story. You can always find new and interesting ways of making things and exploring the world. And that’s what I’m doing. And, of course, it’s a discovery of yourself too, also in an artistic way. You’re exploring what skills you have and what you want to express but also what skills you don’t have and what you need to learn and in a way, what kind of beauty you want to show.”
The Language of Hands “If you find something you like, and it’s fun, and you’re good at it, then you should keep going on that track,” Jögge says. “That is what I see in good, old traditional craft.”
Jögge uses objects made by slöjders from the 1700s as an example. “They wanted to make objects that were nice to use and functional. And they had to be strong and decent. But they also had to have beautiful designs about them. So every time you work with them, everything from a spoon to whatever, you would say, ‘Oh, how nice! This is good work, this is something.’ And maybe you give thought to the one who made it. A way of passing love to the next generation is to make things that they can use for their children and think about the knowledge in the past that was used in the making, and that they had fun in the making and that they also wanted it to have quality. Because for them, it was about quality in the objects and quality in life. Those two things have to go together.”
“The four walls” box. Made using shrink-box techniques. Aspen, birch. 128 piercings. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Ladle. Crooked birch. Artist oil paint and raw linseed oil. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Spoon. Crooked birch. Artist oil paint and raw linseed oil. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Backrest on chair in crooked birch. Artist oil paint and raw linseed oil. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
Six-leaf rosettes on the back of a mobile stand. (photo by Jögge Sundqvist)
This is why Jögge eschews production work.
“If you just make stools and you make thousands of them, after a while, it’s not love,” he says. “It’s just making money. So this is my path: To always put feeling in an object. Because when I feel, I’m satisfied. I don’t know if I’m satisfied all the time with the money I get from it,” he adds, laughing. “That’s the business part. That’s the surviving part. But for me, the main reason is that I want to hand it over and say, ‘Yeah. I’m really happy about this. It has strength. It has function. It has beauty. All the joints are perfectly done and the material choices are well done and it’s something that you can use for more than 100 years and it will be in your family as a treasured object and I’m happy. That’s my goal.”
When thinking about his life Jögge thinks a lot about driving forces: Why has it been so important for him to express himself by working wood traditionally? He recognizes that he’s drawn to its organic existence.
“People were living in a self-sufficient society where they really had to learn all the skills with the knife and the axe and the material they had. And they were trained to do that from 4 years old. So when they were in their 20s, they were professionals I would say, almost, everyone. And some of them wanted to express themselves really well. And they were really good. And you can tell by going to the archives in museums and looking at the stuff. Once in a while you will see something that a person did and it is really, really good.”
And Jögge isn’t just talking about wood here. He’s also heavily influenced by textiles, and the patterns in textiles, especially. When he sees work that someone has poured their heart into, he feels something.
“I can tell I have a friend there, a colleague there,” he says. “We are companions, we understand each other. I don’t know their names but we are still friends. It’s kind of a relief to think about that. A connection of sorts, to generations back. The language of hands.”
Jögge Sundqvist works with hand tools in the self-sufficient Scandinavian slöjd tradition, making stools, chairs, cupboards, knives, spoons and sculptures painted with oil color. “Not uncrafty” is his motto. He’s also a teacher, performer, musician and author of several books. An English translation of his book “Slöjd in Wood” is available from Lost Art Press, and an English translation of his latest book, “Karvsnitt,” is forthcoming. Jögge’s father, Wille Sundqvist (1925-2018), was a prominent figure in the green woodworking movement.
Wille Sundqvist (photo by Mattias Hjalmarsson)
“There was never a word about how I was going to be the one to take care of the tradition,” Jögge says. “Never. My father, I think he just wanted to share the joy, how to form things in a beautiful way, how easy it is to use an axe and use a knife. He was a good teacher and he was very eager to teach. But sometimes, when I was younger, once in a while I’d say, ‘Stop! I want to try myself! Don’t tell me everything!’ He was a trained furniture maker from Carl Malmsten’s Verkstadsskola, so he had his ways. But despite that, he was encouraging.”
Jögge grew up in Luleå, Sweden, where at that time his father was teaching kids in slöjd.
“In Sweden, slöjd is still something that every student has to learn,” Jögge says. “They have to learn how to use materials such as wood and textiles, and the techniques that go with it. Today I wouldn’t call it slöjd because I have another definition of it. But still, it’s a practical way to teach children how to use their hands.”
Otto Salomon (1849-1907), was an advocate of educational slöjd. “He wrote about how important it was for children to learn practical things, to read a drawing with measurements and stuff like that, especially farmer kids and working kids,” Jögge says. “They needed to have that knowledge to be able to be workers in the industrial revolution.”
Jögge has fond memories of his childhood in Luleå, following his father to the school’s workshops, helping him make things and making his own things.
“We had fun,” he says. “And he was eager to do his own things besides teaching and he helped us do our things too. And I loved that. For one thing, it gave me the confidence that everything could be made by hand.”
Around this time Malmsten, who founded two schools, arranged a workshop with teachers in Luleå where they were tasked to create children’s toys made out of wood.
Jögge, 4 years old. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
“It was meant to be a fun workshop where they invented a lot of ideas around woodwork and children’s toys,” Jögge says. “Years ago I saw some slides when I’m 4 years old and I’m sitting on a crocodile on wheels and it has four pieces that are tied together with yarn so it can roll and sway on the ground a little. I’m sitting on it and it’s very roughly axed and carved with gouges and painted with oil colors and kind of sparkling – vivid colors – and I just loved that. And when I saw this picture, something inside me said, ‘Yeah. This must have been an early triggering point there.’ Because I am very attached to folk art and colors. I love powerful designs and rough carved surfaces. That’s why I am into slöjd much more than furniture work. I think it was somewhere there casting an eye over my shoulder – the inspiration started there for me.”
From the Back of a Dragon to a First Knife Jögge’s childhood was filled with art and slöjd. He remembers his father taking him to a film about Picasso at the age of 10. And he recognizes that the environments he lived in were special.
“My mother was very, very skilled in weaving, felting and nålbindning, which is an old knitting technique,” Jögge says.
His mother was also brilliant with color. Jögge remembers dining room tables filled with color samples and his mother eyeing them all day long, observing them in different light for days on end just to pick the perfect shade of red. It’s something Jögge has found himself doing, mixing and fixing paint for hours, trying to settle on the ideal shade.
Jögge’s childhood apartment, 1962. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
“She and my father adapted the Carl Malmsten way of having a home, with handmade things, crafted things,” Jögge says. “The things were fancy and well done, but it wasn’t that we were rich or wealthy. But they were very well designed and carefully made. We lived in a workers’ block, very close to the iron and steel mill in Luleå, not very fancy at all. We had three rooms and a kitchen.”
Jögge and one of his two brothers shared a double-stacked bed in a room that also served as their father’s workshop.
Jögge and his brother’s bedroom, which also served as their father’s workshop. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
Ola, Eric and Jögge in their bedroom/father’s workshop. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
“In their mind, a home should be something very comfortable, functional and cozy and crafted,” he says. “So my father made the shelves and the beds but it was my mother who was the one who had the overall look for making it a home. My father was very oriented in objects but my mother saw how everything should fit together, from the carpets to the windows.”
Wille Sundqvist, Jögge’s father, grew up in a small village outside Bjurholm, with eight siblings. Wille’s father was a farmer who made a special kind of chair from that part of the country and brooms with a natural bent curve and horsetails on the back. On the weekends Wille and his family went to town and sold chairs and brooms for extra income.
Jögge’s grandfather, Arvid Sundqvist, 1961. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
A copy of grandfather Arvid’s broom, with a natural bent handle, made by Wille Sundqvist.
“And that is exactly the definition of handicraft in Swedish,” Jögge says. “Because we have the word ‘slöjd’ and then we have the word ‘hemslöjd,’ which is ‘home craft.’ And ‘Hemslöjden’ is the craft movement in Sweden.”
Hemslöjd, Jögge says, is basically a side business for farmers. “When the industrial revolution started you needed money,” he says. “If you were farming you were self-sufficient and you didn’t have any money so you had to make some things in the tradition that you knew. So they made spoons, brooms and baskets and chairs and all kinds of objects in different parts of Sweden and sold it in the cities and they’d buy a steel bucket, for example, because you couldn’t make one yourself but it was obviously much better than a wooden bucket.”
Jögge sitting on his grandfather’s children’s eight-rung chair with older brother Ola and parents. (photo by Wille Sundqvist)
When Jögge was 10 the family moved to Vilhelmina, and his father began working as a craft consultant.
“He was one of three craft consultants in Sweden working for hard materials, wood and metal,” Jögge says. “Before that they had craft consultants for textile work but never before for harder material. So he was kind of a pioneer there, working for the whole county, trying to help mainly farmers who also had a hemslöjd as a side income.”
The craft movement flourished in Sweden in the 1970s and ’80s. As a craft consultant, paid by the government, Wille helped thousands of small farmers get loans from the state, create business plans, design workshops and create sophisticated drawings of everything, from candle holders to cups to butter knives.
Ten-year-old Jögge loved the move to Vilhelmina. “We came from an apartment to a house,” he says. It was 1969 and the town they moved to had about 4,000 people, so everybody knew everybody. As a teenager, Jögge started playing instruments, including the guitar, and he started a band. His life revolved around rock ‘n’ roll and friends.
Jögge’s father was patient. And when Jögge was 15 years old, he asked his father, “Can you show me how to make a knife?”
His father was quietly thrilled.
Wille taught Jögge the importance of finding a good blade, testing several blades out on reindeer antler. The knife was made in parts from reindeer antler and masur, a type of birch, so there’s a special pattern to it. His father showed him how to inlay the silver and sew the sheath.
Jögge’s first knife, 1973.
“It’s great,” Jögge says, holding it while talking. “I use it very, very much. It’s still a favorite.”
The Old Ways of Doing Things
Jögge moved to Umeå in 1978 where he had his own apartment and started to work for the railroad, at Umeå Central Station.
“I started at the tracks,” Jögge says. “When you’re taking apart a train, someone has to stand in between the cars. When the train was disjointed, the cars were pushed off to another train set. When they came in at a speed of up to 20 mph, you had put on the hook when it bumped into the trainset, to put the train together. It’s a very dangerous job. You have to be quick, and you can die if you come between the bumpers.”
Jögge also had a small workshop in a big wardrobe, 3 meters x 2 meters (about 10′ x 6′). Instead of using it for clothes, he built a workbench where he made knives and did some commission work too. In 1982, a friend convinced him to take two years and attend Vindeln, a folk school that specialized in slöjd.
“That totally changed my whole perspective, because we were a group of students who were all dedicated to work in the traditional way,” Jögge says. “We were finding the old ways of doing things by riving wood, splitting wood, following the fiber, using tradition as a woodworking tool. At the time, a lot of people trained in woodworking more like a fine arts craft. But we were dedicated to the old traditional craft, from the 1700s to the 1800s. We had a lot of discussions defining things: Who are we? Why are we doing these things? We had all-night discussions, even arguments. That was the sense of time, and formative to who I am. Beth Moen was in the class above me, and Ramon Persson was another heavy influence. And we were trained in design too – painting, freehand drawing, technical drawing and so on.
Jögge and Beth Moen, 1983.
“As I look upon it now, I found a way of exploring the tradition from a personal point of view, not my father’s point of view. Because I knew how to make a spoon. I knew how to make a knife. That was pretty common for me. But all of a sudden I had people in my age who were dedicated to what they did and I was able to form my own world which wasn’t my father’s world so I finally had my own choices to make.
“I remember I had been there for a week and I called my dad and I said, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m at this school.’ And he said, ‘Wow!’ And he was free-minded by that time. He said, ‘When you’re 18, go out in the world and do whatever you want to do. I care about you but you should feel free to do whatever you want to do. You have to form your own life.’”
By this time Jögge’s parents had divorced, and his mother had moved to Vindeln as well. Jögge lived in her house during the week, and they invited classmates for weekends at his mother’s house, where they had “many wonderful parties and laughs.” His mother was very social and loved young people, Jögge says.
Jögge’s classmates from Slöjdlinjen in Vindeln, 1984, with his mother Maxan in a blue dress with a flower wreath.
While attending Vindeln Jögge continued to work for the railroad on the weekends, and once done with school he went back to the railroad full-time. Later he worked as a train dispatcher with an office at the station and a platform outside where he’d waved to the train drivers, indicating if it was OK to go or not. In 1985, he asked to work half-time. By then he had his workshop, was playing in a popular rock ‘n’ roll band and owned a record company, Jakaranda Records, recording local bands and putting out records for them.
Traditional Craft & Rock ‘n’Roll
Jögge’s first band was Rockvattnä, named after a village outside of Vilhelmina, which roughly translates to “rocking water.” When Jögge moved to Umeå, he formed another band called Favoritorkestern and later Kapten Nemo.
Kapten Nemo
“We were more of a serious Swedish pop band, heavily influenced by the Beatles, the Who, bands like that, but lyrics in Swedish. Very ’80s like. We were playing all the time. Stockholm too.”
Jögge, to the right, playing guitar with his band, Favoritorkestern.
The band had two leads. Jögge played guitar and sang, and they had a bass player who also sang. Both Jögge and the bass player wrote all the songs. They made a maxi single with four songs and a long-playing record. They were on the radio. For two to three years, around 1986 and 1987, they were the biggest band in Umeå.
“It was real fun,” Jögge says. “We had a good time there. In 1992 I finally released a solo record, Människa.”
He continued his traditional craft work, and the combination of rock ‘n’ roll and traditional craft fulfilled him.
Jögge teaching a chair class at Nääs, 1991.
“Doing traditional craft on one hand was lovely because the rock ‘n’ roll world is a very on-the-surface world,” he says. “It’s fun! But when I got fed up with the superficial rock ‘n’ roll world I could do craft and make things that lasted forever. But also, playing a gig that exists for a moment in time is exciting, the power and energy which comes out of it. So I had this kind of dialectic relationship with the fluidity of craft and rock ‘n’ roll. And I liked that combination, the interaction between modern life and tradition. I think I am that type of person who wants contrast and a little conflict in order to have balance in my life.”
Although Jögge no longer plays, he’s still, as he says, “totally addicted to good music.” He has more than 5,000 songs on his Spotify playlist, and he always plays music while working.
The rhythm of the music must match the rhythm of his work. When that equivalency occurs, he feels more power while throwing an axe, he says, and experiences more feeling while doing it.
“But when I carved patterns on knives, I tried to play rock ‘n’ roll but it didn’t work,” he says. “So I tried to look for more repetitive music which gave me some kind of fluency while working. And I found Steve Reich. He’s arty, modern, non-vocal, very repetitive. I found music with small patterns, like Philip Glass. And actually, it was Laurie Anderson who brought me there, talking about these people, Talking Heads was very repetitive but still a kind of ambiance. And I did much better working with that kind of music for patterns and chip carving. So a very profound insight was when I realized it must be a connection between music and body and working.”
In 1994, Jögge set up a big multimedia rock concert called Rockhuvud. He acted as producer, project manager, composer and musician. The performance featured a rock ‘n’ roll band, Komeda, and two craftspeople, Beth Moen and Tryggve Persson, live on stage. They toured throughout Sweden, 40 concerts in all.
Rockhuvud live at Hultsfred festival, 1994, with Bet Moen and Tryggve Persson as slöjders, and the band Komeda playing with Jögge. (photos by Mats Pallin)
“All the musicians and the craftspeople worked in rhythm, instructed by a choreographer, through this whole concert,” Jögge says. “So it has been a real thread in my work – the body, the rhythm, and the work. It’s hard to explain, but the performance was a way of expressing the power of slöjd, both the physical character of the work and the beauty of the shapes and colors.”
Here he quotes the beat poet Jack Kerouac: “Because I am Beat, I believe in Beatitude and that God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son to it.”
“I think it has to do with something about flow,” he says. “One of my favorite moments in the workshop is working pretty hard and sweating all over – when form comes naturally and you don’t even think about it. It just comes there, from the tool, from the material, from your skill. It’s a rhythm, a kind of instinct that is created in that moment. And after that you just look at it and say, ‘What have I done?’ I talked with Del Stubbs about this, about the dancing of the hands. Sometimes you can just look at your hands, and they just work themselves. You don’t even think about it. They just work.
Jögge drilling a shrink box with a T-auger. (photo by Henke Olofsson)
“This is still something that’s true to me. I believe real craft comes from a deeper interaction with your mind and body, obviously with a long knowledge of tradition, materials and technical skill with the tools. When all parts connect and work together, real slöjd comes from my hands.”
Jögge says he realizes now the importance of having one leg in traditional craft and one leg in rock ‘n’ roll, and that both legs contribute to his body functioning in a way that allows the magic of Surolle. (And that’s a story still to come, in part two.)
I have met only one magical being in my life, and his name is Jögge Sundqvist.
I’m not joking. I first met Jögge when he was teaching a class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking, and I was amazed at his ability to charm almost anything. There were the students, of course – they had signed up for the experience. But Jögge also had a curious power over the wood in his hands, his tools and even color. Everything he does looks so simple, and yet it has an almost magical quality to it.
Perhaps we were also under his spell, but we jumped at the chance to translate Jögge’s book “Slöjd in Wood” into English. This interesting and beautiful book is not just about carving spoons, or making bowls or peg racks. It’s a different way of looking at the craft and the world. It is a direct connection to the same world that created the vernacular stick chairs I’ve been in love with for most of my life. It’s not something you can conquer by buying fancier tools or making jigs.
In fact the only path forward is to turn off the machines, pick up a branch from the forest and sit down with a knife. In time, you will find yourself becoming “not uncrafty.”
— Christopher Schwarz
The following is an excerpt from “Slöjd in Wood” by Jögge Sundqvist.
This cutting board is based on ones I saw in Norway. One side had a decoration painted on it and faced outward when it hung on the wall. The other side was the real cutting board and unpainted. A cutting board gets tough treatment. In frequent contact with water, it swells and shrinks again and again, so the wood changes in volume.
A cutting board with a glue joint cracks sooner or later. If you use a single board from the outer part of a straight-grown trunk, where the annual rings are of more or less of equal length, it warps to be slightly convex on the cutting side and is stable.
Cutting board with heart side down. You cut food on the heart side. This side is convex when it has dried, so the water drains off. It also sits steadier on the table than the bark side. The bark side of the board becomes the decorated side.
Material A blank from straight-grained birch or common alder. Ash, maple or beech are also good. Make sure that the blank isn’t twisted.
Cutting boards are good to make from leftovers from other projects. For example, when splitting out stool seats from a half log, you can use the remaining outer parts for cutting boards.
Hew away thick parts with an axe. Smooth both sides with a drawknife in the shaving horse, or with a scrub plane at the workbench. Make sure the blank isn’t twisted, and is evenly thick. It can be slightly cupped. Seal the end grain with glue and dry the board for a couple of weeks.
Drill holes for hanging or for a handle. Use a brace and auger bits. When the tip of the bit has come through on the backside, stop, turn the blank over and drill from the other side. This avoids tearout and splinters at the edges. If you want to make a handle with a larger hole, use a fret saw to saw out the shape. Clean inside the hole using a knife with a narrow blade.
Use your legs and body to give power to your planing. Good ergonomics make the result even better. Cross-grain wood can splinter. You must either clean-cut with a flat gouge or lift the plane to stop the cut and work from the other direction.
Plane the surface with a smoothing plane or use a sharp drawknife. It is when you flatten the surface that you realize the importance of a quality, straight-grained and knot-free blank. Even so, planing a wide board can be a difficult task. Think of all the slöjd makers throughout history. Rise to the challenge!
Saw and carve the overall shape. Clean-carve all end-grain wood using the can opener grip. Chamfer the edges carefully. On the bark side, chip carve a cool pattern and paint with a thin coat of oil paint. Now you suddenly have something spectacular to cut your vegetables on.
