Living Museums!!

We love going to open-air, or living, museums. One our favorites is Hancock Shaker Village in the Berkshires. We love being able to see and walk through the actual buildings that people have lived in, touch the actual tools people used, and see trained crafts-people employing the techniques and tools people used so long ago. We're always struck by the ways things haven't changed, and by the many ways in which we can learn from traditional techniques and technologies. Here in Sweden we had the pleasure of going to two open-air museums- one in Stockholm, called Skansen, the other here in Gotland, called Bunge Museum.

Skansen is by far the best and largest open-air museum we have ever visited. One of our favoirte cottages found in Skansen is pictured at the beginning of this post. The Bunge museum had an impressive array of old tools which, of course, we were very exicted about. We wanted to show some of the amazing old spinning tools we saw at Bunge Museum (seen both above and below), many of them not so different from the ones used for Sourced Material: Wool.

Gotland's Crafts

As we talked to Gunilla about our interest in craft traditions and our current Sourced Material: Wool project she got excited. She immediately listed a name of people and places we could go visit and talk to around Gotland. We were excited to see what things we could learn here. Soon Gunilla, along with her sister-in-law Anna had planned a day of crafting and learning for us.

Gotland's economy used to be based on agriculture- root vegetables and Gotland sheep- but now its economy is built mainly on tourism. While there is still a lot of agriculture- like Frans' farm, as well as limestone mining and processing- it's tourism that creates the most money here. Gotland's tourism industry has allowed for a revival of crafts and cultural traditions. Tourist come here wanting to find 'authentic' Gotlandish products, which means the people living here have to produce them.

We see this happening in lots of rural areas that see lots of tourism, like Jake Levin's home, the Berkshires. This creates a complicated situation for the people who produce these objects. On the one hand it's wonderful that there is once again an economy for these local products and traditions, but on the other hand it can have an alienating effect- a feeling that one is producing these for an outside market. The touristic-fetishizing of these objects also drives up their prices. On one hand it's good, as it means more income for the local producer, but on the other hand it often means the community can not afford their own local products.

Not surprisingly, the majority of crafts in Gotland have there source in the agriculture here: wool and food (jams, honey, breads). Most of these craft-objects can be bought in the small shops that accompany many of the farms. They can also be found in tourist centers, boutiques in larger towns like Visby, and in small ateliers throughout the island where products- ceramics, candles, textiles, etc- are made and sold.

Our first stop with Gunilla and Anna was in Vallstena, at Ullverkstan Vallstena(Vallstena Wool-workshop), a beautiful wool crafts store and felting studio run by Annika Grandelius. Annika's shop was really exciting, we were immediately inspired. We told her a little bit about Sourced Material: Wool, and she went on to teach us some new techniques in her light-filled and airy studio. Annika has traveled all over Europe and a little in North Africa, learning about different felting techniques and making connections with different felters (she is particularly involved with a group of crafts-people in Estonia). But she is dedicated to using her own wool, from Gotland sheep, and cleaning and dying it herself.

Next we went to southern Gotland, to the town of Hemse. There we visited Gotlands Spinneri where the bulk of Gotland's wool is spun. The Gotland Spinneri has a fascinating history. In 2001 it was announced that the old Hablingbo Spinneri was to be closed and thus the machines, most dating to the 1920's, were going to be broken up and sold leaving Gotland without a wool mill. People in the local textile community were extremely upset at this news and immediately jumped to action. A group of woman organized and wrote letters to people asking to purchase a share of the mill (at 1000 kronors) and become a supporting member of the Hablingbo Wool-mill Economic Union. Their efforts were successful. After organizing a governing board and finding a home for the machinery they started to process wool again for Gotland. Anna is a member of co the-op and spins the wool from Frans' sheep here, which she then sells in her shop. The whole scene is quite beautiful- a bustling site of machinery and grey Gotland wool.

Frans' Ekolgisk Farm

Staying with Frans and Gunilla has been a wonderful way to experience Gotland. Between traveling to Frans' farm, in Dalhem (from the small island of Fårö where they live)- to baking and eating in Gunilla's kitchen, and exploring their friends shops throughout Gotland- we feel we have gotten a sense of Gotland's rich traditions and culture- or at least as much as one could get in three weeks.

Frans (pictured above) is one of the leading organic (ekologisk) farmers in Gotland, and in all of Sweden. He farms on about 100 acres of land mostly growing root vegetables- potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and Jerusalem artichokes- and a little dill (a standard crop in Sweden). He also experiments with crops, some years trying chard, others dinkel (or old wheat). He also raises about 4 dozen Gotland sheep and 15-20 heads of beef cattle a year.

Frans is devoted to ekolgoisk farming and comes from a long (hundred's of years) line of Gotland farmers. He and his father turned the farm into an organic farm (a process that takes quite a few years) in the late 1980's, since 1994 everything, including the animals has been organic. Since then he has risen to the forefront of the organic farming movement in Sweden- he is the president of the organic farming organization/co-op SAM Odlarna Sverige, and an active member of Ekolgiska Lantbrukarna.

He is passionate, knowledgeable, and practical about the subject. It makes him angry that even though it only costs grocery stores a few more cents to buy organic produce wholesale, they double the price at retail- discouraging consumers from buying organic and turning it into a rarefied privilege. He also realizes that without a large semi-industrial farm like his, farmers must find a niche to be profitable- he thinks this is especially true in America.

Here that need for a niche is supplemented by tourists and their fetishization of Gotland's sheep. Most farms have small annexed stores that sell local produce and wool handicrafts. Frans' sister Anna and her husband have one such store a few kilometers from his farm where they sell Frans' vegetables, the spun wool and sheep skins from their small flock, hand-knit socks and hats (made by their aunt). Anna still needs an answer to niche marketing- she finds it in her amazing home pressed and bottled cider made from apples both grown on their land and supplied by neighboring farms. Waste not want not, they sell beautiful glass goblets that are, of course, locally made and re-processed from the used cider-bottles.

Gotland's Sheep

Everywhere you look on Gotland you see small black and grayish sheep wandering around munching on grass and bleating. Often it is hard to tell to if there is even a shepherd attached to these sheep. Every farm seems to have at least a handful of these small woolly sheep. Attached to most of these farms are little shops that sell some of these goods produced on the farm or on the neighboring farms. Two things you can invariably find in these shops are lammskinns (exactly what they sound like) and beautiful spun grey wool, still oozing the smell of lanolin.

Frans' farm has about 4 dozen Gotland sheep (some are seen above eating the "bad" carrots he harvested earlier in the summer) and a few Leicester (which have finer and whiter wool, but are not native). The Gotland sheep are not the original native breed- that is the Gute- but since the Gute's genetic characteristics made it less desirable than other European breeds, it was cross bred with the with Karakuls and Romanovs during the early 1900's.

The Gotlands are raised primarily for meat, but the skins, and more and more the spun wool is being sold to tourists and being sued by local crafts people. Because of the EU's progressive agricultural politics many people have been able to hold on to there flocks even when they are not able to support themselves from it. The EU recognizes the important of the keeping these smaller breeds and genetics alive, and also the ecological use of the Gotlands, nothing keeps the land clear (and therefor more desirable for tourism) as economically and sustainably as the Gotland. You can read more about the EU's agricultural policies on there website.

Bread!

We don't know if we have ever had as much and many different kinds of bread as we have in Sweden. The organic farmer we are staying with, Frans Brozén, grows dinkel (old wheat or spelt). Dinkel (seen above) is used for various things here- from ground flour for cakes and bread, to whole grains for hearty dishes made with ground-meat and cabbage. They use rye flour for knäckebrod, buckwheat for gallete, and on and on. Right now Silka is getting a demonstration in traditional Swedish baking from Gunilla, Frans' wife.

Jake's parents always joke that when they first moved up to New Marlborough, you could only get sliced white bread. Now, because the Bekrhsires is such a local-food rich place, there are an amazing variety of breads to chose from, like Richard Bourdon's (who you can see pouring flour above) Berkshire Mountain Bakery. But in most places there no such choices. This morning in the NYTimes there was another exciting local-food article- this one about bread baking and grains- titled Their Daily Bread Is a Local Call Away

Gotland

We have been traveling in Gotland, Sweden for the last couple weeks. We are staying with a family that runs a large organic (ekologisk) farm on Gotland, in the town of Dalhem, but live on the small island of Fårö (where Ingmar Bergman lived and died).


While here, we have spent some time working on the farm (harvesting potatoes, onions, and carrots), quite a bit of time reading on the beautiful and unusual beaches, and some time touring around Gotland. The main industries here are: tourism, limestone mining, and farming. We have had a lot of amazing experiences, met some fascinating people, and have learned a lot. We will be posting about our various experiences in more detail in the coming week.

In the News

There have been quite a few exciting articles in the NYTimes recently that we wanted to share with you. One article is about Jake Levin's home community, the Berkshires, and the array of local food producers there. Many of his friends and colleagues are mentioned, like our good friend Susan Selew, seen below!


On another food note, we enjoy all of the great food trucks that exist in NYC and often fantasize about what our food truck would be like. There was an article the other day about a new and exciting food truck that made us excited and jealous, but mostly just hungry.

A little over a month ago there was an article about the designer Peter Buchanan-Smith and his company Best Made Company that caught my attention. While we think the idea behind the product is wonderful (hand crafted and locally sourced), it raised a lot of interesting questions. The price and marketing of the product ruled out most people who would every really use an axe on a regular basis. We also couldn't help but wonder, who are the people making the axe heads- it was all very vague in the article.

Related to both issues of food and pricing issues was an article about 'artisanal' ice cream.

Finally, there is an article about design, crafts, and the rural. It mentions some really interesting artists and designers, raises some great questions, and describes a book, "The Craftsman" by Richard Sennet, which has been important to our thinking.

Welcome!

Hi.
This blog exists as a place where Sourced Material can share some its experiences and thoughts in a more conversational and less formal manner. Where we can share images, stories, experiences people, and places that have inspired us, in one way, or another. It is also a place where we can share some of our less constructed and more meandering thoughts.
I hope you all enjoy!
-SM