Jewelry Craftsman in Rochester, NY

This is a story about myself, also about what has been significant in the past for my work as a craftsman, told from my own perspective.

I was born in Ångermanland, a province in the north of Sweden. My father was the Rector of Hola Folkhögskola, a Nordic form of community college.  A literal translation of ‘folkhögskola’ into English is misleading. I like to call it a Grundtvig Academy. Grundtvig, the great Danish clergyman, poet, historian, and educator, created, in the mid 1800’s,  college level schools for the working classes. They were teaching enlightened local community governance in the emerging democracy movement. 

Hola was founded by Johan Sandler, its first rector and a liberal politician, whose son Rickard Sandller became the Prime Minister and one of the founding fathers of modern Sweden. The art teacher at Hola was Hertha Olivet. She was also my first art teacher teaching me techniques that in the extension brought me to America. She was a graduate of the German Bauhaus school and a student of one of its founders, Bernhard Itten, who championed the gift of inborn natural artistic and creative intelligence of children. 

Hertha Olivet fled Hitler’s Germany, and as she came to Hola befriended the Sandlers and my father Josef Olsson who was then the caretaker of the Sandler Hola spirit. Maybe the greatest achievement by Rickard Sandler, with the assistance of Hertha Olivet, was the reorganization of the Swedish elementary and secondary school system. The guiding idea  (Itten, Olivet, Sandler) was a strong emphasis on Art and Creativity as catalysts for learning.

My father was also a founder of our local folk art guild in Ångermanland, and a board member of the Swedish national union of local guilds. My sister Barbro Nyberg followed in his footsteps and became a curator for folk art in the province of Skåne in the south of Sweden.

This was the ‘Hola sociotope’ where I had my formative years, a humanistic oasis of freedom in the World War-ravaged Europe.

I graduated from the Härnösand Gymnasium (senior high) in 1957, did my compulsory military service in the Royal West Norrland Regiment in Sollefteå, Ångermanland, with discharge as a sergeant, and even served a repetition service as the commander of my own platoon. Then it was time for my studies at the Uppsala and Stockholm universities.

In Sweden, I co-founded a business making college sweatshirts and ended up working for Champion Products here in Rochester New York. After a couple of years with Champion, I founded my metal smithing studio helped by my education in graphic design and marketing back in Stockholm. At this time I also studied with Hans Christensen, formerly with Georg Jensen Silversmiths in Copenhagen, Denmark, who held a dedicated chair as professor of silversmithing at the respected Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) School for American Craft. With Hans we see our studio as a direct descendant of the RIT pioneers in the Arts&Crafts movement.

RIT was an anchor in the early 1900s Arts & Crafts movement in America. There are efforts made for RIT to reconnect with that mission as new industrial developments in America are creating conditions of stress similar to those in the early years of industrialism in England.

It is my hope for the future that RIT can continue to stand up for us craftspeople in this new world of Artificial Intelligence, CAD-CAM, and 3D printing. In this web page, under Studio Statement I have given an outline of innovations in a revived American Arts&Crafts movement, pointing to areas where RIT can assert its position as a leader.

I started my Northfield studio in 1972. After a half-century “growing up” as a metal-smithing and designer studio we are now turning a corner with the new possibilities of online marketing. We do all sorts of jewelry, but engagement rings (also for men!) and wedding bands are our strong suit. I define my style as Dynamic Minimalism where ‘dynamic’ stands for energy and motion. It is a Modern style contrasting against, and complementing, the current retro fashion of exuberant 1920’s designs. 

Seeing ourselves, a small homegrown American business, as a David in the Goliath industrial world we are looking forward to new opportunities for us craftspeople in the online marketplace.