These days we’re often woken up by the kids. The day gets going properly with a big family breakfast together.
I like good music, be it blues or classical. As an applied artist I also like music with a strong “plastic” quality. Perhaps the best examples are Bach and Bartók.
I like authors who can condense hundreds of pages of information into a single sentence. I’ve been reading a lot of foreign specialist books, studies and papers about cultural history lately and I enjoy it immensely. When it comes to literature, my favourite authors are Márquez, Merle and Eco.
I’m lucky that I’ve been to a lot of special places. But my true love is Lapland, Finland. It’s the place where you can learn about colours, materials, space and time.
I like unique flavours and beautiful table arrangements. I try to follow in the footsteps of my grandparents, who ran a restaurant, and cook delicious meals.
I read the most important daily information on the Internet.
For years I used to subscribe to several foreign journals. Now I mostly read the online versions. My latest favourites are British garden magazines.
I usually wear black-and-white clothes with a clever cut, together with some bright colour or a colourful shawl. When it comes to patterns, I like stripes or dots.
I’d never wear jeans.
When we worked together, we often discussed the pieces that we’d just made. Now there are fewer and fewer occasions for that. In time you learn to view your own works from the outside and in a different context. That helps greatly in deciding what direction to take.
I like items that are made freely for their own sake without any restrictions in terms of size, material and form. I always keep such pieces of jewellery. From day to day I don’t wear much jewellery. Normally I wear just a ring decorated with a moon, with the face turned inside.
I’ve been fortunate to meet a lot people I’d never even have imagined meeting in my wildest dreams. At international exhibitions I have coffee with the most distinguished members of the profession. Among musicians, the most special person was Rostropovich, with whom I had the chance to spend a long evening in a small circle of people, telling anecdotes. I’m looking forward to what will come next.
Henry Moore. The way he plays around with substance, empty space and the relationship between objects.
I also like the simple but powerful shapes of Polynesian jewellery.
I’ve been teaching for nearly 20 years, and from the start it’s been my mission to communicate firm principles of general validity to my students that they can build on even when everything else becomes confusing. Managing to lay the foundations of your life and live accordingly can be the greatest source of happiness.