The distance from my home to my studio is 7.1 kilometers. It takes about 30 minutes to get there by bicycle or metro and one hour if I walk. Once there, I climb the stairs up to the fourth floor. I open my studio door with an old Abloy key that has a mint green plastic cover. Sometimes the lock acts up and I have to push the handle up and down several times to make sure that the door is closed.
Once inside, I hang my outdoor clothes on the rack and put on my pink fake Crocs that I got from my mother-in-law in 2007. I grab a glass from the table and fill it from the tap in the hallway. I immediately drink all the water and refill the glass to the brim. The purple glass resembles a cola bottle and was a free gift from a fast food restaurant. It is ugly, but it is the right size and feels pleasant to hold. Besides, it seems to be unbreakable.
I walk back to my studio with the water spilling and sit down.
Last summer I bought a new comfortable chair for the studio. For the past two years, I sat on a German wheat beer crate. The plastic bottom of the crate cracked at one point, so I cut a piece of cardboard, placed it on the crate and kept sitting on it. I pull out a thermos mug filled with coffee from by backpack. I drink half of the coffee while checking my phone. I save the rest for later. The steel mug with a blue lid keeps the beverage warm, almost hot, all day – especially if I have had the energy to heat the milk at home.
I start working after having my coffee. One wall rug has a hundred rows, each with 82 wool yarn knots. I have a small ruler that I have cut from an old bonus card. It keeps the pile length even. In a drawing, there are two overlapping layers colored with oil pastels, divided into 1.5 cm squares by 46 horizontal and 33 vertical lines scraped with a needle. The tip of the need I use is worn, but I do not want to replace it with a new one so that the marks created do not change too much. I often like things the way they are at that very moment.
Lotta Hänninen (b. 1984) is a Helsinki-based visual artist. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2012. Her works have been on display at various solo exhibitions, for example at tm•gallery (Helsinki, 2019), Old Town Hall Gallery (Turku, 2018) and Galleria Forum Box (Helsinki, 2017). Hänninen’s works are included in the Finnish state art collection and the collections of the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art.
The artist’s work has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
