Finnish Design Blog

This unique glass sculpture was one of the prized pieces auctioned off on Saturday at the Modern Design Sale at TW Gaze in Diss, UK. The sculpture was a piece originally designed by Oiva Toikka in the late 1960s and was the one of the first Lollipop pieces produced by the famous glassblower. It was originally purchased by the vendor (prior to being Iittala) directory from the glassworks factory.

The Lollipop piece stands 13 inches tall and is an impressive piece of cased glass which was eventually used as a part of the larger more famous Lollipop Aisle piece. Iittala has recently re-issued some of the designs but in very limited numbers. This piece was estimated to sell for around $1,000 USD, although I couldn’t find out what it eventually sold for – I’ll update this post if I find out more. (read original article.)

Congratulations to Sirpa T. (Berkeley, CA) and Judy T. (Cloquet, MN) who each won a
glass bird by Iittala in a drawing held at the FinnStyle booth at FinnFest. There were over 700 entries in the drawing for chance to win either a Common Redpoll glass bird by Oiva Toikka or a Cotton Candy glass bird by Anu Penttinen. The Common Redpoll was Toikka’s official bird for FinnFest 2008. The Anu Penttinen collection was released this year by Iittala.

The iconic Moomin cartoon characters by Tove and Lars Jansson continue to be alive and full of energy today as Iittala’s Arabia has added two new character drawings to its Moomin dish collection. The new porcelain mugs and bowls feature classic Moomin characters, Little My and Mymble (also known as The Mymble’s Daughter). In the famous book and comic strip series, Mymble is the oldest daughter in the Mymble family and considers it her duty to watch after young Little My, who is a very determined and brash little girl. These fun and cute mugs, as well as the rest of the Moomin collection, are available at FinnishGifts.

A short video of the amazing glass blowing process used by iittala’s highly skilled glass blowers as they produce designer Anu Penttinen’s unique glass birds.

Iittala’s Nuutajärvi glassworks family continues to grow. Alongside world-renowned designer Oiva Toikka and Georgio Vigna, the Nuutajärvi glass factory has added the young and exuberant creations of Anu Penttinen.

The starting points of the work of glass designer Anu Penttinen (born in 1974) are graphical clarity and bold colors. She is fascinated by the urban environment from which she distils her own strong style. Penttinen’s endearing glass birds have been inspired in particular by wax animation and the nature of the tropics. Penttinen’s new bird collection contains six birds. While resembling the confident stance of penguins, their colors are tropical. Their vertical format emphasizes their beaks and eyes, features that make the collection very much its own. The amusing names Penttinen has given her birds highlight their different personalities. Which do you prefer? Ippie the Hippie, Cool Joe, or Cotton Candy? Or what about Night Bird or Snowball? Or I’m All Bananas? The names say it all. Check out these fun birds for yourself!

Now is the time to get very excited if you’re a Toikka bird lover as Iittala has re-released the first Toikka glass bird, the Flycatcher, to commemorate the 215th anniversary of their Nuutajärvi glassworks. Many of us have only seen pictures of the colorful, winged Flycatcher of 1972 and we never thought there would be an opportunity to own one. FinnishGifts.com is very excited to add the Flycatcher to our collection and expect there will be heavy demand for the very limited production.

Artist Oiva Toikka discusses the process for creating his famous glass birds at Iittala’s glassworks in Finland.

As we continue in “sharing the spirit of Finland” (this year’s FinnFest 2008 tagline), all of us at FinnishGifts.com are excited to release this year’s limited edition FinnFest 2008 Oiva Toikka glass bird prior to the July FinnFest date for our collectors!

Every year Oiva Toikka designs a commemorative bird for the Finnish-American gathering. Oiva has a strong bond with the U.S. and he seems to relish this annual design challenge. This year is no exception as his world-renowned talent has brought us the stunning Common Redpoll.

The Common Redpoll is a limited edition piece as only 1,250 of these Iittala glass birds were produced exclusively for FinnFest 2008.

I think you’ll all agree that there is a ton of energy surrounding the Iittala brand these days as they continue to be a major driving force in the art of glass-blowing.

IITTALA, Finland (Agnieszka Flak of Reuters Life!) - Juggling a giant ball of molten glass is all in a day’s work for masters at the finals of the Iittala Cup glass-blowing championships.

Some 32 participants from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Hungary took part in Saturday’s Cup in the northern Finnish town of Iittala, which has been organised by the Finnish design company of the same name every two years since 1984.

Read entire article

There is a great article about Oiva Toikka in the upcoming Time Magazine (May 5th issue). Take a look here. Photo from Time Magazine.