Sverrir’s Art and Design Gallery:

Viking style hand-printed silk scarves 1993-1994

In the winter of 1990-1991 Sverrir was a student in the Icelandic School of Arts and Crafts (Myndlista- og handíðaskólinn, today LHI or Iceland Academy of the Arts). This was the first year, where students try all fields of art, including forms and colour theory, pencil drawing, coal drawing, figure drawing, acrylic painting, watercolour painting, graphics design, sculpture and art history, before students choose the department to study the next three years in their main field of study (one of these). Since Sverrir was interested at the time to become a fashion designer, he didn’t choose a department to study further, as fashion design wasn’t taught (it is taught today).  It may be added that around 100 applied for the first year, but 40 were admitted. Sverrir was admitted after his first attempt without having taken any courses beforehand to prepare for creating and sending in the material for the admission, which many do. In art history, students wrote and essay, and Sverrir’s chosen field was the art and jewellery of the Vikings. For the essay, he went between the libraries in Reykjavik, and took photocopies from many books about the subject. He then wrote the essay. He was very fascinated by the raw, natural and animalistic style of the Vikings. He saw that not many were using this cultural heritage to create products today, and speculated about that it would be interesting to use these creations for that. He got the idea that because of their decorative nature, these patterns could be used for high-quality luxury scarves. He started developing this idea further, getting helpful hints from his sister who had a degree in textile art and design from the same school. (A big part of his family has finished this school, including his other sister (sculpture), his mother (painting) and his mother’s sister (painting and sculpture). If Sverrir had continued his studies, he could have asked for a family discount of the school fees. In 1993-1994 he worked extensively on this idea. He set up a makeshift productions facility in his parent’s garage. The scarves would be hand-printed using silk screen printing, and even with touches added with a brush. He also worked on a business plan, with a sales and marketing analysis, and talked to possible collaborators and advisors. The idea was to sell scarves on board the planes of Icelandair, as well as to tourists in Iceland. He also created a name for the company, and brand name, and designed logos for both. The  name of the company would be Ice-Lux, and the brand name would be Askja. Askja is a is a caldera situated in a remote part of the central highlands of Iceland, a lake that was formed in an eruption in 1875. He drew up a pattern, on semi transparent sheet of drawing paper the size of 90 x 90 cm. He would then coat the mesh of a silk screen with a special compound, lay the sheet on it, and “burn” the pattern into the printing screen using UV light. Great precision was needed for this, but later on, he envisioned creating patterns in a computer and have the sheets made at a printing company. He needed four of these sheets, for four printing screens, to print the four solid basic colours of a scarf. For each of these screens, he would then be able to mix any colour of the spectrum, creating many different colour versions of the same scarf. The first printed copies were quite promising and looked good. In 1994, he determined that he didn’t have the capital needed to set up this company. Launching a production facility of this kind, to create products of sufficient luxury quality, required a LOT of work. So he set those plans aside, at least for the time being. However, he never forgot this idea and always thought that it was a good idea to use the art of the Vikings on modern fashion or luxury products. As he abandoned these plans, he started his studies of business administration at the University of Iceland in the fall of 1994, which he then finished in 1998, and received his diploma in February of 1999. Below are pictures from his attempt to start a production of Viking styled hand-printed scarves, back in 1993-1994.