Kari Design

America  - A promised land!  

But I did not travel there with expectations in 1957.  I traveled with a feeling of trust, that this is what was meant for me. It had just fallen into place.  I got my immigrant-visa, a Norwegian student was waiting for me, and we were getting married.   After 10 years as a home-maker and two daughters, I felt at home with it all.  On a trip back to Norway I brought with me various products of design I liked for our house, also furniture in teakwood sent directly from the factory.

Design in America had not impressed me, except for cars and technical products.  Arts and crafts seemed to be of the past.  Could I start a small import-business?   Could I become an art-teacher?   I got up the courage to visit the university and talk to an adviser.  His experience with Norwegian students was very good, he said.   That gave me the courage to become a student.  

It was challenging, but very exciting.  I wished to include all I could about design, all I needed to become a teacher, and to try a variety of work in the visual arts.  I felt most at home with three-dimensional art, not pictures.  During my last year in school, my girlfriends had started to put in orders for my silverwork.  Jewelry in the Scandinavian style they joyfully expressed!  I made the old chicken-coop in our yard into a workshop.  When I participated in an exhibit after I graduated, it became clear that I was meant to be a silversmith.

I had in a way discovered my own style, but I had not learned much about the craft of silversmithing in the academic world.  That began to bother me.  Then the blacksmith came to shoe the horse we got for our daughter.  He had grown up with an uncle who was a silversmith, he said, «and Indian jewelry is now getting so popular, so I spend more time with that than with horses.  Just come and be with me in the shop when you have time!»

In an arts and crafts coop-shop I became a member, got my own exhibit space, and worked there a few days each month. One day a man called and said my space in the shop was empty.  Some Japanese people had looked at my work and bought all of it.  Then a salesman called and asked if he could take a small collection of my work to show in the shops in the ski-centers in the Western states.  He was sure that he could get many orders.  And he did, especially in those with Scandinavian imports.

When I traveled with some other artist-craftsmen to the Gift and Jewelry Show in Chicago, I reached buyers from Norwegian-American shops.  I also went to New York a few times, and in 1983 I won a design-award there. But I withdrew from all of that, to have my own workshop and sales in the town where I lived.   Production requiring employees and taking much of my time to run a business, was not meant for me.   «Wearable Art» was an expression bringing creative women together in exhibits and events with clothing, belts, hats, and scarves, and a perfect opportunity for new design in silverwork from me.

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_{Top image: The KARI DESIGN style that became known in the early years; photo private.​}