The People Behind the First Pieces

After the orange print went viral, something unexpected happened — the people around me started asking if I could make something for them.

At the time I was spending a lot of time with international exchange students in Notodden. They had seen the sweater, and they wanted something similar. Not just an orange print though — they wanted something personal. Something that captured their time in Norway. So I started adding elements by hand, painting little details that meant something to each of them. Snowboarding. Waffles. A moose. Small things that told a bigger story.

It was my first real experience of making something truly custom for someone else. And I loved it.

Those early pieces were all painted by hand — because that's what I had access to and knew how to do at the time. Each one was different, each one was made for a specific person, and each one went home with someone who actually wanted it there.

Looking back, those pieces set the tone for everything that came after. Not mass produced. Not identical. Made with someone in mind.

That's still what I'm going for.