Pia Westerberg, accompanied by her dog, welcomes me to her new workshop in the centre of Ekenäs, where she has been working for around two months at the time of writing.
The workshop is equipped with various machines, a fume cupboard and different work surfaces required for fine metalwork. I ask about the fume cupboard in particular, which I’m most familiar with from chemistry lessons at secondary school, but Westerberg explains that it’s there to extract the vapours produced during silver plating, which can be harmful to health in high concentrations. How Westerberg managed to fit all this into her previous 10m² workshop is beyond both my comprehension and my imagination. Nevertheless, Westerberg notes that she could easily acquire even more tools and equipment to make it easier to achieve precisely the right shapes and details in her jewellery. As things stand, she occasionally ends up using slightly alternative and possibly more time-consuming methods to ensure everything is just right.
Westerberg’s career as a goldsmith began when her mother enrolled her on a fine metalwork course at the Ekenäs hantverk och konstindustriskola (School of Crafts and Applied Arts), from where her path then led on to the Lahti University of Applied Sciences / Institute of Design. Since graduating from Lahti in 1998, Westerberg has been self-employed.
Her love of craftsmanship and entrepreneurial spirit have made it difficult for Westerberg to take holidays, but she points out that she is trying to improve in that regard. As well as being a goldsmith, Westerberg is also a keen sailor and co-owner of an H-boat, on which she competes alongside a few friends. Out at sea, Westerberg can relax completely, and it serves as an excellent counterbalance to the work in the workshop – at sea, there is only the water, the surroundings and the wind in the sails. Nature in general is also, for Westerberg, both a place for relaxation and a source of inspiration, which can be seen in many of Westerberg’s pieces of jewellery. When I visit her in the studio, she is working on a piece for the Silva collection, which may perhaps become a brooch, with leaves so delicate that I hardly dare touch them. Every vein in the leaf is delicately and skilfully hollowed out by hand. What Westerberg is doing is the very definition of craftsmanship. I also learn that Silva is Latin for “forest”. Other natural elements found in Westerberg’s collection include wood anemones, lily of the valley, oak leaves, four-leaf clovers and, one of my personal favourites, the water drop in the Drop collection – a polished stone reminiscent of a water drop on a dew-covered leaf on a summer morning after a refreshing night’s rain.
Westerberg’s style could be described as Nordic – subtle, understated, unpretentious and elegant – and has been seen on public figures such as Tarja Turunen in a Nightwish video, as well as Kaisa Mäkäräinen and Crown Princess Victoria.
Despite her success, Westerberg keeps both feet firmly on the ground and avoids actively following trends or other designers, noting with a rather typical Finnish modesty that “everyone else is so good”. I would venture to say that Westerberg is in no way lacking on that front. Furthermore, when it comes to social media, she points out that people who watch short videos showing a designer, for example, making a necklace in a few minutes, can easily get a misleading impression of how simple the creative process might seem, when the truth can be the exact opposite – jewellery design and fine metalwork is a time-consuming process involving numerous steps, ranging from sketching on paper, to 3D modelling either on a computer or with wax, before one can even begin the actual work with the precious metals, and even that stage must be allowed to take its due time. Westerberg has certainly devoted time to her craft, which currently comprises a total of twelve different jewellery collections as well as a great many unique pieces and standalone jewellery items. In addition to these, Westerberg also accepts commissions, organises workshops for groups interested in making their own small pieces, and is a co-owner of ‘Lilla Gallerian’ in Ekenäs, where Westerberg’s jewellery, amongst other items, is available for purchase.
During Konstrundan, Westerberg welcomes visitors to her workshop, where, for the cost of materials, they can take part in a short workshop to make their own small piece of silver jewellery. She also displays a selection from her own jewellery collection.