WEARABLE ART
None of the items are identical. Choose your wearable art here at Gjoska.is
Gjóska is an Icelandic design company run by the teacher and textile designer Birna Kristín Friðriksdóttir and her husband the farmer Guðbergur Egill Eyjólfsson. They live on a farm in North Iceland, where Gjóska‘s workshop is located. You can find the unique Gjoska design in quality design shops in Iceland and online on this site.
ERUPTION
The name Gjóska means Volcanic Ash and refers to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010, which had a deep effect on Birna. It was almost as if she erupted too, the volcanic event sparked such creative energies in this textile designer, who had been kept busy for some years with parenthood and teaching. But her fingers were itching to get back to design and needlework.
„Icelandic nature has always been dear to my heart and all those spectacular images we saw on the media of billowing clouds of volcanic ash and glowing streams of lava provided me with so much inspiration that I tried interpreting the impression by needle-felting designs on knitted fabrics.“ says Birna Kristín.
NATURE ON DISPLAY
Birna Kristin’s medium is textiles. Reams of knitted Icelandic wool is her canvas upon which she skillfully incorporates strands of loose unspun merino wool, interspersed with flashes of neon green or bright red/orange silk, evoking a magnificent northern lights display, or the lava falls from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. Once the patterns are created, Birna cuts the material into shapes that will then be sewn into woolen outerwear – hats, gloves, jackets, capes and of course sweaters, in her own inimitable style. None of the items are identical and are in fact wearable art.