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24 ÅLANDSPOSTEN FRIMÄRKEN<br />
INKKU PAJUNEN<br />
Inge Löök is a certifi ed gardener and worked as such until she started drawing full-time.<br />
Some artists fi nd their creative vein<br />
later in life, having tried various other<br />
jobs fi rst. Others, like Inge Löök,<br />
the Finno-Swedish artist behind this<br />
year’s Christmas stamp and seals, fi nd<br />
their right occupation immediately.<br />
“I began sending drawings to the<br />
Swedish weekly magazine Allers<br />
Familjejournal when I was fi ve.”<br />
Together with her sisters, she sent<br />
drawing after drawing to the magazine’s<br />
column “Young drawers”.<br />
“And, for some time, we received<br />
prizes almost every week.”<br />
Lovely toys were sent to Inge and<br />
her siblings as prizes, and in post-war<br />
Finland, toys were a luxury article.<br />
QUALIFIED GARDENER<br />
Inge drew a great deal all through her<br />
school years.<br />
“I wasn’t very clever in school;<br />
I didn’t have the patience to stay<br />
indoors to do my homework. Instead, I was either outdoors or at<br />
my desk drawing.”<br />
Her drawing eventually led to studies at the School of Art<br />
and Design in Helsinki, from where she eventually qualifi ed as a<br />
graphic arts designer. She is also a certifi ed gardener and worked as<br />
such for fi ve years, before she began drawing full-time at the end<br />
of the 1970s.<br />
BE FAITHFUL TO YOUR FRIEND<br />
To the general public, Inge is best known for her merry and funny<br />
old women who are always up to some sort of mischief.<br />
The fi rst cards with her women appeared in 2003.<br />
“The Red Cross commissioned me to create four cards for<br />
Valentine’s Day and I pondered for a while on what friendship<br />
implies to me. Since I’m a woman, I wanted to picture a woman,<br />
and I eventually came to the conclusion that friendship entails<br />
being faithful to and growing old with your friend.”<br />
But the Red Cross did not like Inge’s idea with the old women.<br />
“It was obviously very odd to illustrate friendship with the help<br />
of two old women.”<br />
Some time later, however, Inge’s old women caught the interest<br />
of a representative from the Finnish card company Paletti and they<br />
quickly became an immense success!
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