Heljä Liukko-Sundström's ceramic wall plaques: small stories for a wall

Someone standing at a window. Someone skiing across snow. A girl asleep, her face calm.

There is always somebody in Heljä Liukko-Sundström's plaques. A single scene from a story, made hangable. You find yourself wondering what happened before and after.

Fifty-six years at one factory

Heljä Liukko-Sundström (1938–2024) graduated from the Ateneum school of applied art in Helsinki in 1962 and joined Arabia the same year. She stayed until 2016 — fifty-six years at that factory.

Fifty-six years is an extraordinary span. Longer than Birger Kaipiainen's fifty at the same place. The Arabia she joined and the Arabia she left were, as companies, barely the same thing. She kept making in the same building regardless.

She began in the industrial design department and moved to the Art Department (taideosasto) in 1967 — the part of the factory kept at a distance from mass production so that artists could work freely. Kaipiainen and Rut Bryk worked there too.

She received the title of arts professor in 1994 and the Pro Finlandia medal in 2001. She died in 2024.

Fairy tales, and a little sadness

Her subjects come from folk tales and from nature. Flowers, rabbits, birds, snow outside a window. The drawing is plain, close to a child's.

But they are not merely sweet. There is often a faint melancholy sitting alongside the charm. A scene that ought to be cheerful is somehow still, and you find yourself stopping in front of it. That quality is why they don't tire after years on a wall.

Take the plaque called "the view from the window of the heart". It appears to show what is outside, but what you are actually seeing is the view from within. The plaque with the red curtain and the black-and-white floor shows only a corner of a room; whoever was there is not drawn.

Charm and stillness in the same piece. That is why these are not simply wall decoration.

Hanging them

A plaque is only finished once it is on a wall. A few things we have learned from handling them.

They are stronger in groups. One alone can lose against the wall. Two or three of different sizes, slightly offset, will settle a corner of a room on their own.

Give them light. The slight thickness of the glaze and the dips in the drawn lines lift under raking light. A wall lit from the side shows more than one lit head-on.

Check for a hook. Some of ours — the 32 cm pieces in particular — have a hanging fitting on the back. Where there isn't one, use a plate stand or a plate hanger. It is noted on each product page.

Keep them away from water. A plaque is wiped rather than washed. No dishwasher, no microwave.

Beyond the plaques

Fifty-six years of work leaves a great deal besides.

There is Talo, the house-shaped candle holder in red and blue, with light spilling from its windows. Mors Kopp, made for Mother's Day. Small ceramic brooches shaped as penguins and cats. A mug with a rabbit taking a sauna.

She also worked beyond Arabia, making glass cards for iittala: birch leaves in autumn, water lilies, a summer sea seen through a window. Thin panes with a picture sealed inside. Being able to compare the same maker in clay and in glass is not an opportunity that comes up often.

Plaques at Wasurenagusa

Plaques turn up regularly at Swedish flea markets, though ones in good condition do not. Having hung on walls, they often lack their fitting, or the edge is chipped. The owner checks each one by hand before it comes to us.