Three wonderful years in the furniture department in Edinburgh, where one could take on a second design subject. Jewellery seemed like a nice contrast and had the best view over Edinburgh castle, but slowly I started to spend more and more time in the jewellery workshop, where ideas could come to life the same day, and not the same month as with furniture. A new passion was born.

Winning a design competition my final year sent me to Sydney for half a year and I just loved that city! Taking a ferry to the workshop with the view of the Sydney bridge is just my kind of morning. I made my first jewellery collections and met the most wonderful artists and people. Year 2000 started on a beach and life was fine!

An exhibition took me to New York, and by sheer luck and without intent, I was hired as a furniture designer by the world second largest architect company, SOM. Situated on Wall street.. two planes crashed in the neighbourhood, and I was fired three days before moving over and suddenly I had no plans, no place to live and no job.. Happy days! Eventually I could let go of furniture!

So for the next two years I lived in above a jazz-club, working days in the workshop and nights in a theatre. My cufflinks were discovered on a Christmas market, and I remember the crazy feeling of going home that night with more cash than I had had in years, an appointment with the finest design shop in Oslo, Norway Designs, and a new hope: This could actually work out.

My artist uncle Thorleif, and 10 Norwegian artists bought Can Serrat, an old vinyard outside Barcelona in 1989, and turned it into an artist residency. It was a life-changing place for me back then. From May 2027 I will run jewellery courses there regularly every spring and autumn. I am so much looking forward to share this magical place with my students. See more