Returning the Favor: Norwegians Study Their Folk Art at Vesterheim Museum

When Norwegians immigrated to America in the nineteenth century, their folk-art traditions took root here and flourished. Now Norwegians like Ingve and Kjersti Holm from Stavanger travel all the way to Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, to study the Scandinavian flat-plane figure carving that used to be an active part of their own country’s folk art. In fact, according to the Holms, American practitioners of Norwegian folk art have been instrumental in reawakening Norway’s interest in its native folk culture.

Ingve and Kjersti own a mountain farm called Maal, near Flekkefjord in southern Norway, that is over 400 years old. They have two children and two grandchildren. Those two facts situate them pivotally between the past and the future. But they didn’t always appreciate that.

Ingve Holm recalls that, before he retired, he was always in a hurry. He ran his own business and “time was money”—something many Americans can identify with. Then a friend suggested that he take a class in acanthus carving, a very intricate and formal type of traditional Norwegian woodcarving.

Initially he was hesitant. He explains that, as we get older, we usually keep to the things that we already do well. Out of uncertainty and fear of embarrassment, we can tend to gradually give up learning anything totally new, which requires that we start from the beginning and make mistakes. We’re uncomfortable being so imperfect at something again and, he adds with a laugh, at first “it took so many hours, I could tile a bathroom in that time!”

He felt like he must be wasting time, but he stuck to it and eventually saw that “time was coming, not leaving” and that he was learning patience and gaining clarity in the process. That acanthus class was just the beginning for the Holms. Norwegian folk art was about to change, not only Ingve’s life, but Kjersti’s as well.

Ingve signed up for another acanthus carving class at the renowned Rauland Academy in Telemark, Norway. Kjersti, a tailor, signed up for a course, too, but hers was cancelled. Not willing to be idle while Ingve was in class, she enrolled in a course in Scandinavian flat-plane carving taught by Harley Refsal, a master carver and retired professor of Scandinavian studies and folk art at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. It was a perfect example of American practitioners reconnecting Norwegians with their own traditions.

Kjersti was a little apprehensive about trying her hand at figure carving, but Refsal reassured her. “If you can peel a potato, you can carve,” he said.  And carve she did! She loved it. Ingve stopped by Kjersti’s class when he could and was fascinated by how much of a complicated art the simpler-looking flat-plane figure carving really is, conveying personalities and emotions with a few well-chosen cuts. Though many might think that elegant acanthus carving is “artier,” Ingve sees it more as highly skilled reproduction of traditional patterns. The “folkier” flat-plane figure carving, on the other hand, continually poses new demands for carvers, he says, and requires them to refine their skills even as it offers greater freedom of personal expression. “It’s hard to say more with less,” Harley Refsal says, “but in flat-plane carving, less really is more.”

Ingve hasn’t abandoned acanthus carving by any means, but he has totally embraced figure carving as well and has joined Kjersti in several classes that Refsal has taught throughout Norway. He has even been asked to teach the technique himself and, at the beginning of September, the couple traveled to Decorah to study with Refsal again, this time at Vesterheim Museum, which has been so instrumental in reviving and preserving an interest in Norwegian folk art in both the United States and in Norway.

The Holms and Refsal explain the revival of interest in the folk arts—between generations and between the two countries—by citing something they call Hansen’s Law, after Marcus Lee Hansen who framed it: “The third generation tries to remember what the second generation tries to forget.”

Initially the generation just after immigration tends to abandon its culture and customs and strives to blend in—something as true today as it was in the nineteenth century. Then the following generation seeks to recapture what was abandoned. Because language is among the first things lost in cultural assimilation, Refsal explains, the folk arts make a perfect way for subsequent generations to recapture the past, because they aren’t language-based. You don’t need to know a syllable of Norwegian to carve in the Norwegian style. The folk arts are a tangible, non-verbal connection to our past.

Hansen’s Law explains what happened in Norway, too, the Holms say. As the nineteenth century became the twentieth century, Norwegians lost interest in their folk arts, especially in urban areas. They were replaced by the “form follows function” spareness of modern Scandinavian design. Now that is changing, Kjersti says, and interior designers seek to include at least one old piece in a home. Knitting never fell out of fashion because of its obvious utilitarian aspects, she says, but now more Norwegians are interested in learning other traditional folk arts—like carving, decorative painting, and knifemaking—that have fallen more out of favor, she says, and often they turn to America for instruction and inspiration.

In a way, Norwegian Americans are returning to Norway the folk culture immigrants brought with them. The child teaches the parent, art forms are reborn.