Craftsmanship requires hard-working hands
Weaver Jette Nevers is not an artist. She is a craftsperson. As she says: “If the craftsmanship isn’t there, there’s no art either”.
Drawing on her own craft, weaving, she promotes all craft trades in the hope that they will once again regain the prestige they once enjoyed. Crafts such as bookbinding, woodcarving, furniture upholstery and joinery, blacksmithing, pottery, basketry…
Her dream for Langeland is an island filled with small, working workshops. Not like a sprawling open-air museum, but as thriving industries that meet real needs in modern-day Denmark. “Langeland already has a high proportion of craftspeople,” she says, mentioning potters, weavers and goldsmiths.
The grand decorations
Jette Nevers herself has a reputation that extends far beyond national borders.
Her works have been sold all over the world, and she has enjoyed a long-standing and ongoing collaboration with, for example, Georg Jensen Damask Weaving, which features Jette Nevers’ designs on bed linen, placemats and tablecloths. She has created upholstery fabrics for Kvadrat, woven textiles for Danish fashion designers and produced decorative pieces for, amongst others, a wide range of private companies.
Jette Nevers is probably best known for her large-scale decorative commissions in, amongst others, Danish churches: woven antependia (the fabric covering the altar), large chancel rugs and chasubles, created using a combination of weaving, embroidery and printing.
Although each textile has taken on vastly different forms, driven by an ever-present urge to experiment, there is nevertheless always an unmistakable Jette Nevers touch to everything she creates. Fortunately, there are other opportunities to see Jette Nevers’ works on Langeland – for example, the chancel screen in Snøde Church.
Art Tower 4
Art Tower 4 on Korsebøllevej previously exhibited a work by Jette Nevers.
Until 2024, the tower housed a tapestry three metres high and one metre wide. The base colour was off-white, with black flying swallows woven into the design.
“Double weaving,” Jette Nevers explains regarding the tapestry woven from wool and flax, demonstrating that this type of weaving consists, in principle, of two layers that can be separated from one another.
However, this is not the case in the Kunsttårn’s work ‘Birds’, as the double weave is combined with tapestry weaving; and because she has applied coloured dye to the warp (the long, running threads), the fluttering birds take on various coloured dots on their bodies and wings – red, orange, yellow – as if they were caught in the sun’s glare.
“The challenge of this process is to find a yarn quality that is distinctive enough for the colour in the warp to stand out, whilst at the same time not so thick that it can be seen through the weft (the threads woven at right angles to the warp) in the areas of the tapestry that are naturally coloured”.
That is the whole point of the craft… that craftsmanship cannot be replaced by a computer’s calculations.
For, according to Jette Nevers, you cannot simply think your way through a weaving. You have to sit at the loom and experiment and try things out.
She still does that. She creates new textile samples that demonstrate just how many possibilities there are on a loom when it is mastered by a craftsperson with vision and ideas.
Better conditions for craftsmanship
There are plenty of visitors in both the old farmhouse and the weaving room. But only invited groups – no unexpected visitors.
Jette Nevers does not have the time or the opportunity to keep her studio open to the public. In the past, however, she has received visits from, for example, the Danish Agency for Culture, whose prominent members were both impressed by the weaving and the house’s upcycling ideas. Among the distinguished guests were, on one occasion, Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik. Jette Nevers recalls the Queen’s enthusiastic engagement as she listened to the story of the weaving experiments, and the Prince, who was fortunate enough that his namesake, Henrik Nevers, happened to have a number of French weapons in the workshop for restoration at that very moment.
“If you want to make a living from your craft, you have to be hard-working.”
“Admittedly, I no longer work more than 25 hours a week in the weaving workshop, but I’m involved in many other projects. Among other things, I’m trying to secure grant funding to help a small bookbinding workshop in North Funen. There are only two bookbinding workshops left in Denmark, and we need them to continue to exist.”
She is also actively involved in the Danish Arts and Crafts Association’s efforts to influence the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the Design School in Kolding.
“We need to refocus on manual craftsmanship. These days, all you need is top marks from secondary school to get into those two educational institutions – there’s no entrance exam or requirement to show examples of the work you want to do. But a top-mark exam says nothing about whether you can actually create something with your hands. My husband took on apprentices for many years. They weren’t academically inclined at all, but they certainly had other skills. We’re missing all these people today.”
The Art Route
The Art Route allows you to combine major art and cultural experiences with visits to individual artists and craftspeople, whilst exploring Langeland’s most beautiful countryside and discovering art in public spaces.
