Fräulein Talents: Ani Ellen aka Stevie Knickers

I am searching for God in beauty, and for beauty in life.

I grew up in an academic family in a small town outside of Stockholm. My mother works at the university as a teacher in Russian language and has a PhD in linguistics. My father is a geologist. I have an older sister who is seven years older than me. I played the piano, cello, and danced. I had bunny rabbits. I always had a very active imagination, and my favourite thing to do was drawing, reading, and writing.

I never really saw “art” as something you could do for real, like for a living, because I never saw anyone doing that. I kind of got an entire master’s degree in Russian and International Relations at university without knowing what to do. Then, during the last bit of my master’s, I did an internship at the Institute of Foreign Politics, and I realized I really did not want to do that, like be in an office. It felt surreal, and I never understood exactly what it was we were doing. I hope no one there reads this because they were super nice, though I doubt that the men at the Institute of Foreign Politics read Fräulein.

Anyway, I remember during that time I had played around with and altered this white blouse I had by making holes in it, trashing it, and putting stickers on it. I realized I could never wear something like that in an office, and then I had this epiphany where I was like, “I should never work anywhere where I cannot wear this blouse!”

The blouse was actually really ugly. But still, it served its purpose as some kind of wake up call. I felt kind of desperate to do something totally different. I felt this strong need to make something with my own hands. Then I thought about what I would like to do, and my brain said, “I want to make knives and daggers. I want to work with fire.” I was like, okay. Then I applied to this preparatory art school that had a year of metalwork. My application was really bad, and I was waitlisted as sixth reserve. Then I got in. From there, I applied to art school, where I am now doing the last term of my BFA.

Thank you. In 2023, my then boyfriend bought me a video camera while on a trip to the US. I had played around a little bit with a camcorder a couple of years earlier, and I really missed it, especially editing.

I just came up with the idea of the video diary project to have a reason to use the camera and then edit it and play around in iMovie, so I decided I would just film everything nice I saw and make one video every month for a year. I just needed a fun side project. I liked the idea that those who found it would find it, being one of those random YouTube accounts.

I think I just really enjoy trying to capture everything that I find beautiful, even if it is really small. I feel like that guy in American Beauty with the plastic bag. There is magic everywhere, if you just notice it.

The video diary kind of got the function I imagine a gratitude journal has, like a visual gratitude journal, since I was collecting things that brought me joy every month and then would see it again while editing the video. Also this led to me starting to combine my metalwork with video. It helps me create context and meaning and say things in a way I could not do otherwise, I think.

I don’t know, it was kind of spontaneous. When my friend Susanna made me my website, I felt if I would have a website, I also wanted a part of it where I could share different things, like works in process or things that inspired or interested me at the moment. I thought it would be more like an art diary or moodboard but it kind of became more just random rambling about whatever I was thinking about at the moment.

I used to have a blog when I was like 14 and everyone had them, before social media took off. Then the internet was just blogs. I think we should bring back blogs because I like to read what people are thinking about. Sometimes it is just a song and what they like about it, sometimes it is pictures. It is just nice that it is not connected to any social media platform so it is more loose as a format.

I think my approach has changed as to daring to take it and myself more seriously, trusting my instincts and following my desire. If I do not, it will not be interesting or fun for anyone. And that listening to criticism is just hearing one of the ways your work can be perceived, even if it is from a teacher. And also to choose carefully when to be vulnerable.

Metalwork is just one of the ways I express myself, but it is different in tangible ways. Metal I can feel against me, metal I can touch, I can feel it in my hands.

Metalwork fascinates me because there is something very magical, alchemical and ancient about it. I am drawn to it because I get to work with fire, which is thrilling and hypnotizing. I am fascinated by how something so hard and durable can become soft and melted, by me, by the fire, and how I can then make it hard again. There is something in it about strength, passion and will. How something as hard as iron, if I put it in the fire, I can then bend and shape it.

Still, metal is stronger than flesh and blood. I can shape it, but it could kill me. Metal gives us the illusion of eternity, the promise of eternity.

I didn’t think I was very affected by it, but my mother is Armenian and when we went there last autumn I saw a lot of the imagery I am drawn to in Armenian craft and cultural heritage. It was funny because I was like, “Oh my God, Armenia is so me,” and then realized it is the other way around.

Armenia has a really cool metalwork tradition, and overall they are very skilled craftsmen. Last year I made a headpiece that was inspired by Armenian traditional headpieces with coins, where in folklore the tinkling of the coins is believed to ward off evil.

Maybe it is because I live in the north where seasons are so present, but I find the seasons so poetic and soothing in a way, even if I hate it during the long winter. There is something about how they mirror the cyclical principles of existence at large. Birth, blossoming, maturing, waning, dying, being born again. This cycle that seems to be present in everything, in creativity as well.

As for favourite spots, this summer my friend showed me a spot by a lake not far from where I live that is pretty secluded and private. I started going there every day by myself to just lie in the sun, listen to music, think, and skinny dip. It is a bit of a hassle to get there but the privacy is worth it. I am going to sound like a hippie witch or something but I have got this obsession with being able to swim naked, which of course you cannot do just anywhere. And I do not want to be with other naked people, like on a nudist beach. I want to be by myself.

And when I am at my school, which has a very sterile institutional vibe, where everything is white and industrial, I usually use my lunch break to go to a tiny stretch of woods squeezed behind the school and a housing area. There I have a favourite spot, and I lie down and stare up at the trees. There is this whole other life in that small stretch of woods, and it always makes me think how in theory a whole other life is possible outside of society and the institution, if I would just leave everything and live in the forest like in Into the Wild. Like in theory. I would probably not make it very long. Then I think that is the reason the institution, that to me symbolizes civilization, exists. Then I go back and continue working.

I think it is more something that grows and evolves gradually without me even noticing it. I don’t really know how to describe it. Maybe as both romantic and primitive. It is probably influenced by my love for fairy tales, folklore, medieval arts and crafts, pagan objects, mysterious spiritual objects, and also nature.

I think as an artist you are constantly trying to do both, but maybe are successful with neither. You can neither do something that has already been done, nor make something entirely new. On the other hand, everything is new all the time. I really do not know.

I didn’t know how to answer this so I asked my boyfriend and he said an old ruin of a church in the woods, and it is sunny. I liked it.

Maybe it is not true, but I feel like changes in my life have not really shaped my art very much. Because in my art I am trying to connect with something outside of myself, something other than me. But of course what I am drawn to is affected by my personal evolution, and my experiences, and everything is connected and so on. I just cannot see it from where I am standing.

Ideas often come easily, but bringing them to life, the actual work, often feels like an effort to me. But there are moments when I can get into that state when everything just flows, when I feel like I am in contact with the material I am working with, and I just know how it will behave and what I should do. It is almost a bodily feeling of being “in touch” with the material. I think this state can occur doing almost anything else too. Then it is easy to become overconfident and make mistakes, and then you lose that contact.

I have never thought of this before, I mean I love LOTR like anyone else but it never occurred to me that it has inspired me. But thinking about it, there are a lot of magical and protective objects, like Aragorns sword or the mithril chain mail. And those kinds of mythological objects have always excited me and probably has influenced my practice. I want the things I make to have some kind of quiet mystery or power. There is this childish dream of making something magical. Aesthetically speaking my objects used to be more elvish but now I am leaning more toward uruk-hai or orc vibes…. There is something more primal and simple in the shapes I seek now.

Since a couple of years I am really into folklore, both when it comes to reading, music, and art. I have been reading books by the Swedish ethnologist Ebbe Schön on folklore creatures and on beliefs connected to the seasons and the forest.

I was also really inspired by my visit to the Lusik Aguletsi house. She was an Armenian artist who worked a lot with pagan traditions, and she made dolls out of hay. I think I am so interested in pagan culture because of this perhaps primitivist notion that it is more connected to nature and its eternal cycle, and I feel very drawn to that.

Right now I am reading the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, who wrote books about the four elements, earth, air, fire and water. I am working with the elements, or interpretations of them, in my BFA final project.

It is hard to say. I think that if I know I did my best, and if I feel finished with it, and I like it, then it is a success. If I learned something, it is also a success. If I am unhappy with my own effort and did not learn anything, it feels like a failure.

I have that a lot. On a good day where things have gone my way, I feel like a genius. On a bad day I feel like I cannot do anything and I am not an artist at all, just pretending, and all my ideas that felt so great the day before are nothing, turned into ashes.

It is like Cinderella when the wagon turns back into a pumpkin and the horses turn into mice. Then it is better to go home and do something else or spend time with someone you love and not think about it. Then a new day comes, and it might be good. You just have to try to be productive when you have the power, and chill out when you do not.

I have been blessed with the world’s coolest girlfriends. They are really creative and all have their own unique style in what they do, which is something I really admire about them.

We do not always agree with each other and we all have different expressions, but I think we found each other because we are all kind of searching for something. We are in the same place in life and in that searching.

Having them is like a secret strength. It makes me feel less alone in the world and in my struggles, and that gives me a stronger foundation from which I can express myself more confidently.

Kind of bleeds into what I wrote above, but I have girlfriends who are also struggling artists. It is both a huge help mentally, but also sometimes practically, like needing help with filming something or doing something, or getting advice or opinions.

Doing art projects can be very hard on your own and having friends who can help out is priceless. Also just the feeling that you are not in it alone.

One of the few good things with social media is that I have connected with other artists that live in other places, where there is mutual appreciation, and where I have found some kind of female Lord Byron Shelley-esque letter friend type of friendship and encouragement through the internet.

I think especially today when there is a lot of right wing governments and politics not only across Europe but around the world, it is important for artists to support each other, because it seems no one else will. I do not mean economically, just with whatever you can.

Maybe I would say that you do not need a big or complete “vision” to start, that can feel so intimidating. I think it is easier to start small.

I think it is important to just follow your curiosity and lust and see where it leads you, to go with what genuinely excites and interests you the most and start there.

My dream is to do more acting, and I hope after I finish my BFA in the spring I will be able to pursue that. I hope to somehow see my different forms of expression come together more in some way.

But first of all I want to complete my education and get my BFA.