Matti Järvenpää, Rautapuisto/Iron Park

photos courtesy of Minna Haveri

Matti Järvenpää's art environment in Kyröskoski, Finland, for many years has remained a hidden gem. Only recently (spring 2017) written and visual information has become available on the internet about this extensive and impressive artwork.

Life and works

Matti Järvenpää (1936-2022) already at a young age had fun in making small constructions. At adulthood he got a job at Kyrö Electric, a company designing and constructing all kinds of electrical installations. He worked there for 43 years until he retired around 2000.

Struck by the beauty of ancient objects and machinery in the agricultural business, Järvenpää made his first creation in 1967, a rocking chair. The re-use of old materials is evident, the seat of the chair for example appears to be derived from a tractor.

This was the first of a series of creations Järvenpää would produce in the years to come. His activity would result in an art environment which for one part consists of stand alone iron creations and for another part of clustered old industrial, agrarian or household objects made from (cast) iron. 

Järvenpää's art environment

The collection of some thirty iron artworks is exhibited in the green and fragrant surroundings of a pine forest near the small community of Kyröskoski, part of the larger community of Hämeenkyrö (region Pirkanmaa), some 220 north-west of Helsinki.

sunset

A special part of the collection is the series of creations made of clustered similar objects, such as the assembly in the picture above, composed from more or less uniform red and yellow lids surrounded by a radius, an assembly or clustering which as a whole expresses a sunset.

clustered insulators for overhead power cables

Järvenpää's art environment has a variety of such clustered artworks which testify to the creative ingenuity of the artist.

Such as a stack of multicolored buckets.....

...... or kind of a screen built with seats of tractors or other agricultural machines.....

.....or a collection of pancake pans and other circular items added to a wooden wall.....

.... or kettles....

........ or objects you do not recognize immediately, but which have to do with

agricultural or industrial activities in former times.......

In the field of art environments Järvenpää's method of clustering similar items in designing an artwork occurs sporadically. In Finland Juha Vanhanen clustered old plowshares, painted white, to portray a flight of birds. And in Italy Ettore Guatelli collected large quantities of old tools which he added to the walls of his house in rhythmic patterns.

In addition to the creations that constitute the art environment, Järvenpää owned a large collection of old cars, buses, billboards and the like, a collection that attracts a lot of interest from rally drivers and other lovers of old cars.

Matti Järvenpää passed away on July 19, 2022. 

It has been reported that his three sons have decided to preserve the park and continue its operations.

Documentation

* Matti Järvenpää, Kirjatalo Ekiteki, 2008 -72 p (booklet, out of stock)

* on Finnish website ITE-taide an article about Rautapuisto by Minna Haveri 

Videos

* Video by Maaseudun Sivistysliitto (YouTube, 8'01", December 2018, subtitled in English)

 

Matti Järvenpää

Rautapuisto

Kyröskoski, Hämeenkyrö, Pirkanmaa, Western and Central Finland

awaiting information about visiting the site

Pavel Andrikevich, будинок з драконом / The house with a dragon

pictures courtesy of Masha Pylypchuk

In the Ukrainian city of Lutsk since 2009 a rotatable metal installation that represents a dragon rises on the roof of a residential house. It's a creation by self-taught white-smith Pavel Andrikevich

Life and works

Born in the late 1950s Andrikevich studied at the Civil Aviation Technical School in Leningrad, Russia (from 1991 on St Petersburg).  After his study he worked as a dispatcher at the traffic service of the regional airport of the Rivne region in the north-west of Ukraine.

In the 1980s he got a job at the in 1984 newly opened Volyn regional airport, not far from the city of Lutsk, where he went to live.

Around 1986 Andrikevich became interested in working with metal. Just as other self-taught artists make sculptures or other creations from wood, it's for Andrikevich an artistic adventure to work with metal. 

In part his metalwork just delivers decorative items, for another part it results in functional products which are nice to see as well, as for example a decorated turbo vent as on the picture below.

The airport of the Volyn region, where Andrikevich worked, was successful in the 1980s, but it encountered problems following the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. It officially closed in 1997, but Andrikevich may have lost his job earlier.

He got a new job at the TechnoModul company in Lutsk, which makes equipment for ventilation.

Next to this job Andrikevich also focused upon the manufacture of metal domes for churches, monasteries and other buildings in Lutsk and in the surrounding Volyn region. An example of such a dome is the one installed on the chapel at the site of a fire brigade in Lutsk.

A very special part of Andrikevich's metalwork is his series of decorated helmets for motorcyclists, made from shining steel and adorned with various colorful stones.

These helmets indeed are suitable to wear when driving a motor cycle, but Andrikevich rarely will do so to avoid problems with the police.

In addition to these helmets, Andrikevich's house and garden include many more metal items, such as above shield and sword, but also a swing for children, storage boxes and various other decorative items. 

However, Andrikevich's most spectacular creation is the dragon on the roof of his two story house.

The idea to construct such a creature had been with Andrikevich for a while, but it actually took shape when he had to rest for weeks due to an accidentally broken thigh. 

Made of aluminum in order not to be too heavy and resting on a base of galvanized steel, the five-meter long dragon can turn with the direction of the wind. It is flanked by decorated chimneys, crowned with pigeons.

With the help of his two sons, Andrikevich installed the creation on June 7, 2009. 

Visible from afar, it attracts a lot of public interest, as it also resulted in various articles in the local and regional press.

Documentation
* Article (April 2017) in newspaper Volyn News
* Article (March 2016) in newspaper Rayon Lutsk
* Article (January 2012) in newspaper Volyn News 
* Album The House with the Dragon in Lutsk by Masha Pylypchuk on Facebook (July 2017), with a large variety of pictures of the site

Video

* Video by Masha Pylypchuck on Facebook

Pavel Andrikevich

The house with a dragon
(name of street unknown)

Lutsk, Volyn region, Ukraine

no public visits,
the installation can be seen from the street