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all pictures courtesy of Sophie Lepetit from her weblog |
The park is situated near the E63 highway, approximately 8 km southwest of the built-up area of Loimaa.
Life and works
The park was created by Alpo Jaakola (1-4-1929/7-2-1997) who was born in Loimaa.
At an early age he showed an artistic talent and in 1951 he enrolled at a drawing school, where he stayed for only a few months because the teachers recognized his talent and felt that their lessons should not influence his further development. So Jaakola established himself as an independent visual artist, but wthout a formal art education.
He married Seija Nykänen, but this marriage did not last and ended in divorce. His second marriage, to a gallery owner, did survive and both Alpo Jaakola and Marja Jaakola, who passed away in 2012, now have a grave on the grounds of the sculpture park reviewed in this post.
Creating a sculpture park
In 1953, when he was 24, Jaakola took an important step.
In the wooded area in the hamlet of Karhula, where the sculpture park now is located, he built a forest hut from wooden planks, a construction that would serve as a home to live in.
This was the beginning of the transformation of the piece of forest into a sculpture park, a project that would take place over the next more than 25 years.
In making artistic creations to decorate the park, Jaakola focused mainly on sculptures, but he also produced all kinds of paintings, which were presented in accommodations built in the park.
In the first years of working on the collection, Jaakola must have had to improvise, because a studio only became available in the early 1960s, after he had built such a facility himself.
In the 1960s other facilities became available, such as a disused mortuary located in a nearby village, which could serve as a storage facility in the park.
As for the sculptures, the park would eventually be decorated with about fifty large sculptures, largely made of cement, to a lesser extent of wood or iron.
The images in this post give an idea of the character of these creations.
The sculptures show something of Jaakola's style of creating, which testifies to a certain mysticism and primal power.
In 1972, a major event occurred, providing direction for the further development of the park at that time.
The local road near the park was converted into the E63 highway, which for Jaakola and his family meant that they were faced with a lot of traffic noise, but also with many curious motorists who wanted to take a look at the meanwhile well-known site.
Jaakola was not focused on exploiting the park and he kept it closed to the public.
He built a fence and posted signs prohibiting entry into the area. This did not limit public interest. the public kept coming and on a nice summer day as many as 200 people would stop to try to visit the sculptures.
As a result of all this, Jaakola lost his peace of mind and even indicated in an interview in 1974 that he was about to hate his sculptures.
He looked around for another accommodation and found it in a recently closed public school in the village of Torkkala in the eastern part of the municipality of Loimaa. In 1979 Jaakola and his wife Marja moved there.
Jaakola made new sculptures, together with Marja he planted hundreds of trees around the school and the former classrooms were used for exhibitions and numerous concerts. These activities led to Jaakola, who was also seen by some as a shaman of the region, being appointed professor (honoris causa in all probability) in 1985, which to my knowledge is unique in the European field of art environments by non-professionals.
After Alpo Jaakola's death in 1997, his wife continued to live in the former school and after she died in 2012, the accommodation was run by the couple's daughter Minni Nummila.
After Jaakola and family left the park in 1979, the accommodations and creations were left behind as they were, perhaps occasionally cared for by Jaakola.
And then, in the early 1990s, the municipality of Loimaa had the idea of purchasing the park as a tourist attraction, so in consultation with Jaakola a trial opening was organized in 1992. This was so successful that in 1993 the municipality decided to purchase the park and today the sculpture garden is an indispensable tourist attraction in Loimaa.
In the year 2000, a restoration project was carried out, largely financed by the European Union.
Documentation
* Website of the city of Loimaa with information about the museums in the city, including the park
* Website of the association of friends of Jaakola, with a lot of information and a variety of photos
* Facebook-account of the park, with recent information
* Weblog of Sophie Lepetit (February 2021). with a variety of photos
* Video
* Video (August 2020, YouTube, 1'22") by Rajala
Alpo Jaakola
Sculpture park
Aura-Pirkkatie 84,
32300 Loimaa, dept Western Finland, region Southwest Finland. Finland
visitors welcome
Google Streetview with over 700 photos
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