Anna Sparr

I am 26 years old and I have practiced hairwork since I was 17. Most of my life I have been living in Lund - which is a town in the south of Sweden. Since 1998 I have been living in Denmark.
My father's family originates from the small village Våmhus in Dalecarlia, middle Sweden. In this village, there is a strong tradition of making hairwork. We have had many "hårkullor" - hairworking women - in my family. Many of the tools I am using have belonged to my grandmother's grandmother whose name was Anna - just like mine.

I learned the art of making hairwork from Joanna Svensson in a summer course in Våmhus, 1995. Ever since, I have spent much time and efforts on deepening and developing my skill in this fascinating handicraft. Today I work mostly with my own designs - but I'm also making traditional hairwork jewelry. My personal ambition is to create something that is "new" out of an old tradition and technique.

I went to Denmark in the autumn of -98 after having graduated from high school in Lund. In Denmark I went to "Kerteminde højskole" for 9 months to get classes in jewelry design and weaving. The year after I started on "Seminariet for kunst og håndverk" , which is a school for teaching and handcraft. My main subjects there were jewelry and textile design.
During the summer 2000 I spent a couple of months in the home of a great collector of hair jewelry outside New York. There I got the opportunity to work intensely with many interesting and different hairwork projects. I returned a couple of years later and spent a month with further projects. During the autumn 2000 I started up MIM Hair Jewellery Design.
In September 2001, I started my studies on the School of Conservation , Copenhagen.