Tune in to see why this Finnish artist values the slow process of her work ? it can take up to six months to complete a piece.

There?s something initially deceptive about Finnish artist Marianne Huotari?s work. From a distance, it looks like feathers, perhaps, or petals ? maybe even scales ? that line her sculptural forms and wall work. Come closer, though, and you?ll see that each small piece ? of thousands of them ? is ceramics, formed by hand. That means that her larger-scale work ? like the Mandariinitarha, a two meter-by-140 centimeter wall piece ? takes months to finish. (That one took six months; she thinks that the next one will take five, once she puts into practice lessons learned from the first one.) ?My process is so slow, but very meditative,? she says from her studio in Helsinki. ?The excitement is in making the design for the artwork ? I need to be sure to be able to sit in front of the work for many months. During one year I can create three or four bigger works.? ?????"""""""""""""""""
In this week?s Milkshake, we talked to Marianne about how she once said that her work is an ?ode to the slowness of craftmanship? ? and whether she?s ever considered making work that didn?t involve minutely detailed pieces, all made by hand. ?Yeah,? she says, with a laugh. ?I do think about it a lot, if I could create something else, or a different technique. But for me, it?s a good ...