In my day-to-day trying-to-pay-the-rent mode I’m a graphic designer and illustrator.

In a constantly changing world and with all the stuff that’s happening around us all the time, it felt like about high time to share my little reflections on some parts of human interactions.

I wanted to bring my own interpretations of events we all can relate to but with a wink and a small twist.

Let’s describe my works as a ‘Tableau Vivant’, in the tradition of the late 19th-century theatre and visual arts scene.

It’s a set-up of a bunch of elements that all together create a scene that I like to offer to the public as high-quality limited edition silkscreen prints.

Only one could say whatever he wanted and had immunity, the court jester.

He was the only one allowed to mock the king and tell him the truth, hold up a mirror and tell him he was doing stuff the wrong way.

He was the only one who could give his honest opinion, but always with a ‘jest’.

I try to be a court jester of this day and age, holding up a mirror to us humans with all our little human shortcomings

It’s of course necessary to start with a subject that has enough interesting or even weird elements in itself as a basic idea.

When you see the way some world leaders act these days, it’s not that hard to imagine what kind of stuff would happen if some nice little aliens would land one day.

Or the inspiration for my upcoming silkscreen print came from watching the news, seeing thousands and thousands of people running for trains to end up all squeezed together on a beach in order to ‘relax’.

First I start with setting the basic scene with the bigger elements, and after that, it’s basically a painstaking long and intense work of shuffling and reshuffling smaller ideas and details in order to fit them all together in a consistent ‘Tableau Vivant’.

Art has been throughout the ages a way to stimulate us, to confront us or just to brighten up our lives.

One person loves a framed poster copy of a gypsie girl with a tear in one eye, someone else spends a million zillion dollars on a cut-up Banksy, but in my opinion they both serve the same purpose… give joy to people who think these works are important enough for them to give them some space in their homes.

Coffee can have that same intimacy.

It’s that peaceful moment of holding a cup in our hands and enjoying the moment, the same way we can have that moment when we see a piece of art.

That’s why I wanted to create a scene of enjoying coffee in your home on a Sunday afternoon, with a good book at hand and the sun falling through the window.

It’s that cozy feeling of being home, being at your place in your own little world you created.

It was also very important to me the prints are handcrafted.

It gives that extra sort of ‘glow’, it makes every work a little bit unique, with every single print checked, double-checked and basically handmade one color at a time.

The result is absolutely top quality and the interaction with Bert is always open and constructive.

He knows what he’s doing, and it gives confidence in the final result.

I would just love to meet and talk and –if I can dream– work one day with Shepard Fairey.

I love his style of work and love the way he stayed true to his ideals, despite his success.

But I’m also a big fan of the impressive and explosive art of Vhils, love the way Invader has built a strong community around his (basically very simple but visually strong) mosaic art, am a fan of the absolute rebel Damien Hirst, impressed by the collage style of Faile, charmed by the naive paintings of Joachim… and so on and so on 🙂

It’s just a quiet little place, at least as long as there are no F1 supercars chasing each other around.

If you wanna escape the busy city life, take your bike and come over on a Sunday afternoon.

Take a bike ride through nature and end up somewhere under a tree with a nice cold Belgian beer… we love the simple things in life over here.

it’s an honor.

Besides that, I would like to wish myself a lot of inspiration and would like to ask all humans around me to support that inspiration by keep doing all the silly things they do, don’t hold back.

That way the inspiration will never dry up, and that way I can keep shuffling and reshuffling all the human exploits into new scenes and silkscreen prints.

Deal?"

Yeah, Brno but we started at the beginning of the 2022 new chapter in Olomouc, a beautiful and popular small city in the east of the Czech Republic.

At this moment we are a team of one man who manages the whole production and one black pug (called Cheddar).

Viktor the founder, while studying information technology, discovered his passion for coffee.

During his studies, he tried to invent various coffee projects.

After a few years spent in the coffee industry and popular cafes in Brno, he decided to establish his own coffee roastery with a space/universe theme.

It was just at the end of 2017. Since then, he has been trying to roast the best possible coffee and cooperate with the best cafes throughout the whole globe.

I guess that was 2012 - 2013.

Spending time with my friends in the local café.

Later we had an opportunity to do a barista course.

Here I discover a whole new philosophy behind specialty coffee.

I prefer using Kalita to prepare.

The coffee is clean, sweet, and easy to do.

I love espresso as well, but I am too lazy to clean the mess afterward, haha, so that is why prefer filter coffee. 

It may sound strange.

However, I love the feeling that people go to their favorite coffee shop and buy one of our coffee boxes.

Every time is amazing to see how they like the design and visual presentation.

Then go home with something that is nice to look at.

Start brewing and enjoy it!

And I love the feeling that someone has time and gives me feedback.

Positive or negative it doesn't matter.

I appreciate the time and chance you give to my product.

Olomouc is a city full of students because of the universities here.

Young and energic city. It is still growing.

So you can go to the perfect coffee shops, and pubs and if you are tired of it you can just walk around.

The small center is full of gardens and parks so especially in the spring or autumn time it is amazing to watch the scenery.

Also, the architecture could be for someone interesting.

If you like Prague you will definitely like Olomouc too.

The whole city is walkable, which I like.

If you plan to visit, the weekend is enough.

The excitement of discovering what lies inside.

It is the emotional connection that gives the whole experience a new dimension.”

And if you know the Demolition Man film: “Be Well!” :)

• Viktor and Cheddar the pug!

This was a steep learning curve for all things coffee.

I think I am pretty well organized and consistent in the ways I work so this was a huge benefit for learning how to handle the roaster, the process of roasting, and repeating the same thing all over again constantly.

The hardest part was the cupping table and figuring out how to make the coffee taste better and as good as it could be.

Which is of course what I do chase week in and week out.

I started drinking coffee at the age of 22 and by 24 I was working at the roastery.

In the years in between I started buying coffee from local and foreign roasters such as Coffee Collective and Koppi and so on.

I did use Moccapot in the beginning but drifted towards filter brewing with the V60 and Aeropress.

Recent years have made the coffee scene more open and approachable with the shared knowledge online and brewing equipment more easily available.

There are a lot of people with grinders at home and even some geeky coffee equipment too.

This wasn’t the case when I started in coffee.

I think the scene has sort of evolved but we do struggle with the lack of Specialty Coffee shops even in the capital Helsinki.

I think it would be great if we’d see more independent shops and pop-up concepts.

I think in a lot of ways they are sort of the ideal for the Nordic Specialty coffee scene and a huge inspiration on all levels, not only coffee.

In 2017 I had the pleasure of being part of the roasting team in their Copenhagen roastery. It was a huge thing for me for sure.

At the same time though, another roaster I can’t help but mention would be Koppi from Sweden.

Lovely people, lovely coffees, and a huge inspiration for me.

We have a beautiful river in the middle of the city and it’s fairly easy to get out of the city and into the Turku Archipelago.

Nature is not far.

Our small roastery is based in the new area built in the old prison closer to the Turku Harbour.

Our neighbors are Craft Brewery Kakola Brewing Company, Restaurant Kakolanruusu and sourdough Bakery Bageri Å.

ageri Å is owned by my wife and her friend and we did the concept of the coffee shop together and we also retail from their space.

That was by waking up for Specialty Coffee.

Floral and Citric and so nice.

Another unforgettable cup was another washed Ethiopian coffee from Tim Wendelboe, Nano Challa.

Biking home from the Coffee Collective roastery in Copenhagen I got a takeaway cup of Nano Challa filter from now closed Noma Group restaurant 108.

It tasted so amazing in a cold October rain.

We soon became quite popular and around 1 year later we started to roast our own coffees in the back of the store.

But I will not deny that I have already tasted some very good experimental new processes.

Super close to the rest of Brussels and an ideal area to do some bigger production roasts. we are only 5 minutes away from upcoming areas like Forest/Saint-Gilles.

We have several beehives in the back of our garden.