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GAGA in the Icelandic press Spegill.is
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GAGA Skorrdal in an interview
Many people said Guðrún Gerður Guðrúnardóttir, or GAGA Skorrdal like she calls herself, very optimistic when she decided to open a chandlery with hand knitted caps on Laugavegur in Reykjavik. Totally nutty or "gaga" some have probably thought when she made that idea come true in July last year. It also looks similarly hopeless to sell caps and fireworks in the middle of the summer.
"The acceptance has been real good and the most interested thing was that the hottest day of the year was also the best selling one", says GAGA, who in the beginning only sold wool caps. Now she knits of wool, cotton, linen, silk and polyester or mix everything together. She knows nothing more fun and says she's addicted to the knitting and always looks forward to see the result from each item she starts with. Cap will be dress and vise versa
"I just start to knit without having full figuration in my mind. Sometimes the original idea changes in the middle of the process, cap can turn into dress or vise versa." The inspiration she says comes all around, mainly though from the nature and the landscape. She travels a lot domestically, loves Skorradalur, the highland and fishing. One fishing trip last summer filled me with new great ideas. "I knitted in the car between places and also after I throw in the water and waited for the fish to come in. When I came home I had both fishes and caps with me", says GAGA. As now she has informed about the genesis of her last artist name it´s time to ask about the first one. "I needed a simple name for the shop and a brand for my products. The meaning was to use my capital letters, GGG, but they where already in use. Then I put together my capital letters and both my sisters, Anna and Ásta - even though the comma above the A is missing. Then the logo was designed for me, which I sewed on the caps, used on my cards and all my wrappings. The frame is very important, not less than the product it self." Hands, brain and humor.
GAGA is often asked how many people work for her. There aren't any because she hand knits every hat herself. "I have two hands, one brain, many ideas and a lot of humor," she says. "And then I laugh a lot, because I find my caps so funny," she adds. Funny is a word that describes the GA GA caps very well. Marvelous, is another word that describes them as well, even weird with all their flourish, fringe, puff and pompoms here and there on the caps.
When talking about how modern the shape is, and how it is impossible to know how to turn the caps on the head, GAGA is quick to correct that misunderstanding. She says that it's not some one way to turn the caps, they can be turn in all ways, just how people like to wear them from time to time. It's hardly necessary to inform that all pieces are unique and no two are the same. But as the caps, the dresses and other garments, she has started to knit parallel the caps, GAGA working hours are unconventional. "I get most of my ideas just before I go to sleep around nine in the evening. Then I wake up around three or four in the morning and start to elaborate them," she explains. The performance each day is unlike but the most I have done in one day are thirteen caps. "But that was very long and hard day of work," she says.
Startart
When GAGA had operated the shop Startart for about a year in 27 fm2 the shop beside was closed and she was offered to rent the space and the floor above on Laugavegur 12b. "I called my sister (Anna Eyjólfsdóttir, sculptress) and asked her if we shouldn't go for it. She was already in that and in the end we were seven, artists, who decided to establish the gallery Startart." They opened in February and GA GA became part of the gallery, with studio on the top floor. There are plenty of caps in all colors which seems being wriggling of joy. GAGA thanks the tourists a lot for the good sale of the caps in the middle of the summer, but they have from the beginning been big part of her costumers.
"I have got many orders from abroad and sent both caps and dresses by measurement," she says. Asked she says that her costumers are in all age, most often people that are bored on multiply manufactured stuff and wants to be different - also in the summer.
Valgerður Þ. Jónsdóttir, journalist.