Heljä’s flower plaques are irresistible—a “shoe-sole plaque” can sell for nearly €100
Like other wonders of the 1980s and 90s, Heljä Liukko-Sundström’s ceramic plaques are having a moment. There’s a fun story behind how the “shoe soles” came to be.
Uninhibited imagination and a painterly style are rare in modern ceramic tradition. Into that world stepped Heljä Liukko-Sundström (1938–2024). From the artist’s extensive body of work, several product series deserve the spotlight. Lately, ceramic plaques from the 1980s and 90s have sparked enthusiasm, right along with other wonders of the era.
Everyone can find a favorite among the artist’s themes. One gravitates to flowers, another to rabbits; a third to architectural subjects, a fourth to storytelling, a fifth to angels. Liukko-Sundström explored the very same themes both in series production and in grand, one-of-a-kind artworks.
Attention within her series production now centers on the “shoe-sole plaques.” Marjo Tiirikka explains in the book Arabian Heljä, that the idea arose by chance when the artist was making a gift for Kaj Franck. Heljä nicknamed the gift the "wheat bread cutting board".
The idea took shape in a gift for her sister, when the artist turned the board upright and painted a bouquet on it. A product manager saw the piece, and, starting in 1981, the flower plaques were produced in three different sizes for about twenty years. Heljä described the pieces as modern-day distaffs, but collectors permanently named them the “shoe-sole plaques.”
