Min muse

Min Muse ~ Amalie Risom

Fragments of Amalie’s life, told through a private friendship. My Muse is viewed through Bolette Nord, founder of Bolet.   I visited Amalie at her country house. A place where everything moves at a different pace, and where work begins with listening. Every morning she steps out into nature and walks through the estate’s large park, collecting, sensing, understanding. Slowly, it all turns into works that aren’t just made from materials, but from relationships.  Being with Amalie reminds me that it’s not really about making more, but about getting closer to what’s already there. Her practice stands in contrast to the speed of modern life. It insists on presence. On paying attention.   Between you and me, Amalie is a bit of a nomad. She’s passed through Oslo, made a detour to Greenland, gone back home to Jutland, on to Aarhus, and now she’s landed in Kornerup, for now… you never really know with her. But it’s not the places that stay with you. It’s the way she sees the world. Paper is never just paper to her. Notes are never just notes. She still has stacks of hand-painted paper she made ten years ago, and even though life has moved fast, they’re still intact. She keeps things others would have thrown away long ago, not out of nostalgia, but because she can still see that they’re alive. And I think that’s what I love most: she treats the world like it actually matters.     Amalie has a real no-bullshit attitude. She doesn’t say things just to please people, if she thinks something else, she’ll say it. And honestly, that’s a rare gift in a friendship. She carries this inner wildness that somehow also lives in her hair: free, alive, and impossible to ever fully tame. It’s the same energy that runs through her work—an insistence on feeling the world rather than just shaping it. She works with nature as a collaborator, not a material, letting time, weather, and surroundings leave their marks.     We once read Children of the Earth at the same time, and if you know Ayla (the main character and a big recommendation), it might make sense: there’s something in Amalie that feels just as instinctive, grounded, and strong. Like someone who isn’t just moving through the world, but is fully in it.