An Interview with Tove Slotte: One Last Story from Moominvalley Written by Jahwanna Berglund images courtesy Moomin Arabia Few everyday objects carry memory quite like a Moomin mug. Held in the hands and woven into daily rituals, they have become quiet companions to childhoods, homes, and generations of collectors worldwide. Behind one hundred thirteen of these designs is Finnish artist Tove Slotte, who, for more than three decades, translated Tove and Lars Jansson’s original illustrations from the page onto ceramic. Slotte’s work has always been an exercise in sensitivity: preserving the spirit of Jansson’s drawings while finding new relationships between characters, landscapes, and small, sometimes overlooked details. In doing so, she helped transform familiar scenes from Moominvalley into objects that feel deeply personal, each holding a story of its own. Her final mug brings this extraordinary chapter to a gentle close. Inspired by Tove Jansson’s 1955 comic strip Moomin’s Winter Follies, the autumnal design centres on the Moominhouse as the family prepares for hibernation. Completing the four seasons of the Moomin’s Day series, it feels both like a farewell and a return home. When I spoke with Slotte, I wanted to return to where it all began, long before Arabia and the one hundred thirteen designs: to her earliest memories of Moominvalley and the characters that first captured her imagination. Jahwanna Berglund: You began designing for Moomin Arabia more than three decades ago. Can you take us back to the beginning and tell us what first drew you into the world of the Moomins? Tove Slotte: I actually grew up with the Moomin stories. My mother read the illustrated Moomin children’s books for my brother and me when we were small, at the beginning of the 1960s, and later on I read all the Moomin novels, and also some of the comic books. As a child, I was fascinated by Little My, and later on I admired Snufkin. I also loved to draw the Moomins as a child, and I drew them everywhere, in the sand with a stick, and in the snow. About thirty-seven years ago I was working at Arabia as a designer, mostly doing decoration designs. The company hired a new product manager, Christel Vaenerberg, who also had loved the Moomins since her childhood. She planned that Arabia would make a Moomin collection with different items, and she asked me to design the surface decorations on these various items, since we had discussed our mutual love for the Moomins earlier. The first collection, in 1990, included four mugs, a children’s set with a plate, mug, and spoon, six small wall plates, two bigger wall plates with eight corners (later completed with an additional four pieces), and four Moomin figurines. The figurines were sculpted by Tuulikki Pietilä, the partner of Tove Jansson. JB: Your work has involved translating Tove Jansson’s original illustrations onto three-dimensional objects. How did you preserve the spirit of her drawings while gradually developing your own visual language? TS: I do hope that I have preserved the spirit of Tove Jansson’s original illustrations in my work. In the beginning, I was very cautious and careful with the illustrations. We promised Tove Jansson back then that we would use only her or her brother Lars Jansson’s original illustrations in the designs. When working so long with the same theme and characters, I suppose you just develop your own style, but I can’t really point out exactly what my style is. I guess it has to do with colours, thickness, and variation in the contour lines, and how to put together different characters and background scenes. Most of the details in a mug design are picked from different illustrations by Tove Jansson, and I guess that’s what keeps the motif ‘original’ and contributes to the spirit of her drawings. JB: After creating one hundred thirteen Moomin mug designs, did your relationship with the characters change over time? TS: Yes, I believe it did. At some point I was really tired of Moominvalley, and also of seeing Moomin trolls all over the place, not only in Moomin Arabia’s products, but on all kinds of items, from clothes to sweets and to furniture, and everything in between. This also caused a reaction in my own design work, which actually made designing more interesting. As I discovered familiar illustrations on different objects in the stores or in magazines, I started to try to find unique illustrations that nobody else had used in their design work. Sometimes it could be a really small detail in a comic strip square that I enlarged so that it would become the main component in a decoration. I didn’t want to make ‘lazy’ designs with easy illustrations. I also became more interested in side characters, because the main character you could see everywhere. JB: Moomin mugs have grown from everyday objects into cherished collector’s pieces, often connected to deeply personal memories. Did you ever imagine that your designs would become so meaningful to people around the world? TS: No, I couldn’t see it coming in the beginning. As I don’t think anyone could. It was nothing that was planned and aimed for; it just happened. It feels, of course, extremely nice that I have been able to contribute to these cherished pieces, but I strongly feel that the honour belongs to Tove Jansson. I have never felt that the Moomin mugs are completely my designs; both the shape and motifs of the mugs belong to famous creators, Kaj Franck and Tove Jansson. Not to forget the manufacturer, Moomin Arabia, with its high-quality standards and products. JB: Your final mug is inspired by Tove Jansson’s 1955 comic strip Moomin’s Winter Follies, showing Moominvalley in autumn as the family prepares for hibernation. What made this particular scene feel right for your final design? TS: It was obvious that the final design would be an autumn motif, since it was the fourth mug in a season series, where summer, winter, and spring already existed. Tove Jansson
