Kites by Mårten Bondestam
In the Nordic countries there is a love for simple forms. This trend is still stronger in Finnish design. It is easy to prove that simple is beautiful: When a painter adds details to his painting there will be a moment when the work of art will get less good. The best artists make the simplest works.
Photo by Gerhard & Daniela Zitzmann
Djinn kites are trolls from the woods.
At left the "Tear drop of an entrepeneur".
At right the "Spring kite" accepted to the yearly exhebition of art and made me accepted member of the Association of Finnish Sculptors. There are 100 different colors from plastics on it.
The first big conyne delta from 1982. Then there was
a small beautiful one. The difference to normal conyne
deltas is the lack of the top sail at the back of the box.
The box is also much bigger than on normal ones.
Later there were made three larger ones.
They are extremely reliable flying in most winds
ascending very fast even when totally calm by running
four meters. They are stable also in storm.
The candy dropper at the main page is one of these.
Kites intended for the children section
of the central library in Helsinki.
My son Kristoffer started the kiting hobby in our family. He developed his own version of the bow kite adapting existing sports wear fabric with a width of 150 cm. We use to fly them very high up. There are made about 15 colorful of this kite. Here his dove from 1981.
The Cody was our first lifting kite. It was not reliable.
Once it started to make loops with my camera at
500 meter up.
A transparent parafoil made with
tape and plastic. The top foil
is seen through.
A very poetic kite. The foil shows rainbow colours
in sunshine. Flies like a soul in the park among the old trees. All soft plastic or pegamoid (guttapercka).
About 1982.
The tail of the kite
The Life Giving Rain.
Made from plastic
bags for bread.
10 meters long.
My "pilot kite". Tells the wind conditions.
Made from a small mylar balloon.
The "collection of
shopping bags".
Always take a kite
with you on holiday.
Here Irleand inland.
A large parafoil without
section walls.
A portrait of the
city director of a
small town in
Finland. Sold
at the auction
in Cervia.
Once at office feeling depressed I made this kite.
No spars. Made from shopping bags. The eyes
are from coffee bags. The dark is by a felt pen.
It was the first djinn kite in about 1986.
The Explosion, the Spring djinn and the Forest djinn.
Kites copied from a childs
kite designs in 1984.
A transpartent matress from plastic.
The system to fix the profiles to the
top and bottom is very complicated.
The "Frame". The picture in the frame is the sky. About 2010. It is developed from a conyne
kite by leaving away the top sails of the box. It has two spars instead of five.
"The flying branch". Cervia 2006.
"The big Star". In Kulturhuset
in Stockholm about 1986.
Did not fly well.
The golden edo. It flies with one line to the top end. Or with one line to the center of the side.
You can change line in the air. It shines fantastically at sunset when high up in the air.
A sled with middle front open as this part of a sled only
works like a brake. Wind from sides lift. Sold to a hotel
in 1967.
A simple matress without internal
profiles. Only two sheets of cloth.
Still flies well.
Drunken youth make graffiti on
kites instead than on walls.
Ten great fine graffiti kites on exhibition.
A Joan Miró inspirated delta.
The first tubular thai snakes in Cervia 2006
A very big thai snake abaout 1986
The big tube. Made in Crete when I was teachert at a workshop.
The beautiful rusell hall. Changes
form at growing distance. 1981.
Silver foil soft sledges.
They look very curious.
No kite feeling form.
1983.
Simple sledge from an old refuse bag.
Just by cutting you can get any fine design.
Flies well. 1982.
