”The Voldbakken Style” named after the artisan Åsmund Voldbakken (1943-1990) is perhaps a little known concept- internationalt, but also for many in todays environments in Norway as work with knife making or leather art and craft/brading is it not so of course that they shall know what it is about. But once for about 30-40 years ago knew everyone (in Norway) with interest for leather art and craft what it meant. But today can the concept ” The Voldbakken style” be hanging little in the air, in a empty space as a result of no biographical books, no permanent museums exhibitions which could make it possible to create a understanding of who he was and what he was doing. ”The Voldbakken style” have been more and more a concept that is at risk to fade away into the historical darkness with the memory about what ”the Voldbakken style” was. The most take a nearby explanation an explain that he was a knifemaker, but it’s just a half answer as is understood in a national context which his braiding works flow with in without any closer explanation than that ”they are great” and understanding how they relate in a international context. It can be no doubt from a leather art and craft point of viwe that such halting explanations entails a spiritual loss for all interested of leather art and craft, regardless to level. And of course, for the society as a whole.
The reason to that it gets like this do I belive must come of that knowlegde is lacking for to ask the right questions and by that get somewhat reasonable answers, which can deviate quite much from the one you get if you one side mention that he was a knifemaker and by pas that he also worked with bradings. You have almost (in Norway) a library to take from if you want to know about knifemaking. But what concern bradings so gets the shelves immediately more spars, as if something strange had forced its way in to the norwegian craft home since Voldbakkens time as no one realy know to give an answer to.And thus brading is not promoted as a craft disipline or part of norwegian culture. If you start wondering on it that Voldbakken also made bradings so is it also the only thing that gives fast ground under the feet for investigate what ”the Voldbakken Style” is. A natural question in the starting point is to ask where the braidings he used come from. The answer in the starting point is that he got the knowlegde about the braidings he used from Bruce Grants book Encyclopedia of Raw Hide and Leather Brading .The book was published in USA in 1972 and the context must be that it was bought from USA by Voldbakken, somtimes in the early 1970’s after he was told about the book from a other leathercrafter, Knut Ness. Of course he also got inspiration from norwegian culture, but also from his journeys many places around in Europe and Afrika: The famous Voldbakken backpack has its role model in the way the greeks made sacks on, by taking the whole skin,whitout peeling it, of the animal. He added the braidings on it in a way which gave it a new content. The backpack became understood as a international/ norwegian work. And that was something of the great art Voldbakken manage with the braidings, that he transformed them into both international and norwegian art and craft in a way as gave them a new own kind in relationship to where and how this bradings became used in the cultures they had its origin in and was used in the contemporary time. He made them norwegian.
Bruce Grant writes about the braidings in his book that they has its origin at the moors in Spain. From there followed they over the Atlantic Sea with the conquestadores and the conquest of South- Amerika and Mexico. There they where developed through the centuries together with that the South -American cowboy (Gaucho), the mexican cowboy (vaguero) and the North -American cowboy emerged on the historical stage and individually and together developed the cowboy culture as brading was and is a part of in connection to the cowboy saddle and practical things the cowboy needed in his works where the horse was/is sentral. ”The Voldbakken Style” differ completely in use of the same bradings which you can find in in the different cowboy cultures, with that he had basic in a traditional norwegian knife/farmer culture where you can find some similarities with the cowboy culture, especially before the agriculture was industriaized and the horse was in use but you find no sign to a culture development which looks like the one as developed in south and north America, Mexico and Australia where the horse still is in use in farm works.
What the material concern so used Voldbakken something as was called ”Tintet goatskin”, i.e. a type of vegetable tannet goatskin as was lightly ”nature” coloured while the cowboy cultures in south and north America and the vaqueros in Mexico is using rawhide of cattle/calf etc. The autralian cowboy, named ”Stockman” found kangaro hide well suited for brading and that is most close to compare with the type of goatskinn which Voldbakken used. What divide the australian bradings from the americans/mexican is that they came from England to Australia. And a speculation is if they came from the same sours as Bruce Grant mention in his book, the moors.And that they first ended up in England as spoils of war with english mercenary troops, after the war against the moors in Spain?.
As fare as I know, despite that Åsmund Voldbakken traveled much was he never in south or north America or in Mexico and by that in direct contact with the miliues as he despite everything presumably had so much in common with what concern braiding works. But it would be simplistic to just refer to the book of Bruce Grant as the only in his contemporary time. Inspirations to use the braidings came also from a mutual effect wit norwegian culture and his journeys in Europe and Afrika. Nevertheless; in Voldbakkens contemporary time was in North-America a artisan with name Luis Ortega ( 1897-1995) ” standard” when it come to bradings. ”Standard” means the leading experts in the field, whos works other could aspire to in terms of excecursion and quality. And without doubt must Åsmund Voldbakken in his contemporary time be conciered to be the foremost in the field in Norway and by that as ”standard”, as other could strech after what concern braidings excecursion and quality. That might be a bit fare fetched to compare him, born in 1942, with a artist born in 1897 as he never meet an as well stays for a nearly 100 years periode in american brading, but they occure simoutanously when you remember that Voldbakken died in 1990 and Ortega in in 1995. And that which still existed of general traditional leather/ craftmanship within the norwegian peasant cultur largely cheased in the 1930’s; the knife making survived, But roughly speaking, it began in the turn of the century, when the industrialism began to make its entrance in Norway. It have had a small progressive niche back with the knifework. It is from this returnpoint and nich that Voldbakkens production must be understood. His work by transform braidings in to norwegian leather art and craft spanned over the entire century. But brading of the kind that Bruce Grants book presented and Voldbakken used was of a kind the old peasant society not knew anyting about or just very little even if it existed in a other part of the world at the same time in a other kind of peasant society which Luis Ortega /Bruce Grant and Voldbakken was part of through the great wide worldweb.
The difference in miliue, tradition and visions have the last 30-40 year produced artisans in souh and north America cowboy miliues who have set a new ”standard”, while you with a small reservation must be aloud to mean that Åsmund Voldbakken still is standard in Norway what concern bradings. When I take a small reservation is it because the same knowlegde about brading is at most leathercrafters/artisans workshop today. And they can with a couple keystroke on the computer come in contact with anyone in the world, among other the miliues inside of the cowboy cultures as still keep going with bradings; which on Voldbakkens time was not available the same way and rather unkown in Norway – this for to learn more about what Bruce Grants book tells about – and who can keep it quietly, so that one never hears about them.