catered to those seeking more opulence with gold- and platinum-trimmed Suomi series. Such marketing was not always appreciated on aesthetic grounds with the argument that the decorated versions of various sorts related poorly to Sarpaneva's refined shapes, and that Suomi was extraordinary only in plain white. Limited series On the occasion of launching his Sun in the Forest cup-and-saucer set in London, Sarpaneva said his forms were sometimes inspired by sound.When I go very deep into the forest, all of my senses are alerted. That is when I can hear with my eyes.Direct references to sound translated to images also accompanied the promo material with his mug-and-saucer combo Song of the Troll. Glass Sarpaneva was a prolific designer of glass art, both sculpture and functional objects. He pioneered many new methods in glass making, together with the glassblowers of Iittala glassworks. Among the new methods developed was the wet-stick method where spherical spaces within glass are created not by blowing, but by protruding a wet stick into the glass mass. The contact with the hot mass causes the water to evaporate whereupon the vapor blows a cavity into the glass. The glassmakers of Iittala developed a habit of picking up, on their way to work, fallen branches of apple trees, a type of wood particularly well-suited for the purpose. This method is central to many of Sarpaneva's glass art series, such as Kajakki and Orchid. Lancet, Kajakki and Orchid Sarpaneva's first international recognition in glass work came with a Grand Prix from the Milan Triennale in 1954 that included Sarpaneva's series Orkidea ("Orchid"), Kajakki ("Kayak"), and Lansetti ("Lancet") adopted for production by Iittala. He said of his favorite material:Glass is very mysterious. It's changing all the time. That's what makes it magical. It released me from the conventional and the three-dimensional. It opened its deepest reaches to me and took me on a journey to a fourth dimension. I understood the opportunities that clear, transparent glass gives to an artist and designer. The amoeboid abstraction "Lancet II" of the latter series, an asymmetrical clear-glass vase whose shape is only partly echoed by its hollow center, was selected by the U.S. magazine House Beautiful as "The Most Beautiful Design Object of the Year" 1954. At his hands distinctions between pure and applied art gradually became less and less meaningful – the glass vases he created in the 1950s exhibited clear sculptural