Marian Dahlberg &
Marian Dahlberg &
Marian Dahlberg &
Marian Dahlberg &

Marian Dahlberg '76


Owner | Senior Weaver
B.S. ’76 (College of Design)
Alumni Association Life Member

About Väva! Veve!
Marian’s Bachelor of Science degree in Interior Design from the University of Minnesota was the springboard to establishing her own design firm early in her career. Her work as a commecial interior designer gave her a rich exposure to textiles, igniting an ongoing fiber fascination, until she ultimately set her focus on weaving. Weaving classes expanded her skills and knowledge until establishing Väva! Veve!, an artisanal handweaving studio specializing in high quality, organic, luxuriously beautiful, hand-woven natural fiber textiles for the home and personal use.

“I design and hand weave my textiles from the pure, clean linen yarn I import from Belgium, and the high-quality wool that I source locally in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I hope to inspire joy and delight through my textiles by finding natural fibers that are gentle to the skin and body, and weaving them, thread by thread, into highly functional items for you! I use color as expression, weaving moments of joy caught in memory, capturing visions of nature in textural context, weaving music for the eyes!”

Establishing Väva! Veve! helped her manage the growing demands for her unique, luxurious natural-fiber textiles, featuring items for the home, spa, beach, and business. With an eye focused on beauty, while incorporating function, Väva! Veve! applies a unique blend of traditional Old-World techniques, combined with new, innovative weaving structures and her signature Scandinavian aesthetic, creating distinctive textiles with a rich and beautiful grace, and a high degree of practicality.

Visit Väva! Veve!

Address
335 25 1/4 Avenue
Cumberland, WI

Contact
    

About Marian
Marian has always been fascinated with creating things with her hands. But she needs those things to be functional as well as beautiful. She studied the beautiful designs of Kaffe Fassett, and Solveig Hisdal, the designer of the Oleana knitwear. She studied the philosophy and techniques of New York textile designer, Jack Lenor Larson, the functional and practical design of Florence Knoll, and the innovative yet practical applications of Anni Alber's loom-craft which merged with art while coalescing with mass production. Why not have those mundane items in one's life be designed both for function AND beauty! "Everyone should have good design in their everyday life!" says Marian.

Marian also stresses the need for quality since our world cannot withstand the growing discard of failing designs nor the depletion of resources to make more. She has a personal elevated dislike of ‘Designed Obsolescence’, where a product is intentionally designed to fail after a short amount of time so the consumer must dump the old one and replace it with a new one. Marian feels strongly that a product should last longer than a heartbeat. It should last a lifetime!!

Hand-in-hand with keeping things functional, beautiful, and out of the landfill, Marian advocates more locally sourced and produced products, products made on a smaller scale, avoiding the conglomerations of corporate America, where our kids have no idea where milk comes from or how things are made from scratch!

We have seen how large wrong-doing corporations can bury a simple justice-seeking consumer in legal paperwork and escape accountability through clever loopholes in the law. Knowing who made your products and being able to talk with them encourages products are made to last. This is the original transparent process. And when a particularly profitable product is being made well, more companies see that profit and try to engage in making one that is a bit better. This is called healthy competition! This keeps everyone honest!

Beauty and function, together with quality, sourced and made locally, benefit and build our local communities and economies. This is where Marian’s full life has led her.