ISHPEMING – In many ways, Aaren Joki creates art at an intersection: a place where the future remembers the past, where the history of art is reconciled with its own continous evolution, where a Finnish heritage informs his future as a Yooper – where all the generations that preceded him inspire him as he endeavors to leave his mark on all those to follow.

A 19-year-old Ishpeming native, Joki is the owner and artistic force behind Metsami Creations, creating intricate woodburnings, wood and antler jewelry, stump tables and other custom furniture, U.P.-shaped cribbage boards of birds-eye maple.

He finds most of his own wood himself, cuts it himself, hauls it himself, mills it himself, dries it in his own kiln. He saved to and sought good deals on near-antique, secondhand tools and equipment. He composts or otherwise recycles the vast majority of his scrap. He’s learning as he goes, he says.

A proud Finn, Joki speaks with a heavy Yooper accent. He drops his g’s. He’s taking a Finnish class taught by Tanya Stanaway in Ishpeming, and he can tell you a lot about Finland and its people. His woodburnings are inspired in equal parts by this Finnish heritage and Yooper identity, as well as by the culture of the Sami, the indigenous people of northern Finland, to whom he can trace at least part of his ancestry.

“We have the Sami genetics. They’re the reindeer herders and hunters and fisherman in northern Finland,” Joki said. “I’m trying to learn their style of woodwork and I’m trying to get into carvin’, because they … carved a lot of stuff out of birch burls. There’s a lot of Finnish craft from southern Finland, because that’s where most people came from, but the crafts from the north are disappearin’.”

In a lot of ways, Joki’s talent with woodburning is a new-and-improved – or at least the more convenient – version of the Finnish wood carvings, which were made by cutting grooves into wood or antler, then filling them with wood ash or ink or dirt.

The name of his business, Joki explained, “Metsami,” is an archaic Finnish word that means either “woodland” or “woodspeople.” In the process of officially registering the company, Joki said he’s very rewarded being able to make people happy with his artwork – especially older people, he said, who are worried that the U.P.’s Finnish heritage is disappearing.

“There’s not as much interest anymore in old trades and even industrial trades, because that’s what I do combined – it combines the old and the new,” he said. “I’ve seen in school there was a general decline in interest in (our) culture and heritage and industrial trades. Which I think are important up here.”

He said in the U.P. today, with a lot of the young people unable to find good jobs in the area, forced to go elsewhere for work, it’s more important than ever that the younger generations know and value the area’s heritage and history, and use that knowledge to change the nature of the work done here – to create a strong future for Yoopers.

“Our natural resources – I mean, we have a lot of trees and minin’, and people who came from Scandinavia, that’s what they did – but over time, we’re gonna have to change,” he said. “Because obviously the minin’s done with. It’s starting up again, but I think people are going to have to get more back to nature, with farmin’ and woodwork and crafts, and we’re going to have to build our economy around smaller businesses and tourism, and strengthen culture to keep people up here. I mean, what I’m doing, there’s so many different things I could do right now, but you only have time for a few. So if a bunch of other people were interested in this kind of stuff, they could master something. Because I’m mainly good at the wood-burnins. I’m doing some furniture, but there’s other people who could probably do it better than me,” he laughed.

Joki plans to spend this summer selling his artwork at art shows around the U.P., rumbling from place to place in his old Army cargo truck – the only vehicle he could find that would fit all his stuff. But if for some reason, his artistic pursuits don’t work out for him, he said, he has backup plans – trade school, or a career in forestry; Finland, his homeland, or Finlandia University.

“I’m just not sure about school right now,” he said. “Because if I go for business, I’m still going to be doing what I’m doing right now. And if I take Finnish cultural classes, I’d probably be the one teaching,” he laughed. “If something doesn’t work, I have other things I like to do.”

Zach Jay can be reached at 906-486-4401. His email address is zjay@miningjournal.net.