00:01
Agnete Oernsholt
Paul Gernes worked a lot with the alphabet, stripes, in this case dots, and absolutely a lot with colors. And if there's something that characterizes what I do as a graphic designer, it's pretty basic. It's color, it's shape, and it's typography.

00:18
Agnete Oernsholt
He was before computers. If you look at his art in general, a lot of it is really graphic design. It's probably not the kind of paintings you would paint today because you can do them on a computer and very fast and very easy, but for the time that he was working, it was very fresh and very modern and very new. So I really was inspired by his work.

00:41
Agnete Oernsholt
It was addressed to people. It had a human touch to it. It didn't try to be something that you couldn't reach. With art, sometimes you can say the art is something you feel that you could almost do yourself. In that way, I feel it becomes a little human and a little reachable. And yet, I know that you probably couldn't do it yourself or I couldn't do it myself.

01:05
Agnete Oernsholt
I have a little quote from another graphic designer that I adore, Paula Scheer, one of the founders of Pentagram, that I always love: "It took me a few seconds to draw it, But it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few seconds."

01:25
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
My name is Tina Jøhnk Christensen and I'm the host of Danish Originals, a podcast series created in partnership with the National Gallery of Denmark and the American Friends of The National Gallery of Denmark. Our goal is to celebrate Danish creatives who've made a significant mark in the U.S.

01:44
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Today, our guest is Agnete Oernsholt, a Danish graphic designer based in Los Angeles. Welcome, Agnete.

01:53
Agnete Oernsholt
Thank you, Tina. I'm excited to be here.

01:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And we're excited to be here, too. You work for the in-house advertising agency Yellow Shoes at the Walt Disney Company. How did you end up working for Disney? It is a world famous company and it turned 100 last year. So I imagine it's a special place to work.

02:13
Agnete Oernsholt
It's a very special place to work. I love working for a company that makes people happy. And what is better than that? I joined Disney Yellow Shoes in 2016 as a freelancer. I had been doing some work within the movie industry for some agents that asked me to do visual identities for agencies. And through that, the SVP of Disney Yellow Shoes had gotten notice of some of my work and asked them who did that.

02:42
Agnete Oernsholt
I got a call from the SVP of Disney Yellow Shoes. And she asked me if I would come and say hi to her and maybe bring a portfolio. I thought, why not? I was in a time in my life, a very difficult time in my life where I didn't know what to do. I had just become a widow and thinking about eventually maybe moving back home to Denmark, or Europe, at least, to be a little closer to family and friends.

03:07
Agnete Oernsholt
And I had a nine-year old, born and raised here. So moving back home for me didn't mean moving back home for my daughter. I thought it was better to at least take it a little slow, find out what to do. I accepted a contracted freelance position, meaning that I went into the office every day and worked for Disney for a couple of years as a freelancer.

03:29
Agnete Oernsholt
And then they asked me if I wanted to build a design team within the advertising team. I thought that was a great opportunity. They asked me to go out and scout some great designers to help build the team, but also to find, within Disney Yellow Shoes, some art directors and turn them into designers. And I thought that was a fun challenge, too. In the past, I worked in advertising so it wasn't too far from my area.

03:54
Agnete Oernsholt
Yes. So that's how I ended up in this design team that handles a lot of amazing work from brand identities to campaign identities. We do our home builder boards, we do airport and train station and stadium takeovers. We do plane wraps, bus wraps, car wraps.

04:13
Agnete Oernsholt
We have several huge Disney-owned digital screens around the world. I will say not only advertising, because in many cases, these out of home screens and areas and airport lounges, they don't accept advertising. So in certain cases, which I find very interesting, we have to treat it like an art installation.

04:33
Agnete Oernsholt
No logo, no type, where you really get the opportunity to create with just the visuals. We're targeting the advertising for Disney parks around the world. My team is bi-coastal. More than half of us in Florida, and the other smaller half over here.

04:49
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
So the world of Disney is much larger than people usually think of when they think of Disney. They think of entertainment, movies, and animated films in the studio. And Walt, of course. Can you talk a little bit about the big world that was created in his name?

05:06
Agnete Oernsholt
When Walt started his animation studios based on the drawings that he made, he was always onto the next thing. He came up with the idea of building the parks. And that was of course, a huge add-on to Disney. He started Disneyland first, and while he was building Walt Disney World, Walt passed away. His brother Roy was the one who continued the big empire.

05:31
Agnete Oernsholt
Disney also built parks around the world: in Paris, there's Tokyo, there's Hong Kong, and there's Shanghai. Disney has cruise ships. Disney has Adventures By Disney, which is a travel agency that have private jets, so you can get a customized world trip designed by Disney. Disney owns National Geographic today, so that's another big thing that we're working on in our team. Yep, it's more than the studios.

06:01
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
It's much more than the studios. You are a graphic designer. How would you describe your job here at Disney? It sounds like you do a lot more than just design.

06:12
Agnete Oernsholt
I'm a leader of a design team here. When you're leading a team the size of mine, you are in charge of people. The majority of my work today is not sitting and designing anymore. I miss it, I will admit. But I get to teach. I get to mentor, I get to find, discover, and educate young talents. And seeing young talents succeed is a much bigger pleasure for me today than it is to see my own work.

06:41
Agnete Oernsholt
There's quite some administration when you lead a team through tough times as we have gone through lately, with uncertainty. Uncertainty about your job. Uncertainty about the world. We all know COVID brought a lot of companies into a difficult situation. And to be the one who maintains the calm and to assure that it's going to be fine, we're all going to make it, we will make it through this time and this too shall pass — is your role as a leader and it can be a difficult one.

07:14
Agnete Oernsholt
But I feel, I'm a widow, I've been through tough times myself in the past before COVID. And that probably is one of the things that I can say that I learned from having gone through that, having lost a husband to a heart attack all of a sudden, that came out of the blue, gave me some learnings about life, that nothing is forever, and nothing is certain. And you know, you have just to, I mean, the best way to approach many things is to really just take one day at a time.

07:44
Agnete Oernsholt
I still do that here eight years after I lost my husband, and probably one of my biggest strengths is that I don't expect anything from tomorrow. I solve what I can for today. Of course I have plans and I have dreams and thoughts about the future, but you cannot predict what's going to happen and you're sitting there with a team of creatives — artists, young ones — just coming out of art schools with big ambitions and also anxiety.

08:15
Agnete Oernsholt
So there's a lot more than being a graphic designer. All of a sudden I sometimes wish I had other degrees as well. You know, you find yourself — sometimes you find yourself finding that balance between being a mentor and a therapist, you know? Where is the balance here, right? You've got to find that elegant balance where you don't go too much into an area that is not your specialty.

08:42
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Obviously, sorry about your husband, Nete. You've had an interesting journey to get to where you are today, Nete. You started out catwalking and posing for years throughout Paris, London, New York, Milan, Madrid, and Copenhagen, just to name a few of all those big cities. Talk about how you ended up in that world.

09:05
Agnete Oernsholt
How did I end up there? Now we are really far back, right? I moved to Paris after finishing high school in Denmark, to study Fransk and get away from my family for a little bit —

09:18
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
As you do when you are a teenager —

09:19
Agnete Oernsholt
— as you do when you're from Denmark and finish high school. It's a different thing here. There is a big tradition of taking gap years after high school in Europe. I did that like everybody else in the late '80s. I think it was '87, I finished high school.

09:33
Agnete Oernsholt
While in Paris, I was discovered, as you say, as a model. I got straight onto the runways and the catwalks and found an agent there and so I stayed there probably a little longer than I had planned. I stayed in Paris for around three years. I went back and forth to Denmark as well during that time, and from there I moved on to Milan and London.

09:59
Agnete Oernsholt
I had a base in Europe and New York and I traveled to exotic destinations, depending on the jobs. And that was really exciting. Instead of one year of gap year, I ended up taking eight years. My parents were not too happy about that.

10:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Looking at a career like that, where you were modeling and in those fancy environments. It looks very glamorous and luxurious. What is the world like from the inside?

10:27
Agnete Oernsholt
Yeah, a lot of people always want to hear about the backside, and of course there's good and bad to everything. I will say looking back at my modeling years, there's no doubt it was a glamorous part of my life, absolutely. I traveled the world, I learned a lot of languages.

10:43
Agnete Oernsholt
I got inside buildings I'd never been in before and received invitations and met people that normal people don't get to experience. So of course it's glamorous. I will say the hardest part of that was to make sure you got enough beauty sleep.

11:00
Agnete Oernsholt
Now I'm a designer and I'm in advertising and it's not a go-to for sleep. Endless hours of problem solving, pulling many all-nighters, and it hasn't been glamorous to get where I am today. So when I look back at the hard modeling years, they were for sure very glamorous compared to my years to come.

11:19
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And what made them glamorous?

11:21
Agnete Oernsholt
You practically see the world and meet people that you would have never had the opportunity to meet. I got invited to things, like backstage at big concerts just because you did that cover of that magazine the other day, or just because you walked that runway. So, of course there were also things about modeling that weren't fun. And the competition was big.

11:44
Agnete Oernsholt
I will say I was running on a good wave because it was still the early '90s. I was definitely working from the late '80s throughout the '90s and up until 2000, around that time. There were not that many models back then and you had to be a certain height and a certain weight, and that was the nature of my body, at the time.

12:10
Agnete Oernsholt
So for that reason it was great. Then came the beautiful time where Kate Moss came in and changed the height and the size and everything, especially the height, and I think that opened up for a whole other group of models that were to and had to come.

12:25
Agnete Oernsholt
And diversity became a big thing, which I think is so beautiful, and it was a very good move coming that way. I was right before that and there weren't that many, so it was probably a lot easier for me back then than it is for the models today.

12:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Did you say you worked as a model for eight years?

12:41
Agnete Oernsholt
I think a little longer. Definitely a little longer. During the time that I was modeling, I decided that I better get a degree. My parents had been pushing hard for that and I thought, okay, let me see what I can get into, what university will take me.

12:58
Agnete Oernsholt
I decided to try for the back then called Danish Design School or The Design School of Denmark. I had, during my traveling, always carried a camera with me, and a sketchbook. So something inside of me probably knew what I was up to without me actually knowing it myself. So when I was waiting for the shoot, I was drawing and taking pictures of the other models or the desert we were standing in, and some things like that.

13:25
Agnete Oernsholt
So I had a creative outlet already then. I did not exactly know what I was going to use it for, but slowly I was building a portfolio and that was the portfolio I used to enter the school of design in Copenhagen. Today it's called The Royal Academy of Art, Design and Architecture, and is a renowned school that I'm fortunate to have my degree from.

13:48
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you got a degree in Visual Communication and you started your own design studio Oernsholt, and then you went on to work for LEGO. You worked first as an ID style guide manager, soon to become brand design manager. And as most people know, this is a world famous Danish brand, LEGO. What was this job like? What were the challenges here?

14:14
Agnete Oernsholt
I started Oernsholt while I was still in art school. Friends of friends offered me to work on record covers in the music business, and I thought it was really interesting. So I had already started building a clientele and right out of art school, I got hired into advertising.

14:31
Agnete Oernsholt
I went straight into Copenhagen advertising agencies and worked for a number of years before I then landed the job at LEGO. Someone reached out to me and said, hey, are you interested in coming to work for LEGO? And I went to meet with them and said yes to, as you mentioned, an ID style guide manager. I'd never heard about that, but I thought it sounded fun.

14:54
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Interesting title —

14:55
Agnete Oernsholt
It's an interesting title. It was soon to be changed by the global creative director for LEGO Worldwide who said, no, you should be our brand design manager. I had some fun years in LEGO. And I will also say, probably one of the reasons why Disney thought to bring me on board here. Because LEGO and Disney have a lot in common, they have a lot of collaboration going on, and have had throughout many years.

15:21
Agnete Oernsholt
I think LEGO is one of the most brilliant companies in the world. I love their strategies, because I thought LEGO was such a human needs-focused brand in many ways. Of course, their target group is kids first and foremost, and that makes you think about what you do and you have to be careful when you're targeting children. It's a Danish brand, LEGO, and there are some morals and ways of working with people according to Danish standards, even though it's LEGO America.

15:55
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is good design in your eyes?

15:59
Agnete Oernsholt
Good design evokes and moves people. And simplicity is key. In today's world of mass communication, it's a total mass of information. If you are able to communicate with just one symbol or one color that says it all, I think that's good design. If it's just a color, you take the Tiffany blue and people know that is Tiffany.

16:26
Agnete Oernsholt
Or the Hermès orange, and you're not in doubt, it reminds you of Hermès. Target has a brilliant logo, it's the target. And look at Apple. No need to say more. It's easy, it's fast, and it's communication without words. And then, take Paul Smith, color stripes, pretty much owned by him, which is brilliant.

16:47
Agnete Oernsholt
When you're able to communicate with as little as possible, your chances in this world of mass communication are bigger because it's clean communication. It communicates in a split second on a drive-by, if we're talking out of home billboards and stuff like that.

17:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Where do you get your creative inspiration?

17:07
Agnete Oernsholt
I get my inspiration in various places. I do like art and great art exhibitions. I like music. I listen to music. I try to watch movies, but I don't have a lot of time for that. I get inspiration from traveling and from the people that I surround myself with.

17:26
Agnete Oernsholt
And definitely, and I will say probably most of it from my 17-year old daughter, who inspires me every day. And she is at an age where they know everything, way more than her mom. It's her view on the world. She's born and raised in America. She's gone to a school during all this time where there's a lot of focus on people and human needs.

17:50
Agnete Oernsholt
The whole world has changed tremendously over the last five years. I was mentioning before having a team of anxious young people. Imagine a classroom of anxious young kids. It's a big ask for a school teacher. I admire the way that many of her teachers handled the time during COVID. When thinking back on my school in Århus in the '70s, I didn't learn anything near like what she learns today.

18:17
Agnete Oernsholt
And it was, I think, around third grade. I couldn't help her with her homework anymore because I didn't understand a word of it. So, it's so advanced what they learn today. And also, kids learn much faster than we do.

18:31
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you think there is anything about the way you work that's typically Danish? Your creative style, for instance, or the way you work with your team?

18:42
Agnete Oernsholt
I think of that a lot, actually. I approach the work from a humble and human-focused angle, I believe. I try my best to be real. I know that only by being real you gain trust, because nobody will trust you if you just put on a facade and play a game, and say what you're supposed to say.

19:06
Agnete Oernsholt
Denmark has a great history of design and furniture design, which is one of my big interests. I tap into that a lot in my work. My parents were in the medical industry, doctors and nurses, but very interested in art and design, and that shaped my childhood in many ways.

19:23
Agnete Oernsholt
A lot of Danes are shaped by art and design without knowing it. Having been here in America for quite a number of years, I realized it's not everybody here that grew up with design as such a part of the culture, but I think Denmark is unique in that way.

19:37
Agnete Oernsholt
If you go through the streets in Denmark, no street sign is a handmade, homemade thing. They're all designed by real designers. Whereas here in LA, which is one of the things about living here I enjoy very much, that everybody has a chance here. You can paint your own sign outside the building and it's fantastic and it looks cool and homemade and cute. That's a little bit not allowed in Denmark because we have such a strong culture and background in history and design.

20:08
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
How important is art in your life?

20:10
Agnete Oernsholt
Art has a big importance. I do go see the great shows. I don't want to miss those. The Keith Haring downtown, the Basquiat that were just there, must-sees, and I'm first in line for those things. I do think it plays a role and I do think that a lot of my inspiration comes from, not necessarily new art, it can be anything, also older and ancient. I find inspiration everywhere, but I'm very inspired by great artists.

20:38
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You mentioned that you're a widow. Your husband was a director and unfortunately he passed away far too young. He introduced you to the world of movies and you played a small part in one of his films. Did that world, the world of movie making, ever attract you?

20:59
Agnete Oernsholt
If you're talking about the acting part, that was just a fun little thing, and I am way too shy for that. Modeling was easier for me because you don't have to say anything, you just walk and look good. Or you stand there in front of the camera and try to look your best. In the movies, you actually have to speak and it gets very close to your personality somehow and I'm way too shy for that, but it was fun to be part of that.

21:22
Agnete Oernsholt
What I did also do with my late husband was I created a few movie title sequences for him and I got to work with really quite amazing artists like Kyle Cooper from Prologue, and had the opportunity to get inside that world of movie title sequences, which I found utterly interesting and I absolutely loved it.

21:43
Agnete Oernsholt
I'm a bit of a type geek and a typography nerd. So of course, having to do the whole type in front of the movie, at the end of the movie, the type treatments and the lockups and all that, it was very interesting for me. I learned a lot because graphic design feels very one dimensional and static.

22:03
Agnete Oernsholt
When you operate with motion and music, and all of a sudden there's a much bigger perspective. You have a 360° feeling here when compared to the static type on a billboard that doesn't move. I was very inspired by his work and also by the people I met through his work.

22:22
Agnete Oernsholt
I met agents and writers and actors and directors, and that whole movie world is still very inspiring to me. They're really touching all aspects of being an artist and being artistic. It's not like doing a drawing or a painting. It's got the 360° perspective. And the sound is part of it, too.

22:50
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Since you are based in the capital of moviemaking, does Hollywood inspire you creatively? You kind of just answered that, but maybe you could elaborate —

23:00
Agnete Oernsholt
When you say Hollywood, I think old Hollywood. And I do think there's something so amazing when we take a look at old Hollywood movies and old Hollywood movie posters. Back then when there were no computers, the art was amazing. Talking about Walt Disney and the way he started his animation studios with his drawings that came to life.

23:22
Agnete Oernsholt
So this is still a very interesting time and still feels very inspiring when you had barely any tools, they did it. And of course, today we have computers and we can do everything in a split second. But knowing how to draw with a pencil and knowing how to bring that to life the old fashioned way has become something.

23:44
Agnete Oernsholt
I look at my team and many of the young designers are utterly inspired by the old techniques. As we move into a very digital world, print becomes something we all really want to do, and my designers here, they are loving letterpress. But nobody has the opportunity to use that, because it's an old area, and it's very expensive these days. Yeah, I look back on the history of movies and movie making, and there's a lot of great inspiration to draw from that.

24:12
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What's it like being a creative person living in Los Angeles?

24:16
Agnete Oernsholt
I've lived here almost 20 years now, and I feel that LA has become a creative mecca. I don't think it was before I came here. I've also lived in New York. New York was always, since I came there when I was really young, the creative mecca of America. There was also a lot going on, especially for graphic designers, in San Francisco and up north.

24:38
Agnete Oernsholt
LA was a little behind. I also came from fashion and I thought, oh my God, it's so old fashioned here. I don't think so anymore. Now you can see LA on the world map of fashion also. It's a city that people look toward for various reasons. LA has its own fashion.

24:53
Agnete Oernsholt
It also has its own style when it comes to graphic design, when it comes to art. I used to say, oh, all great art exhibits start in New York and you have to go to New York to be the first one to walk in, but some of them start in LA today. That's really defining LA on the world map.

25:09
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You are from Århus, Denmark. You mentioned that before. And since you've been in Los Angeles for many years, I assume you feel at home here. What is it that makes you feel that way about this city, which is very different from Århus?

25:24
Agnete Oernsholt
Åarhus is small even though it's the second biggest town in Denmark. It's difficult to say. I feel at home a little bit everywhere, I'd say. When I go back to Århus, it's been so many years now, I feel more at home in LA now than I do there. It's nice to be there, when I go up to north of Århus where we still have a little family summer house.

25:45
Agnete Oernsholt
And I sit there on the shore, everything just looks like it did 40 years ago and I'm just feeling that calm and thrown back to my childhood thinking, could I ever live here again? I don't know. I don't really know. When I'm there, I'm thinking, what would it be like to be here now? One big question, I don't know. Did I answer your question here?

26:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Yes, you did.

26:05
Agnete Oernsholtc
Okay.

26:06
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Which Danish values do you think you've taken along with you on your road to success in the US? And which ones do you think you left behind?

26:17
Agnete Oernsholt
I definitely left the Janteloven behind and I don't miss that one. But, if you start looking around you, it's also here. It's a little bit everywhere and I'll say I'm in the corporate world now, and you find different people all over the place.

26:32
Agnete Oernsholt
It's good and bad everywhere and you take what you want and you leave what you don't want. I've taken with me the Danish design history and the simplicity. I also have taken a lot of the Danish sense of humor. I like that still.

26:47
Agnete Oernsholt
I like how we can be honest and straightforward without hurting anyone. If I use that kind of language here, definitely not last long, because you tend to be a little more diplomatic, as one should be. I also find myself, when I go back to Denmark, I get a little hurt sometimes by the way people talk to me, they're so direct.

27:07
Agnete Oernsholt
I'm like, do you not like me? I feel like — It feels a little insulting sometimes, but that's just the tone. Danes are very honest, whether it hurts or not. But as a leader, again, coming back to my role now, there's something to try and really be yourself, to try and be myself as much as I can, because I need to build trust.

27:32
Agnete Oernsholt
When you have a team, you need to share, sometimes, your vulnerability, and you need to share your weaknesses. And you need to twist yourself inside out sometimes to really make other people understand that this is allowed.

27:48
Agnete Oernsholt
And if we can all do that and we can fail forward and we can experiment, try and test things and not be afraid of failing because for us to get the great results, our work process needs to go through a lot of waves, ups and downs, and there's nothing that bonds people more than working through the night on problem solving.

28:13
Agnete Oernsholt
And you're tired, you're hungry, you're about to burst into tears, but you all of a sudden get to know people in a much more personal way, and that's when you start building the trust and that's when you start building a team that you're there for each other. You're gaining respect for people's differences and the various backgrounds we all come in with.

28:36
Agnete Oernsholt
And I, as a Dane on a team where there are no Danes on my team right now — we've had it in the past, actually, we've had two Danes on the team during my time here, but they both went back to Denmark during COVID. My team of Americans, South Americans, Asians — I don't know where else we have people from — I think that's about it right now. I love a diverse team, a group of people coming in with all kinds of cultural backgrounds, because it definitely makes the work a lot better.

29:05
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
You are an expat and sometimes they are torn between two cultures. How do you experience that?

29:13
Agnete Oernsholt
Yes, I'm an expat. It's so funny. I don't look at it that way. It's been so many years now. I don't think I have such a big gap between my Danish side and my American side. I also lived in various countries in the past, and it's not that I draw that difference.

29:33
Agnete Oernsholt
I have Danish friends in LA that I like to hang out with and speak Danish with and crack Danish jokes with, and be straightforward with, but I also mix my Danish friends with my American friends. And it's one beautiful mix of different cultures that get along nicely. At my job, it's the same situation.

29:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And you are an American citizen as well as a Danish citizen.

30:01
Agnete Oernsholt
I didn't become American until I lost my husband, and I was thinking that my daughter and I would have to move to Denmark for some time, at least. But knowing that she maybe one day would want to come back to America, if I didn't become American, I would probably lock myself out of that opportunity in having to try and come back here. She's my only daughter. So I'd probably see myself where she settles down. So yeah, there's a lot of benefits to having dual citizenship.

30:30
Agnete Oernsholt
I'll also say that my mom was very sick before COVID and she died at the end of COVID. She had a stroke and was just lying down for three years. I could go see her during that time. Made an incredible difference. I don't know how I would have managed had I not been able to travel during a time when nobody could. So that was fantastic that we could get there and could see my mom during her last couple of years of her life.

30:57
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, that was good, Nete. In your experience, what is it that Americans get wrong about Danes and vice versa?

31:06
Agnete Oernsholt
Do you think Americans get something wrong about the Danes? Maybe they think we are a little straightforward. I don't know. No, I think Americans actually glamorize Europeans in many ways. Oh, you're from Europe or, oh, you're Danish. And I'm like, yeah, should I be proud about that?

31:26
Agnete Oernsholt
When it comes to design, it's definitely a benefit because Danish design is respected in many places of the world. I just have to say I'm a designer and I'm from Denmark and people go, oh, really? So I'd say, I don't think they get that part wrong about Danes.

31:41
Agnete Oernsholt
Of course, there's always cultural differences that make some people feel the unknown is there — what is that to be from Denmark and how can that translate here? On the other hand, I also think some of my Danish family and friends may think, what are you doing in America? And as a designer, what are you doing there?

32:01
Agnete Oernsholt
I would then have to tell them and say, America has a lot of great things. Just alone, look at our computers. What computer do you have over there in Denmark? Do you have a Danish computer of what? I mean, certain companies of America have changed the world, right? Our phones are probably also all designed in California, America.

32:21
Agnete Oernsholt
Yes, politically a lot of things have gone wrong and I'd say probably not so much in Denmark as it has in America, in my opinion, but that's a whole other thing. And of course some of my Danish friends say, how can you live in a place that has all the problems we hear about in the news?

32:41
Agnete Oernsholt
And yes, there's a lot of problems, and I don't want to even go there with gun violence and stuff like that. It's sensitive and it's something that evokes emotions in all of us, and differences. And sometimes I do think, oh gosh, little Denmark is such a safe place, until I hear that something has happened in Nørrebrogade in Copenhagen, and then I'm all, that can also happen there.

33:03
Agnete Oernsholt
So, yes, are you safe here or there? Probably a little safer in Denmark. I do feel that way, but again, I'm here now, and my daughter's from here, and I'm trying to make it here.

33:17
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What are the things you emphasize, when you tell your American friends or colleagues about Denmark?

33:25
Agnete Oernsholt
I always say that life is easy there. I think it's funny, and I follow up with saying that people complain more about life in Denmark than they do here, where it really isn't that easy sometimes. It's interesting to hear my American friends when they talk and read about Denmark, they all feel, what a heavenly spot to live in, why aren't you living there? Why do you want to be here?

33:52
Agnete Oernsholt
Again, yeah, I spent many years in Denmark. I've been there, so I know what it is, and who knows if I end up there one day again? I do tend to say it is a good place to come from. People are cared for. The government cares for you. If you're unlucky, there's help to get. It's not always the case here.

34:13
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
What is your favorite Danish word and why?

34:18
Agnete Oernsholt
I don't have one favorite Danish word, but I do love silly Danish expressions, and I translate them to English, and I often hear myself saying, don't get your hair in the mailbox, or there's no cow on the ice, and stuff like that, and people look at me and they go, what are you talking about?

34:40
Agnete Oernsholt
And I'm like, oh, you know what, that was just a Danish expression. And then I try to explain, and people crack up because they're really funny. And some of them, I don't even know how old they are, but I'm sure Danes are familiar with them all. I have them in the back of my head.

34:55
Agnete Oernsholt
Being born and raised in Denmark, it's obviously a thing we do. We have expressions for everything. And some of them are so funny and crazy and I don't even know how I would translate them from Danish to Danish. I enjoy the Danish language a lot and I enjoy trying to translate it to my American friends. And I enjoy teaching my daughter Danish and she is fluent and she has a good laugh about many of our hilarious old Danish expressions.

35:23
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Do you think in Danish or in English?

35:26
Agnete Oernsholt
That's a very difficult question. It depends on what I do. When I'm at work, and when I'm in my field, and when I talk to you in English, I think in English. When I'm at home, still implementing my daughter's Danish, I think in Danish when I speak Danish, and think in English when I speak English. I can't really explain or define it in any different way. But it's that funny thing when you've been almost as long here as you've been there, it starts to become 50/50.

35:56
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
And my final question to you, Nete. Where would you like to grow old? And maybe this is far too early because you are very young to think about where you would like to be buried, but have you thought about that, where you would like to end your days?

36:12
Agnete Oernsholt
First of all, I am old.

36:15
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
No, you are not.

36:16
Agnete Oernsholt
I'm past the midway of life. Let's put it like that. I'm in my mid fifties and I do feel old in my business, of course, because I work in advertising and design, especially advertising, it's a very youth-focused and youth-oriented business. So yeah, I think of being older often, but I also use the advantages of that in my business.

36:39
Agnete Oernsholt
And I do think about death. I think of it, not every day, but I do think of it, and of course it's been close to me now. I've lost both of my parents. I lost my husband and I've lost friends already — friends my own age that I grew up with, to illnesses or accidents. And you know that life is fragile and it's not forever.

37:01
Agnete Oernsholt
I don't know where I want to get buried. I haven't thought of that yet. I could imagine maybe in Europe, some years from now. I could imagine myself in a sunny place, like California. I like Denmark. I can also imagine spending more time there, more than I have during the last many years, at least.

37:22
Agnete Oernsholt
Denmark is a beautiful, wonderful, safe place, but I'm not a big fan of the eight months of dark and cold. I think it's become very important to me that I can walk outside my door and get a ray of sun. It really boosts my mood, and it helps me thrive. I've traveled a lot, so I don't need to explore the world, but I still like traveling. And I don't mind walking out on the plank one day, and let that be it, if you know what I mean.

38:00
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
Thank you so much, Nete, for your time.

38:03
Agnete Oernsholt
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

38:04
Tina Jøhnk Christensen
For today's episode, Agnete Ørnsholt chose Paul Gerne's Uden Titel, or Untitled from 1968–1969 from the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark.