P-E Fronning is the creative force behind the popular Martin Klasch and the Musselsoppans Vänner blogs. We talk about his stellar blog work and other things in the following interview.
ephemera: What was your inspiration to start your blog? Fronning: I had been surfing the Internet for a couple of years pestering my friends with links of interesting and fun stuff that I mailed them. Then, my eyes were opened to the blog phenomenon. I had earlier toyed with the idea of creating a homepage just to try it but I was discouraged by the fact that it seem to involve quite a lot of work and learning to get started. I hardly know anything about coding now and back then even less. So, when it was said that starting a blog was very simple I just had to try it. And it sure was simple. Still, the inspiration or reason to start the blog was to cater my (in "real" life) friends with stuff I found on the Internet or that I'd photoed or scanned - my online collection of bookmarks and images, if you will. So, I had no ambition at all to reach a larger audience than my friends. It just happened that people found the blog by chance. And some liked it. ephemera: I'm a fan. I've always admired your work, and it served as a benchmark, in many respects, for making this blog better. Why did you choose the topic you did? What motivated your decision to key on ephemera Fronning: Well, I'm not sure I picked a topic really. But sure, the posts leans pretty heavily towards all sorts of vintage stuff and probably more so with time. In the beginning there were probably a lot more humorous and outrageous things that I had found. I try to vary the posts because I don't really want to be labeled a "vintage stuff blog" or a "ephemera blog". The Martin Klasch blog is just that – the Martin Klasch blog. It is what I – and others who contribute - like and feed it with. But at the same time there is such an abundance of vintage things to find on the Internet. This must be one of the reasons to my topic choices – the supply of material. The topic picked me, perhaps. Well, the fact is though that my interests are quite diverse but the core of it would be various cultural (including pop culture) expressions in art, illustration, photo, movies, music, advertisement, design. In addition to that I'm also found of history and knowledge in general. And from this description it's pretty easy to see that vintage stuff like ephemera would be within my sphere of interest. What is so great with for instance vintage ads is that they say something about their time and also of our own. Sometimes we are perhaps a little bit quick to just laugh at some of the old stuff (sometimes we must) without reflecting on our own stupid time. Fronning: I don't know... I get fed up with blogging sometimes. I had a long period where I demanded from myself one post a day. If I didn't post one day I had to make two posts the next and so forth. That is perhaps a good ambition but it doesn't vouch for quality, only quantity. Also it means that you pressure yourself quite unnecessarily. When you aren't making any money out of it it has to be a least bit fun to keep going. Anyway, I got fed up and considered giving it all up. A stopped for a short while and then started again in a slower pace. After that I have had my ups and downs but it is hard to give it up when you know there are number of people who check the blog every now and then. I can't really think of any other particular obstacles than temporary slopes in inspiration. But...after thinking about it some more I could also add that I sometimes find the amount of US produced material to be too dominant. This is no reflection on the US material itself. The US has had a pretty dominant position in my areas of interest for at least 70 years and Americans are very active putting out stuff on the Internet so it is all quite natural. However, it would be nice to be able to show more from other cultural spheres, but language and other factors makes it somewhat hard to find ones way. In the future perhaps I could try and search a wider range of blogospheres. ephemera: What are some of your favorite posts? If so, what are they? What makes them special? ephemera: What does the future hold for your blog? Where do you want to take it? Fronning: I guess, by now, some readers know what kinds of things they might find when they visit and they probably have labeled it "vintage/illustration/ephemera stuff blog" or something for themselves. This is of course both positive and negative. As I said I don't want to get completely boxed in. I want to have a possibility to surprise without shocking the reader. At the same time there are positive sides to being sort of niched. So what of the future? Well, for the moment I don't see any particular changes. I have over time found a concept that I think works. As to the where I want to take it... there is no goal at all. Sometimes I check the numbers of visitors and as long as there are, what I consider large number of them and the numbers aren't falling much, I guess I'll be doing what I've been doing. But who knows? Maybe I'll concentrate on my image blog Musselsoppans Vänner instead... -related items, etc.?
ephemera: What challenges or obstacles do you encounter as a blogger? How do you overcome these challenges?
Fronning: I don't think I have any. I don't know. I'd have to go through all the 1,400 posts to make sure. The thing is that the Martin Klasch blog is mainly a link blog and I always try to find or make a nice illustration to go with the link. I hardly write anything. If there is any amount of text it is mostly a quote. You might say that it is a very impersonal blog. Each post, by itself says nothing about me but the blog as a whole says quite a lot about me and my interests. These, I presume, are the reasons as to why I don't think I have any favorite posts.
ephemera: This has been a tremendous amount of fun for me, P-E. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the ephemera blog--its an honor to have this conversation here. I truly appreciate your time and thoughtful responses.
