Following the closing of Cuttings, postcards began to appear, one by one, in my mailbox. Although signed, numbered and dated, I couldn't decipher the signature of the sender. However, clues suggest that he lives in Sebastopol.
Post Script: Does anyone out there know who sent these?
I have returned yet my thoughts are still traveling as if I was there. They are blowing around in a way that Icelanders might refer to as blasdur. Blowing and windy. Nothing like a deadline to determine a tack for a way through my mind.
RiskPress Gallery:
Cuttings October 4th - 27th
During the duration of the exhibit, we (I and those who come to view the exhibit) will make a book. I am currently working on its design and matrix using letterpress at Iota and digital in my studio. I enjoy this back and forth way of working which seem to be feeding on each other.
Letterpress (at Iota Press):
Digital (at Holve studio):
Roni Horn's ongoing project: a collection of stories about the weather in Iceland from Icelandic people. I am interested in how other artists think about weather in their work. Since my travels to New Zealand in '06 and '07, one of their coldest and windiest springs and summers in 60 years, I began to reflect on wind as a metaphor for conditions of change and also started to collect their weather maps. Since then I have continued to collect maps from places I visited (Iceland examples below). And last year I also started a list of Icelandic words that qualify the differing conditions of wind. This year I added a few to the list.
vindur- wind
stormur - heavy wind
rok - hard wind
moldrok - strong wind with earth
sandrok - strong wind with sand
fárviðri - crazy wind, tempest, typhoon
gola - breeze
gjóla - medium breeze
hvassviðri - strong breeze
logn - no wind
andvari - breath
kaldi - a cold chilly breeze
stinningskaldi - ice cold wind
fellibylur - hurricane
hnúkaÞeyr - warm mountain wind flowing from south to north
norðangarri - cold north to south wind
sunnanblær - southern breeze
gustur - gust of wind
austankaldir - east cold wind
hvasst - medium strong wind
strekkingur - medium wind
blástur - blast "It is blowing/windy."
hvirfilvindur - tornado
sviptivindur - sudden strong winds, common around steep mountains
staðvindur - trade winds common to a region
skafrenningur - wind that blows loose snow; piles of snow result
snjostormur - wind storm with snow
The weather maps above recorded the changing weather conditions every three hours on July 27th, the last day of our trip. I love the simplicity of the design -- the way that the arrows describe the weather patterns and express the tensions of change. Something to consider. How might I use arrows to express changing tensions of shaping, making, unmaking? I've been wanting to make a book on this topic - maybe one with only arrows?
A Wind Report from Iceland: (From a conversation taken from facebook this morning, Aug 5)
22 miles per hour winds. The residency windows are rattling. It is also making a deep base sound on the northern side of the building.
Watch a horror movie.
Fall approaches.
Did you see the auroras?
No.
No way.
I saw them around 2 and called the farm. Of course they were up and out to look.
But I'm not at the farm anymore!
Can't be everywhere!
But I can watch weather reports from anywhere!
I returned to Roni Horn's Library of Water in the town of Stykkisholmer on the north coast of the Snaefellsness peninsula. (Refer to my July 31, 2012 entry on first visit). The former library contains 24 floor-to-ceiling clear glass columns of water collected as ice from some of the major"jokulls" of Iceland, formed many millennia ago and now are rapidly receding. I was told that one of the glaciers represented in the installation has melted. Rebecca Solnit in her most recent book, The Faraway Nearby, referred to the library as an homage to the primordial forces of the glaciers. Is it too soon to rename the library to "Museum of Water" as an homage to once was?
Nonetheless, it's a striking homage as the glass columns refract and reflect light onto a vulcanised rubber floor embedded with single words in Icelandic and English: ill, cruel, slaemt, bad, stillt, tranquil, svalur, cool, hressandi, bracing, lygnt, still, glettid, frisky, vitlaust, crazy, napur, piercing cold, blautt, wet, heidur, quiet. The isolated words are adjectives that describe weather. Roni Horn wrote "Weather is a metaphor for the atmosphere of the world, for the atmosphere of one's life; weather is a metaphor for the physical, metaphysical, political, social, and moral energy of a person and a place."
Blue travels throughout Iceland.
Many shades of blue in Iceland. Traveled and saw blue, blar, and bla! More on next post.
A noticeable void in blog posts recently; yet a few things brewing in absentia: IOTA PRESS
Since my last contact I have become a coop member at Iota Press, a letterpress studio in Sebastopol whose proprietor is Eric Johnson. An artist residency ( of sorts) in that I hope to experiment with the medium and make discoveries along the way. I am drawn to this old printing technology and particularly the "dents" that the presses make. More to come as work progresses.
A RETURN TO ICELAND
I return to Iceland on the 13th, only a jaunt for two weeks. This time I will circumnavigate the island by car, taking in new sites as well a visiting some favorites from last year's adventure. More to come on the blog as I will post images from the trip as well as work inspired from this unique landscape.
ART EXHIBIT AT RISK PRESS GALLERY
And finally I ask you to mark your calendar for Cuttings, an exhibit of mixed media constructions, artist books, and recent work inspired by my travels to Iceland. I will be installing the show in October at Risk Press Gallery in Sebastopol.
Dates: October 4 - 27 Opening: Saturday, October 5th 5 - 8 Closing: Saturday, October 26th 5 - 6:30
Last summer I spent a month at the Gullkistan artist residency in Iceland. I shared the experience with artist and filmmaker, Elizabeth Sher. She currently is showing work from that experience in her exhibit, Evolutionary Processes, at the Sebastopol Center For the Arts from April 4th through May 10th. On April 27th, 4:30 - 6, we will talk about our shared experiences, her work and stories that inspired it. Come hear more! Sebastopol Center for the Arts
282 S. High Street Sebastopol, CA
Hours: Tu - Fri 10 - 4, Sat 1 -4
707- 829-4797
2013 opens with "The Residency Show" at the Gatewood Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro (UNCG) on January 14th through February 1st. The show features work of faculty and other artists who participated in artist residencies recently. I sent work inspired by my experiences at the Gullkistan Artist Residency in Iceland last summer.
About the work:
I walk a lot when I travel. Walking allows me to wander wherever I wish, and not be limited to "auto driven" roads. I can choose a way, a pace, and I often see more. I love how walking shifts me from an accelerated frenetic state of mind to a contemplative one. And slowing down has a way of opening up space. The artist, Richard Long, once wrote that "a walk expresses space and freedom and the knowledge of it can live in the imagination of anyone, and that is another space too."
And I found that space in Iceland last summer at the Gullkistan Artist Residency; not only because "eg' gekk mikið!", but also because I discovered that Iceland is a land with panoramic views and horizontal ribbons of sky, land, and sea. My response was elemental and primordial and it took me back to a place of "beginning"—an invigorating feeling that I want to experience again.
I went to Gullkistan with the intent of incorporating the act of walking into my artistic process. Before I left, I purchased a Garmin GPSmap 62, a device that records tracks of walks. In Iceland, I used it to collect the shapes and lines of my walks while exploring the new terrain. I accumulated many tracks. In the studio, I printed them out and displayed them on the wall. These "visual walks" were a beginning. However, I wasn't clear on how I would use their shapes and lines in a body of work.
I had heard of Iceland's "geologic wonders". I was interested in how this geology related to its constantly shifting landscape. I saw this in lava beds, glaciers, craggy scree slopes, black sand beaches, glacial carved rocks and basaltic columns. These materials create a myriad of contours and textures. I have started to explore how this topography might influence my work so that it reflects the natural tensions of the land.
The work in the exhibit is a beginning of an investigation that combines both line cuts (sections from the tracks) from a walk and the contours of the landscape. The work comes from one of six walks that I tracked in Iceland; the one here is the trek up to the summit of Mt. Laugarvatn, a mountain behind the town of the residency with views of it and beyond. The track provides evidence of a step-by-step process, like walking, and is broken into 23 sections to suggest that. The constructions, mtlaugwalkcut1, mtlaugwalkcut2, and mtlaugwalkcut3 are the result of an investigation of line and form taken from the walks.
Artwork:
mtlaugwalkcut1, 2, & 3 are mixed media constructions made from book covers, cloth & board on a birch panel. Each are 9.13 x 8.66 x 3.25 inches ©2012
I'm home now after a memorable and wonder filled six weeks of work and travel in Iceland, accumulating experiences, meeting people and photographing the dramatic land, water and sky scapes. As I settle back, my mind is still moving with ideas and imagery from the trip. Good-bye residency and good-bye Iceland. "Bless, bless", as they say in Iceland. Many thanks to Alda and Kriestvieg from the Gullkistan Residency and Linda and Ægir, friends and tour guides. You made my trip filled with memories and many inspirations for future work. I look forward to what will come from this experience and I already can't wait to come back, see you again and continue where I left off!
I will continue to add Icelandic imagery to this blog as I begin to process what I collected. For this entry, I have posted miscellaneous images that showcase my work and experiences at the residency.
One of my projects during the residency was tracking my walks with a gps device. I accumulated many tracks which I then printed out to get a sense of what I had. Lots of words came to mind: scaling, scales, "fisk", a scale of scales, step by step, planes, topography, three-dimensional, planar, linear, line shapes, broken lines, contour, installation, context, meander, wander, lost, found, mapping.
I also made a screen out of wire from a rusty fence that I found and cut up on the farm. Liz and I used it to project our video, Tangled Dreams, for the residents. I then took many detail shots of it for my photo library. Interesting to me later when I found some stones with cracks that echoed some of the wire shapes.
I also experimented with the ash from the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano on a variety of papers, including brown craft paper and yupo. Examples follow:
And finally Icelandic kennings haunt me. I've collected many during my stay and suspect that some will find their ways in future work and titles.
