Missed the aurora borealis last night. Photo credit to our director Pari Stave.
Worked in the studio all day with a break to pick wild blueberries by one of the many waterfalls in town. A section of drawing!
The ferry leaves port returning to Denmark after docking here for two days.
It’s incredibly peaceful here often quiet for hours especially if the clouds settle low over the town. I really love this place brimming over with culture and good will. A cruise ship “rolling the Scandi waves landed at the ferry terminal today for half a day. Passengers have enough time to walk about on trails, sit in coffee shops, peer into my studio windows and see many waterfalls, torrent down the mountainsides.
Brooke is in the upstairs studio and I’m on street level. I'm sticking with daily practice, exploring textures that speak for the massive glacier-marked mountains that slope down into the fjord. I’m working on paper with inks, acrylic paint and pens. I’m not at all sure what I’m doing but that’s what I love about a residency! This immersion into play and exploring is much like a writer I believe as they might juggle with vocabulary; not forming a story or getting it “right” on the grammar but simply allowing thoughts to roam, instigated by the town; history of place; the magnificence of geology while ignited by something new to explore.
Artwork is evolving and unfamiliar patterns are appearing.
Today though was a day off and it was spent in a familiar Icelandic tradition of geothermal bath soaks. Deep (and I mean deep ) relaxing in floating pools. Vok baths on the edge of a glacial lake outside of Egilsstađir. Heaven!
September 6th 2022.
Brooke and self have two separate spaces to work and sleep with a shared kitchen. The residence has a print room, in process of being rebuilt after the original one that was destroyed in the landslide of 2020.
Earth moves in a big way. Five days of heavy rainfall dislodged the earth on the mountain sending tons of wet mud down into the town. Miraculously no one was killed but houses and businesses were wiped out. There’s a pile of debris left at the water’s edge as a memorial (It seems that way anyhow). The earth + mud forces bent steel I beams and twisted metal framed structures beyond their upstanding selves, laying them almost flat.
I placed a weatherproof (loads of duct tape) pinhole camera on a bent metal vessel to face the fjord hoping to catch the comings and goings of waterway traffic. The ferry from Denmark comes by weekly bringing buses and massive all-terrain vehicles to shuttle tourists to the glaciers; students of geography & geology to study at the research centre and containers with supplies for the town. There’s a young vibe in this town and a culture of creativity. Seydisfjodur has the reputation as the art capital of the east coast. Artist Dieter Roth had multiple workspaces in Iceland, one of them being Seydisfjordur. His influence is felt here still.
My work space and shared kitchen at the Skaftfell Art residency.
From Reykjavik the drive was long to the NE town on the fjord where our artist residency offers us a studio. We stayed in a guest house en route by the Vatnajökull, one of the largest glaciers in Iceland. Next day we drove the rest of the way on southern route for 7-8 hrs trying not to stop too often to take photos!!
This month I will be sharing a studio and apartment with Brooke Holve @Holvebrooke. This is a special opportunity offered to us, based on our cell phone project of 2021 and exhibited at the Seager Grey Gallery in Mill Valley, California.
Much melting going on and bergs drifting out to sea greatly diminished in size.
