Trip to Berlin

One week study trip to Berlin in brilliant high summer sunny weather – with 120 something Testrup students and a good handful of teachers. Historical and cultural outings: ww2, cold war, Stasi, museums and galleries (Gerhard Richter at Neues National Gallerei!!!), jazz club and  late nights out, visits at artists’ studios, 1st May just to mention a few.

And one of my favorites this time: Last day some of us went for a ride along Spree and the channels, Treptower and Tempelhof. Berlin is great on bicycle!

An Afternoon of Arts and Crafts

Sunday at the local fleamarked in Vilnius we met another friend of Dalia, Arvydas Gurevicius, a wonderful, talented and totally crazy artist and went straight to his nearby studio to see his works – and to try out ourselves to do small pieces of enamel work. Actually a bit of an adventure.

I always love the atmosphere of places where artists work. Just to sense the energy and see how they decorate their rooms. What kind of pictures, poems, tags and stuff hang on  the walls for inspiration?! What decorative tableaus at selves and window sills?! Tools and materials organized at tables?! Any smells?! Here I found everything!

I really liked what I saw at Arvydas’. His studio as well as his works: Enamels (as jewelry and images) and also very big drawings and monotypes.  Images of  houses, trees, lovers. Figures holding hands. Angels. And from the background emerging words and texts. All so delicate and fragile but also with a strong sensation of sadness and of feeling alone. A seemingly  strong and complex contrast to a quite “wild” author.

(By the way, during our stay at Avidas’ Dalia suddenly revealed another of her talents. Suddenly while waiting for our enamel to dry and then the glass layer to melt in the oven she grabbed a guitar and played us a Lihuanian song. Very well indeed! )

A day in Kėdainiai

It was a special pleasure to see again a colleague and friend of mine, Dalia Madrona Lopez, Lithuanian art historian, professional book binder and artists’ book artist (but married and living now in Sweden). Not only has Dalia a lot of contacts among Lithuanian artists and the art  community - she speaks the language fluently – of course. This provided me/us with a lot of extra information and a very direct access to local artists here in Vilnius  and Kėdainiai, where we went the other day to see Dalia’s home city, the museum where she was once the Director and to visit some of her friends Bronius Rutkauskas and his wife Sita, both artists and creators of the most beautiful frescos and painted scarfs.

Impression from their home and work place: It was like visiting Vermeer or some old master from the Dutch Golden Age or  similar. Lots of wonderfull portraits along the walls. Piles of rich scarfs and cloth at the sofa for draping of the models before portrait sessions. A cat decoratively sleeping at an embrodery pillow. Tea and canapés decoratively arranged at the table. Discussion of art, literature and society in the living room. Isn’t that’s what life’s about?!

6th International Artists’ Books Triennial

Selected artists’ books at gallery Titanikas …

More impressions here.

List of artists here.

An Artists Books Collection in Finland

Yesterday at the Vilnius Arcademy of Art at the Grafic Department. A lesson for students and foreign book artists. Olof Kangas + Emmi Martin told about the Rikhartinkatu artists books collection in Helsinki.

A little “something” before start …

Olof & Emmi

Synthesis

Just ask me, how wonderful has it been here. Days and nights full of  impressions, communication, exchange and artists affection It has been all about LOVE. Even some (several!) weddings took place Saturday. Like a comment on the theme of the Triennial?!  An  act of performance?! With very dressed up brides and guests, flowers, big  (and I mean BIG) cars, photo sessions all over the city. Talk about show-off!

Today is my last day here. I will post a little more from transit Cph. Airpost. Right now I’ll go with Marianne to find an artists supply for gold-leaf and stuff. Saw something yesterday that madly inspired me to try this material out.

LOVE in Vilnius

Happy to be back in Vilnius to attend the opening of LOVE – 6th International Artists Books Triennial.

Here are some of the artists outside gallery Titanikas. From the left to the right:
Kestutis Vasiliunas (LT), Roberta Vaigeltaite-Vasiliuniene (LT), me (DK), Dalia Lopez Madrona (S), Lady xx (H), Josephine Tabbert (D), Andras Butak (H), Elisabetta Diamanti (It), Lucas Kunz (D), Krassimira Drenska (CH), Katriona S.W. Persson (S), Angeline Rood (NL), Else Juhl Lundhus (DK), Maja Ingerslev (DK), Marianne Laimer (S), Inger Agnete Diemer (DK)

I will post more from the exhibition and from my stay here over the next days, so keep in touch (or find more on the artists books cretors blog here)

Work Space

I love to get invited into peoples studios, workplaces and stuff. Especially when you can actually SEE the traces, the piles, the energy from the process – the mess of creativity .

If you share this passion, please, go and see this very inspiring photo-docu-project going on here. The promotor of the project is a wonderfull artist and illustrator Henrik Drecher I discovered recently. He lives in China in a setting that looks like a great combination of something rather causual, daily & totally ecotic. Look at his wild, faboulous weird and crazy pen. What do you think? See more of his works here 

Monday

Charging my batteries with tulips, knitting (socks), ginger tea and some tart remarks by Einar Már Gudmundsson.

Heard him in a lecture recently. An interesting man, who besides being a acknowledged novelist and poet, has aroused considerable debate with his “Hvidbogen” in which he critically castigates the financial moguls and politicians who played for high stakes in the global casino economy and afterwards – seemingly without scruples – left all bills and consequences of their risky game to the common Icelandic people (does it sound familiar?) so today Island is the Nordic country hardest hit by the financial crisis.

Sand & seashells

A stack of freshly made art money representing REAL values. Made for this summer exhibition in Thy.