12.31.06
New Year
I wish you a year full of light, creativity, inspiration, communication, grace, enthusiasm, flexibility, delight, willingness, spontaneity, courage, compassion, forgiveness, openness, freedom, adventure, tenderness, patience, balance, peace, purification, honesty, synthesis, transformation, obedience, clarity, strength, brotherhood, sisterhood, humour, healing, joy, power, harmony, purpose, gratitude, trust, responsibility, play, faith, birth, beauty, integrity, efficiency, release, expectancy, surrender, understanding, education, truth, simplicity, abundance and love…
12.30.06
Drinking coffee & reading books
Reading, writing, talking, drinking coffee, “doing” as little as possible, but walking, even taking a quick! dip (not fair to call it “a swim”) in the sea (water’s still 7 Celsius degrees). Reflecting on the past year – and the upcoming.
What are you doing/not doing these days???
12.24.06
Tonight’s the night…
I wish you all a Merry Christmas with this photo of the abundance of candle lights in a church in Vilnius. I went to service there one Sunday in the beginning of December. The Church of the Holy Spirit´s Russian Orthodox so it was a very specttacular ceremoni involving lots of incence, part-singing, kissing of icons etc. I can almost still hear it and smell it…
12.17.06
3.rd Sunday in Advent
I I love to create items for Christmas – like this pendent advent wreath.
The recipe´s very simple: you take a verdigrised copper wire and bend it into the shape of a large ring. Then make four holders - also out of verdigrised copper, only in a bit thinner quality. Make the holders by twisting the copper wire like a spiral around a candle of the wanted size . Twist both ends of the holders firmly to the wire of the ring to be sure the holders really stay in position when the candles are lit! Line the holders with pieces of tin foil to prevent the candles from dripping and falling through. Hang the wreath in four linen strings. Then decorate the whole thing with ivy and a few silk flowers or whatever you´ve got.
When Christmas is over you can store the wreath till next year´s advent. Then just add fresh, new trimmings… call that simple living!
I send this “how-to-do” to the Whiplash competition
12.14.06
Books – books -books
The Artists´ Books Triennial is the biggest of the three exhibitions.
After tree triennials with more or less Christian themes such as “8 Days” in 1997 (dealing with the idea that God created the world in 7 days – and we are now living on the 8.th day), “Apocalypse” in 2000 and “23 Sins” in 2003, the subject artists had to deal with this time was “Rabbit & House”.
And what does ”Rabbit & House” mean? A lot of different things it seems…. but one also notices some similarities. Many artists regard rabbits as a sort of kind, gentle, innocent creatures. More rabbits were exposed in a cage or a sort of “prison”. And the term “house” seems to express both security and protection: my home is my castle, but house can also mean imprisonment and isolation.
Anyway, the books at the exhibition were in all sizes, shapes, forms and outfits: accordion-style-books, pop-up-books, folded books, book-objects, and of course in all sorts of techniques. The result was an overwhelming collection of…crazy books, weird books, serious books, even unpleasant books, but not many “ordinary” ones.
Being an Artists´ Books enthusiast – I almost felt like Alice in Wonderland!
12.11.06
365 Collages
Here are some photos from my exhibition – 365 collages – one for every day of the year.
My idea has been to make a sort of visual journal or record – one year of my life – in of photos, drawings, texts, bills, notes, tickets, scrap and fabric, bits and pieces.
I think life can be seen as a sort of collage in itself – like a big and colourful patchwork or one long line of moments.
We all contain many aspects of personality, individuality but also of general character. We’re all trying to find a balance between duty and pleasure, between work and family, independence, freedom, solidarity and connection. Most of us struggle to find a way to express our inner self. And to find time for it. One minute here, one hour here, all squized in between the kids, the pets, the laundrary, the phone calling, the bills to pay, the things to do. Anyway, that’s some of the issues I’ve tried to describe with this exhibition.
All collages hang in order by day and month. Starting 1st January, ending 31st December. Some journal pages are very full, detailed and elaborate; other pages are more or less blank.
Before travelling to Vilnius I was so busy I actually never saw all pages at one time. So it was a pleasant surprise to see them all unfold and hang in “my” room.
You can see more photos at flickr.
One week in Vilnius
Here I am – back home again – after one great (!) week in Vilnius.
It’s been a marvellous week and mostly spend in Gallery Arka, the biggest gallery of the city where I’m in good company: my personal exhibition is surrounded by the 3rd International Collage Exhibition Vilnius 2006 and the 4th International Artist’s Book Triennial Vilnius 2006.
I arrived last Saturday and after 3 days of arranging – and rearranging – my 365 collages, the opening of all 3 exhibitions took place the 5.th December. It was held in a very official style with the gallery manager saying welcome, a speech by Kestutis Vasiliunas, curator of the exhibitions, me saying a few words about my work, a speech of gratitude by Josephine Tappert, prize-winner of this year, all translated from Lithuanian to English and reverse, and in the end: a beautiful and meditative piece of music for solo contrabass.
A bunch of artists from Lithuania participated, of course, but also artists and guests of other nationalities – from America, Japan, Scotland, Italy, Iceland, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. We were actually quite a lot of people representing Denmark: 7 artists + partners/kids, and one librarian from the Royal Danish Library and her husband and a friend. Also people from the embassies and the culture institute were invited. It was a really nice event offering possibilities to make contacts and appointments and to exchange information and ideas.
After this official opening we all went to a restaurant near by to have dinner, to talk and to celebrate our work. Some of us came home a little late that night.
12.01.06
Tomorrow
See You in Vilnius! Tomorrow!
(Photo from my visit last year in November/December…)
