Pencil Art

Oh. My. God. Is what I thought when I saw this. A whole new definition of pencil art, don´t you think (says I, who have been buried in the wonderful book "The Pencil" by artist Paul Calle for weeks)? I particularly enjoyed this one.

Thank you, Faith is Torment.

Blog Tip

I really have to recommend this blog, where artist Nina Johansson is "trying to rediscover her sleeping imagination". She is doing well, I think! Very inspiring. There is also much to see at her regular blog.

Wish I could draw like that!

The Land of Childhood

There is an interesting exhibition at the art gallery right now, by Lotta Söder, who works mainly in glass. She is from around here originally, Skellefteå more specifically, but has lived and worked in Gothenburg for most of her life, returning last year to Umeå to work on this project, which she calls "SPÅR - en forskningsresa i Barndomslandet" (= TRACKS - an expedition in the land of Childhood). The story is, according to the leaflet, a dream about a winter landscape, with a bear and a fox as helpers in the struggle to pull a sled up a hill. Söder wants to use her glass to create an image of the frail and the strong, light and ice, triviality and sanctity.

There is a quote from Sara Lidman, the author (also from Skellefteå): "Det finns en närvaro, en kännedom från födelseorten, så oförneklig som den egna huden." (= There is a presence, a familiarity with the birthplace, as undeniable as one´s own skin.) This collection certainly has a strong taste of personal experience, but at the same time, anyone who grew up in a snowy landscape will know it, as Lidman says, in their own skin. The boots, the jacket, the mittens, which Söder has rendered in glass mosaic. It brings that Chinese princess burial suit to mind, if you remember.

I am attracted to glass, and a bit apprehensive about it, too, as it is so fragile. Every time someone brings a graal or something to the antiques roadshow and it is appraised to thousands and thousands, I can hardly watch as they pick it up - I keep seeing it on the floor, smashed to pieces; a nervous tic, that. Söder´s glass seems a lot more sturdy, for some reason, perhaps it´s the unusual shapes. Here, for example, she has made four pairs of skis from painted and printed glass. If you want a pair on your wall it will cost you 16.000 SEK (in the neighbourhood of 2000 USD or 1700 euro).

I have come back a few times to these objects, which are, to my mind, the most interesting ones on display right now. Perhaps it is that combination of memories, the fragility of the glass, and the burial associations of the mosaics. Memories can be both defining and elusive, and in later years I have returned to this over and over again, for different reasons. I have become more and more convinced of the necessity to forgive, forget and move on, and I see people having trouble with that, not least because of social media, which is a great tool, but which can also be one hell of a shackle.

You can read more about the artist (in Swedish and English) here.

Graffiti

The other day, after slipping and hitting my hip and arm on some hard ice, I saw this in one of my stairs. I thought it was rather lovely, and wouldn´t it be nice to decorate the entire wall with a pattern like this? Cheered me up considerably.

Sir John Soane´s Museum

Our last day in London we finally managed to make it to a museum that has been at the top of my list for years, but we have not been in London those few days during the week when it is open. I am talking about Sir John Soane´s Museum at Lincoln´s Inn Fields. I first read about it in an article about Swedish actor Peter Harryson and his annual trip to London. (I imagine it was a travel magazine.) He made it sound like a treasure palace of odd, wondrous things.

From the look of it, it was more office and exhibition space than a proper home. Soane was an architect and built the house himself. To me, it had the feel of a tomb more than a palace, not unlike Swedish doctor Axel Munthe´s villa San Michele on Capri, which we visited some fifteen years ago. It all those collections of mummies and gravegoods, tombstones and such, I think. Makes me cold all over, I can´t help it; it´s not conscious at all, more of a physical reaction. It´s so very Victorian to collect things like that; every man with means seems to have been an amateur antiquarian.

Soane - and his home - was quite famous even in his lifetime. He came from modest beginnings as the son of a bricklayer, trained at the Royal Academy where he distinguished himself as a very gifted student, got a scholarship to make his Grand Tour and was even knighted in 1831 after a fairly successful career. I got the impression that Soane was never at the forefront of architectural fashions, but rather a representative of the traditional, classic styles.

Soane had a very happy marriage, but was tragically disappointed in his two sons, one of whom was ill and died young, while the other was a rake, living with two women, gambling, and ending up in prison for fraud. When the younger son anonymously wrote an article slandering his father, Soane´s wife was so upset she died just a few months later. His final hope was for his grandson to be an architect, but the young man was rejected by the architect with whom he was studing, on account of being homosexual.

Interesting fact: the tomb Soane designed for his wife was the inspiration for the red telephone box that is such a classic British symbol.

Unfortunately it is not allowed to take photographs inside the museum, so I can´t share anything from the interior. There isn´t much in way of photo galleries at the website either, so for the Sir John Soane´s Museum experience, I guess you have to go there.

We had never been in this part of town before, and Lincoln´s Inn Fields turned out to be a nice little park, with a densly populated lawn. There was a television crew there and the husband was approached to take part, something about asking questions to politicians. This happens to us often, that we are taken for natives, asked for directions and what not. He declined to go on British television.

After this we walked along Oxford Street and don´t ask me how, but we found our way to the roof of the department store John Lewis, where we found a slightly plastic garden; there we had a drink and looked at the bustling shopping street below. A great place to relax!

And the day after, we went home. Not very many weeks later, we booked tickets to Heathrow for the summer of 2015. We still haven´t decided how to fill those two weeks, but I am beginning to think about it now. I guess it helps to have something to look forward to.

Natural History Museum

After Scarborough, we went to London, and one of the sights on my list has long been the Natural History Museum. It is one of several museums along Exhibition Road, among them the Victoria and Albert Museum that we went to some years ago to see an exhibition of historical fashion. The Natural History Museum was built by Alfred Waterhouse, who was part of the Victorian Gothic Revival and the building itself is reason enough to take time out to go there. It´s a cathedral dedicated to ecology. You have probably seen it it a film or two. I remember an episode of "Spooks" a few years ago, with spies walking and talking around the dinosaur in the main hall - that scene specifically put it on my list of places to go.

Of course, there were even more dinosaurs further inside the museum, and they seemed to be the main attraction for the many visitors, many of whom were children - perhaps the free entrance adds to the attraction for families. They have a lot of special programs for school children - we saw hoards of little girls in white coats, carrying clipboards, being Dino-scientists! Unfortunately, this option was not available for adults...

If you ever have a rainy day in London, I can really recommend this place.

The details are charming.

All individually fantastic pieces of art, used to decorate the ceiling.

From one of the side galleries.

View from the top floor; the statue of Charles Darwin throned on the stair opposite.

The top jewel, a slice of a Redwood Tree.

The modern extensions have a completely different design,
but works well with Waterhouse´s original style.

The SOE, special operations executive, which supported resistance
in occupied territory during World War II, had offices in
the building where agents were trained in using "specialised military equipment".

(Gasp!)

They have so many skeletons that they display them on two floors in a single room, leading the visitors through on up-hoisted gangways.

This fleshed out specimen had sound effects. Very Jurassic Park.

Boy pondering a dino nursery.

Some theories as to why they died out. I sympathise with this, though I doubt it...

... and this, I want to believe!

Kurbits

As I was reading Carl Larsson´s books (well, more looking at the pictures than reading) I came across this interior with Dala paintings, the kind called kurbits. Dalarna is a Swedish region known for its particular kind of peasantry decoration style, or allmoge, of which kurbits painting is a part. It is used for furniture, wooden boxes, tapestries, grandfather clocks, and so on. It has its roots in the baroque styles of decoration and the word originally means cucumber or pumpkin plant.

I lived for most of my childhood in Dalarna and my mother-in-law lived there for almost twenty years (raising her first batch of children). Some traces of this has survived in our home. We have a kitchen cupboard inherited from the mum-in-law, originally painted in a colour called dalablå. It more like verdigris now, and when I decided to vamp up the dining table by painting it the same colour, the one most like it that I could buy was called Mint Green.

When I was a child, there was a printed hanging in the hallway leading into the kitchen with a kurbits painting of The Queen of Sheba. Or, as it was called, "The Queen of Rich Arabia visits King Solomon with gifts". These biblical motifs were very popular, and the bible story characters were depicted as if they were inhabitants of 18th or 19th century Dalarna. Very charming. I now have that hanging in my kitchen, one of a few reminders of childhood that I cherish.