Autenticity & Strength

Completely unrelated illustration - longing for spring.

I have been a follower of the Minimalists´ blog for a few years, and today they posted what is almost a short story. I like the conclusions: that when we are ourselves, however outrageous that person may seem, we are likely to connect with people and fit in anywhere.

A friend of mine once said that "we are never stronger than when we are ourselves". I don´t know if she got it from somewhere or if it came from the heart. It is true, though.

Amazing Notebook Pages

Just came across this at Pinterest. Such amazing pages! I have been wanting to rejuvenate my diary for a long time, almost giving it up; this is really inspirational. I feel the urge to explore new expressions!

More Quilts

Quiltbag by Marianne Öqvist.

This week, full of new year´s resolution energy, I pulled myself together and went to the regional museum, Norrbottens Museum. They close at 16 every day, which is making it very hard to find a comfortable hour to go, but I made it happen. In the nick of time, too, as the exhibition I wanted to see closed Sunday. Again, it´s about quilts. I have never made quilts myself, but I am fascinated by the effort and the result.

This is an exhibition celebrating the 25th anniversary of the national quilt association Rikstäcket (= the State Quilt, or perhaps the Quilt of the Kingdom; and it is quilt as in bed covering or duvet, not the technique), with local quiltgroup Lapprutorna (= the square patches, also a pun on Laplander, I imagine) showing off their work. I can´t say exactly who did each one of these quilts (my notes turned out very sloppy and nearly unreadable), but they are all wonderful and I think the group should think of starting a blog of their own! 

The work is plentiful and the exhibition starts at the entrance hall, you follow it all the way up the stairs two floors up, and three very large and heavy quilts hang at the centre of the stairwell. This probably was the only place they had room for these impressive pieces.

It is a diverse collection of things: bags, vest, hat, necklaces, purses, pot holders, bed coverings, wall-hangings, and even baskets. There is something infinitely cheerful and - am looking for the proper word here, but I think a mix of solicitous and safeguarding is what I´m after - about it. The mummy-factor is very high, and - no surprise - there are only women contributing to this exhibition. I find it hard to object, really. Quilting is something that is done for the joy and the creativity of it these days, we don´t have to out of scarcity and survival (as we had to not very long ago). It was a woman´s work, and keeping the traditionally female arts and crafts alive naturally concerns women more than men. With a few exceptions, no doubt.

In spite of the awkward opening hours, I found the museum bustling with people. The café was filled with 15 (I counted) women of the kulturtant species (= culturally inclined elderly lady, which I am becoming, fast), and working teams from the companies nearby popped in to have coffee and conduct their meetings in this culturally charged atmosphere. Nice!

By Inger Johansson.

By Gudrun Larsson.

Vest by Inger Johansson; hat flower by Birgith Bergqvist.

The necklace is by Karin M Döri.

One of the bags made in the children´s group.

Christmas pot holders (or is it wall hangings?), promising that you can "Relax, it will still be Christmas".

Landscape photography

I grew up in the woods, often taking long walks by myself, hunting for mushrooms or skiing in winter. I just happened to find Kilian Schönberger´s photographs of woods, and they evoke so many memories and feelings. Enjoy!

An American In Lucerne

When I was browsing for a book on the history of Switzerland, I came across this thing: "The Lions of Lucerne" by someone called Brad Thor. Well, I don´t know the thriller genre very well, but it looked like fun. When we were recently in Lucerne, we visited the Löwendenkmal, which is a pretty impressive and poignant monument over the Swiss Guards who were massacred in Paris during the French revolution, defending Louis XVI. It was made by Danish sculptor Berthel Thorvaldsen, whom you might know from his sculpture of Christ, a well known popular image.

Anyway, the back cover of this book promised me a fight on the slopes of mount Pilatus and I imagined a tricky plot with a historical twist involving the Swiss Guards. It started well enough, with a prologue in which the Big Bad Guy invites a couple of Corrupt Senators into his hidden study. Thor makes a point of one of the senators making sure the place is not bugged, while the Big Bad Guy brags about a genuine owned-by-Louis XV-desk he has recently bought from under the nose of the French government and how he has been able to practically mind-read this Swiss mercenary he has hired. Aha! I thought smugly, this is important, I bet that desk is bugged after all and that Big Bad Guy actually sits in the pocket of Top-Lion of Lucerne.

The hero destroys part of 14th Century Kapellbrücke and lands in River Reuss.

But no. This is a standard form 1A thriller - that is, not particularly thrilling at all. It´s like one of those movies you find after midnight at obscure commercial television channels. You have never heard of the actors, who all look like models fitted out by stylists rather than a costume designer. The acting is wooden, the lines awkward, and the plot is simple yet impossible to understand.

Everyone in this novel is beautiful, superstrong, professional, expertly wields any kind of gun, climbs, skiis, does some kind of budo sport, and has the emotional depth of a plastic kiddie pool from Toys´r´us. The hero in particular acts like a 5-year-old´s notion of brave cowboy. And Top-Lion of Lucerne is what a villain must be: stupider than the hero. Which makes him pretty darned stupid indeed.

Spectacular place for a fight.

In spite of this, Thor seems to be an appreciated writer, doing well. Good for him. Perhaps he has written better books since this one, which I believe was his first try. I am not going to find out, though. It´s not really my genre, after all. Or no, I shouldn´t say that. I´ll enjoy any kind of book, well written. Surely it must be possible to write that thriller I was expecting to read. It should be right up Dan Brown´s alley.

I bought the book in paperback, thinking the husband might be interested. When I read this to him:

As the man attacked again, Scot faked left, then spun around hard to his right and plunged the [ski] pole deep into the man´s chest. The knife fell from his hand, and in seconds, blood gurgled out of his mouth, painting his jacket a deep crimson.
"It looks like you got my point," said Scot as he let go of the pole. 

he passed. Oh well.

On-line Gallery To Check Out

Look at these photos from Prague - aren´t they amazing? Michael Kenna is a magician, it seems to me, particularly if you compare all the studies of the Charles Bridge. A very good example of what one can accomplish when returning to the same object again and again.

Extraordinary.

Snapped, Crackled... and Pooped

We had a quiet New Year´s Eve with mum-in-law and left her in front of the television, to enjoy the traditional reading of Tennyson, twenty minutes before midnight. We, of course, wanted to see the fireworks at the northern harbour, which is the local tradition. Unfortunately, it had been snowing earlier in the day and clouds were dense and low.

After a few initial sparkles on the grey, foggy background (it took some major tweaking to develope an acceptable photo from what I got), the gunpowder smoke mixed with the clouds and the "ooohhh!"s and the "aaahhh!"s turned into sober comments like "well, at least you can hear it" as the fireworks, no doubt spectacular, crackled somewhere in the fog before us. I turned my camera to the side of the cloud and among the thirty or so frames I shot, I got one with a bit of sparkle in it.

Expectant crowds.

First snap.

Side-crackle.

It was more fun to photograph the crowds as the party-people were trying to find their way back inside. Or find the after-party, perhaps. Some seemed ready for bed... I have been looking a lot at black-and-white photography lately, so that´s what I experimented with.

As we say in Sweden: Good Continuation!