helleristninger - just listed!

just listed in my etsy shop --9 (11 actually, but one is a set of 3) new beach stones painted with helleristninger.

and a few close-ups of my favorites:

sold as a set--they're quite small (3.5cmx2cm)

i was inspired by bronze age (1100-500 B.C.) nordic petroglyphs (or helleristninger) that are found in scandinavia--especially in norway and sweden, but there are a few here in denmark as well. go and check them out.

i made this :: a little viking inspired pot

i had this picture in my head - combining ceramics and the driftwood i like to collect - but i've had trouble finding the right bit of driftwood for the right ceramic bowl. this time, i took a small handful of sticks with me to my ceramics course and made the holes in my pot accordingly. i'm very pleased with how it turned out. tied on with a bit of black, waxed cord, it looks much as i imagined it would. of course, i couldn't resist decorating the pot with one of my favorite nordic petrogyphs (aka helleristninger). 

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the best analysis of the genesis of our reality television president that i've read.

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nigel poor's photography project at san quentin state prison

you may know her from the wonderful ear hustle podcast.

i keep thinking about...

helleristninger or nordic petroglyphs...

so far so good

granted, it's only day four, but my daily art in my moleskine calendars is going very well. i'm motivated and when i sit down to work, i clear my mind and just see what comes out. and i'm finding myself drawn to watercolors. and oddly enough, the lines aren't bothering me at all. i'm able to just ignore them.

musings stamped into the journal yesterday resulted in an experiment involving my beloved helleristninger or petroglyphs, my gocco printer and some natural linen cloth. what could be better than ancient ships, natural fabrics and ink?

i'm really pleased with how they came out. next, i need to use them.

sources of inspiration

as i've struggled with my blank canvas (which is currently still blank, by the way) the past few days, i have been seeking sources of inspiration and thinking about what it is that does inspire me. it's things like:

1. colors--rich oranges and reds or deep turquoises and teals.


2. textures--like indian or moroccan or turkish textiles.


3. traveling--memories of the quality of the air and the light of the sunset over the agean with a plate of icy, cold melon and a glass of chilled white wine in front of me.


4. patterns--mosaics at a ruin, the lamps in the grand bazaar in istanbul.


5. hand-crafted items incorporating colorful beads or driftwood.


6. maps.


7. icons. or paintings that in some sense pay homage to icons.


8. symbols.


9. rocks that have been rolled smooth by the waves.


10. music. at the moment, chick rock that borders on folk and a bit of jazz. (yael naim, feist, leona naess, regina spektor, kate nash).


11. helleristninger (nordic petroglyphs).


12. ancient graffiti.

lamps in the grand bazaar in istanbul


contemporary rug design in the grand bazaar in istanbul


a mosaic at stobi in central macedonia

evidence of creativity update (46 - 52)

welcome all of you new commenters (commentators?) who came out of the woodwork on the last post! i guess those flowers learned more than i thought they did at plant school. :-) i'm pleased you all hopped into the fray.

as some of you know, thanks to molly, i am attempting to do and document 100 creative things during 2009 and am sharing them here. i'm up to #45, and so it's time to do a bit of a catch up, since i haven't actually updated this list since april 13! thankfully i take a good 100 photos every day so i can go back in my iPhoto and figure out what i've made since #45.

#46 - a kickass fresh strawberry lemonade. this counts because i invented the recipe myself and didn't look at any of my 600 cookbooks.

6 lemons, squeezed

1 pint of strawberries

1 tray of ice cubes

1/2 C sugar (more to taste if your strawberries aren't super sweet)

whizz it all up in the blender, pour it into a pitcher and pour in one bottle of fizzy water. serve and enjoy the ooohs and aaahhs. add vodka or rum or tequila for grown-up fun.

#47 - a bunch more helleristninger, which i will count as only 1.

#48 - coffee cozies for blog camp

#49 - quite a lot of cakes made with rhubarb of which i will count only 1. recipe for this one is here. you can see that it was good because it was mostly gone before i could take its picture. we've got rhubarb coming out of our ears in our garden. from only two plants! it's apparently an excellent year for rhubarb.

#50 - artistically arranging rocks in baskets. i know this sounds a little suspect as evidence of creativity, but i travel to the far reaches of foreign countries to collect the stones and then spend an inordinate amount of time on arranging them just so and they look pretty when i'm done, so i'm counting it.

#51 - blog headers. i make and change my own frequently, but i recently branched out and made one for amanda and one for VEG. the ease of making fun headers is just yet another reason that i love my mac. because i do them in pages, mac's answer to word, only way better for handling photos--resizing, dragging & dropping them to exactly where you want them. it's all really easy. with free fonts from dafont.com, i can have endless hours of fun.  so it's definitely evidence.

#52 - just today, i made a mattress cover and two pillows for the iron bench in my upper garden. you just gotta love ikea fabrics. so bright and cheery.

bearing in mind that it is a holiday here, i'll give you three guesses as to how i spent the rest of my afternoon...and the first two don't count.

those kind of suspect-looking slabs in the upper left are where husband was at one time going to place the pizza oven, but it's going to stand somewhere else now, in fact, that's what husband was working on all day today. there's nothing you can't do if you can find directions online.

this was the view from where i was, just in case you still haven't guessed...

it was, in all a glorious weekend. hope yours was too.

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a couple of other notes before i leave...

hermit book club - the next read is haruki murakami's hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world. i'm rereading it so i can lead the discussion on friday, june 12. if you're not already playing along with us, please do join in, there's still time to become a murakami addict like me.

trans-atlantic learning adventures - if you want to see what we did on saturday at the local tivoli (or more accurately what sabin did, trot along over to sabin & addie's blog and have a look. while you're at it, stay awhile and check out their project.

we've begun the countdown to blog camp I--june 19-21 right here in denmark! come and check out the latest madness on our minds over at the blog camp blog. i'm going to get my act together and try to get a bit of a schedule up so you can know when you can find us live online via stikam (if i can figure it out) at blog camp, so that even if you can't be here, you too can participate! if you're new here and don't know about blog camp, check this post to see how the idea was born (husband is pretty brilliant sometimes).

sabin and i are still working on the questions from friday, but never fear, you'll see the answers sometime this week. if you still have a burning question on your mind, please leave it on that post and we'll try to include it.

p.s. i found my rock. :-)

the expanse of possibility

yesterday, this space was opened up right beside my desk. it's the former end of our house, now open onto the new room (which is still in a state of extreme unfinishedness). there were four windows in this space until yesterday, when husband took them away to reuse them in his workshop that's taking shape in the garden. although there were four large windows here, the difference it makes that they and all of their framing are now gone is simply amazing.  it's so open and light and expansive now and although it's unfinished, it's amazing to be able to look at the room below and out onto the back garden.

there will be a frame around this opening so that it feels finished , but it will remain open and lovely like this--no new windows or shutters or anything will go in. 

i feel a thrill of excitement at the possibilities it opens up. we do want to be able to have a shade of sorts in this space, so that we can close it for privacy--it is, after all, our bedroom here upstairs and will be the dining room in the addition below. our desks are at each end of the room right now and although my computer and creative space will move into the writing house in the garden, there will still be a desk here on each side.

so, i'm sketching and daydreaming about making a fabric shade that looks good from both sides. so many influences are tumbling in my head and i'm trying to sketch them all out, to get an idea of which direction to go. i'm pondering a natural linen base for the shade and color palettes for each side--blues and greens for the bedroom and reds and oranges for the dining room below. although i'm currently obsessed with helleristninger (nordic petroglyphs), i'm going to try to do something else. a sort of a modern quilt-feel with perhaps shades of turkish influence. i'll share some sketches and maybe even fabric swatches soon.

it feels like monday

because monday was a holiday, it has tuesday feeling like a monday. and with lots of work to do, i didn't really find time to write one of my usual scintillating, inspired posts (kidding!). but then, along came the lovely thaya from beatnik bazaar (she stocks fabulous skinny la minx goodness and other lovely things in her shop in kalk bay, south africa) with one of those kreativ blogger awards. i'm rubbish with properly acknowledging and passing on blog awards, but am much more appreciative than i let on. however, this one involves making a list of seven things you love, so i'll at least do that little assignment. and i should note that i'm going to do things and abstractions and leave aside the obvious loves of husband and daughter (just so you don't think i'm being harsh in leaving them out):

1.  my studio. i know, i'm very nearly at the point of being insufferable about this room, but i literally walk in here every day and whisper, "i love you, room." and yes, the picture above may look like a cluttered nightmare to some, but it looks so inviting to me...cameras, lenses, a big mug of tea, my sewing machine, some pussy willows in a vase, my macbook pro, a stack of articles beside the computer, lighted candles, bits and pieces of inspiration on the wall, a whole mess of letterpress letters from my dad's old linotype, sabin's little stuffed beanie baby (remember those?) cat, some stones (a whole tray of them), a daffodil i plucked on the grounds of the little castle on easter, inks, brushes. for me, it's all there. when i'm working at home, like i have been today, this is where i spend my time.

2. sabin's riding lessons. having grown up with horses and been sent into the show ring with merrylegs, my dapple grey pony, when i was just old enough to walk, i've so been longing for sabin to have horses in her life. i think they ground you in a way that nothing else can. horses are good for the soul. and she's totally a natural--she sits so well and she's so fearless, it really makes me proud.  we're using lesson horses at the riding school for now but i could imagine a horse of our own on the horizon.

3.  the carpet of anemones carpeting the forest floor right now. and spring sunshine that falls on them just so.

4.  renewed ways of seeing the world around me that i've learned through my camera lens and from all of the wealth of sources of inspiration to be found on blogs and flickr. there was a time not so long ago when i wouldn't have laid on the ground for 15 minutes and noticed these little acorn top cups that seem like magical little drinking vessels for fairies when you line them up and really look at them. i love that i notice things like that these days.

5. that my laundry room looks like a bomb went off in there. why do i love this, you ask? because it means that i'm spending my time doing other things...walking in the woods, making stuff, cooking, playing cards with friends, laughing. clearly we don't ask aelita to clean in here either. maybe one day i'll get it tidied up and we can add it to her list. but until then, i can still get to the washer and dryer, so i'm cool with it.

6.  helleristninger - or nordic petroglyphs. rock carvings done largely in the iron age and which are scattered around scandinavia (most are in norway). we went to an exhibition at a little bitty local history museum in our town last year and it piqued my interest. i want to seek some of these out this summer and see them in person. when sabin was a tiny baby, we tried to see some on bornholm, but the weather was so bad that day, i ended up having to stay in the car with her because she was too little to be out in the elements, so i missed out on seeing some on that occasion. i'm finding myself very inspired by these motifs at the moment.

7. a new blog project. like the julie project, this one also involves another julie, this time, the julie of just jules. actually, it involves her daughter, who is just about the same age as sabin. addie and sabin are both in the second grade and they have exchanged a beloved toy and are each going to show the other's toy around in their respective worlds. it's a bit like the famed flat stanley projects, just with a much cuter subject than those boring flat stanley paper dolls. the girls will learn a bit about the world outside of their hometowns, some geography and about one another. and we've created a new blog to document it (because i didn't have enough going already). it's like modern day penpals. and i really love that.  we sent the above today to addie--he's a little lizard named "buller" that sabin made at school. and actually, addie and her mom were much more on the ball and we received her bird, "early" today, along with some other goodies (thank you jules & addie!!). we've already taken him out to lunch at café le zinc, our favorite cafe here in town.

do stop by and check out what addie and sabin are up to with early and buller. and any suggestions you might have for small learning assignments for the girls are most welcome over on "trans-atlantic learning adventures." (i know, it needs a catchier name than that...i just created it when it came to me yesterday afternoon and that's what came out at the spur of the moment--so any suggestions on that front are most welcome as well.)

thank you, thaya, for the kreativ blogger award and for this little assignment. :-)  and because i'm usually bad about this and i'm trying to be better, i'll pass this little award and assignment along to jules.

finishing my torso (for now)

we're going to show our torsos this thursday with a big opening splash! so i've been frantically working on finishing mine. it's been sitting there on the sideboard, covered in words, painted blue, but unfinished.  i know i want to somehow incorporate some feathers, but i don't know yet how - perhaps this little feather bouquet i found on the beach contains an answer to that.

otherwise, i've been sketching and painting some small drawings of places i love and places which have been influential in my life to decorate the torso. this is the church of sv. jovan kaneo (john the baptist, if i remember correctly) at lake ohrid. influential since i met husband in macedonia, tho' not in ohrid.

st. basil's to signify my russian soul. i sketched or printed old sketches onto some pages from an old encyclopedia - that way the pictures still incorporate words, as words are important to my conception of my torso (and thus myself).

i couldn't resist using the colorful houses of nyhavn in copenhagen to represent denmark, which has, you may imagine, become an enormous influence upon me, having lived here for 15 years now. i loved those colorful houses along the canal when i first visited and seeing them still makes me smile.

and chicago, a sort of composite of places and buildings and that chicago pizza. it's the place from which i jumped off to my life in europe, so it had to be there.

and i couldn't resist a few helleristninger (nordic petroglyphs). they just speak to my soul. i drew them with that fabulous payne's grey ink.

i love this circle of life helleristning. it's long been a favorite. and symbolizes a feeling of community that spans the world (and which centers on this blog in many ways). it is essential to include on my torso.

these were some new helleristning that i came across that i'd never seen before. i love how the one figure appears to be floating away on a balloon. that felt symbolic and important as well. and in general i love that circle with the cross inside - it's the nordic sun symbol. light is so important in this part of the world, that it had to be included.

it is once again evident to me that i am a person in need of a deadline. i'd been procrastinating working on this and tho' i've thought about it pretty much endlessly, nothing was happening on it. but now, when the exhibition looms, ideas are coming together. i came across a package of little bitty people that i found in an antique store in the US last summer and i thought that since i've not used any photos of husband and sabin, that i'd use some little bitty figures to signify them. i included sabin's lost twin as well, because she's also part of who i am.

funny how once you start working, you get in a state of flow and ideas come and things just begin to happen. a garland on which i've written a bucket list to decorate the hanger. in that flow, i hit upon a way to incorporate a few feathers, which i seem to collect wherever i go.

i don't think i will be able to declare my torso officially finished on thursday when it goes to the exhibition, but it will be finished enough to show. i suspect that i will continue adding to it and it will change and grow evolve. just like me.