by Marja-Leena 
(Denmark 1983)
midsummer dreams
white nights in Nordic lands
(who sleeps in the summer?)
solstice celebrations
bonfires on beaches
three nights in three countries
summer holidays, cottages
sauna and skinny dips in silky lakes
Hauskaa Juhannusta!
Happy Solstice!
by Marja-Leena 
Picasso’s Guernica
This looks to be very exciting: Simon Schama’s The Power of Art series is beginning tonight on PBS TV in North America.
The power of the greatest art is the power to shake us into revelation and rip us from our default mode of seeing. After an encounter with that force, we don’t look at a face, a colour, a sky, a body, in quite the same way again. We get fitted with new sight: in-sight. Visions of beauty or a rush of intense pleasure are part of that process, but so too may be shock, pain, desire, pity, even revulsion. That kind of art seems to have rewired our senses. We apprehend the world differently.
Art that aims that high – whether by the hand of Caravaggio, Van Gogh or Picasso – was not made without trouble and strife. Of course there has been plenty of great art created in serenity, but the popular idea that some masterpieces were made under acute stress with the artist struggling for the integrity of the conception and its realisation is not a “romantic myth” at all. A glance at how some of the most transforming works got made by human hands is an encounter with “moments of commotion”.
It’s those hot spots in which great risks were taken that The Power of Art brings you. Instead of trying to reproduce the un-reproducible feeling you have when you are face to face with those works in the hush of the gallery or a church, the series (and the book) drops you instead into those difficult places and unforgiving dramas when the artists managed, against the odds, to astound.
– from the BBC site for Schama’s The Power of Art. It was shown in the UK last fall.
Artists featured in the series are Van Gogh, Picasso, Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner and Rothko. More at this PBS page, and here are some short video previews.
Check your local schedules, please. I am really hoping that the Vancouver print TV schedule is correct that the first two parts will be aired at 9 and 10 pm tonight, coming from Seattle, as I’ve been getting conflicting information online. I’ll program the VCR in any case.
Thanks for the alerts from Art Biz Blog and Art for a Change.
UPDATE 9:00pm. Dang! It’s not on here. Looking at the PBS site again, I think it’s offered only on digital stations at this time. I’ll have to keep my eyes out for when and if it appears on plain cable. I’d love to hear from readers who do see this program.
by Marja-Leena 
It’s Father’s Day here in Canada and USA. I awoke very early and started thinking of my father, who passed away 15 years ago. I pulled out my parents’ worn old family album that they carried with them as we emigrated to Canada. This photo of my courageous and handsome father was possibly taken just before that life-changing event (or was it on his wedding day?). We miss you, Isä and Ukki.
We also miss Papa and Opa, who emigrated to Canada around the same time, with his family (including the little boy who was to become my husband) following a year later.
A newer tradition for us is to revisit a wonderful poem card written and designed by two of our daughters to their Dad three years ago. Long-time readers may remember it.
Time to make some coffee for the father of our children. Happy Father’s Day to all Dads everywhere!
by Marja-Leena 
June is often a wet month here in the Vancouver area and this year it’s been even wetter than normal, as has been this year so far. The last two weeks of May were dry and I got much of my planting done, but not quite all of it. During rare dry moments since, I’ve been out there staking tall perennials flattened by showers. I’m capturing slugs and snails feasting on moist and succulent plants, some of which will have to be replaced with new ones, sigh. The weeds are growing too. Yet all is so very beautiful, lush and green like a tropical jungle (but cooler) that I can’t help being swept in by the heart-filling beauty of this world. So, instead of feeling blue, I’m feeling overwhelmed by green.
As I’ve been composing this, I’ve been visiting a few of my favourite blogs. Dave at Via Negativa wrote a lovely post with a link to a poem that swept me away with its bittersweet beauty and seemed so timely with my own – Federico García Lorca’s Romance Sonambulo. Here are the first few lines:
Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
With the shade around her waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
(The photos were taken this morning while it was raining and I was tidying my studio – one outside, one looking through from my studio corner window into the solarium. I should have gotten something ‘green’ but at the time I didn’t know what my post’s title was going to be.)
by Marja-Leena 
Silent Messengers: Assemblage IX
Collagraph on paper and archival inkjet on mylar layer
Layers attached together at top edge
A unique assembled print
35 x 28.5 cm.
by Marja-Leena This blog has taken a back seat for a few days while I’ve been enjoying a visit from our eldest daughter. She lives with her partner some five hours by car northeast of Vancouver in a tiny community, half an hour east of a small city. So, shopping in the big city is important for her. I’m not much of a shopper anymore but I did go with her to Ikea. She’s still in the home making and decorating stage of life, while we need very little. Still, I oohed and aahed over many lovely things with her.
I bought something we did need though – several large glass storage jars with those rubber seals on the lids. We had a major moth infestation in our grains containers last year that I wished to avoid a repeat of this summer. I’ve also been concerned about chemicals leaching out of our present storage containers, the tin canisters from the beginning of our married life plus various plastic ones. So these seem to be an excellent alternative.
Well, as soon as daughter left, a chain reaction began in the kitchen, as you may imagine. Because the jars were too tall for the drawer where the old containers had resided, rearranging became necessary. Wash the shelves and the new jars, let dry. Transfer the grains and sugar. Arrange the jars on the shelf. Store the bowls, sieves and other kitchen paraphernalia in the drawer. Wash the old containers and recycle. Clean the kitchen. Now I must bake something!
Oh, I know this is boring and has nothing to do with art, but some artists still have kitchens, hmm? And I did capture an image…
But wait, I must tell you about what’s on at qarrtsiluni, which always features wonderful writing by many master word crafters. Today’s entry Facing Impermanence by Rachel Barenblat is a must-read, truly beautiful and very moving. I’d read it before on her blog and am happy to reread it today. Rachel also wrote a wonderful post about qarrtsiluni’s current theme on her own blog, which saves me the trouble.
While I struggle with words, I love image making, so I’m very pleased that the editors chose to publish my old post, scanning.
by Marja-Leena 
As I go about my work around the house this rainy day, I stop for quick breaks at my desk to check on messages, news and a few blogs. In a pensive moment, my eyes lifted up to the art work above this screen and was struck by the reflection in the glass. Seeing a familiar view in a different way from a less familiar angle has made me pause with renewed deep appreciation for the beauty around me. A reminder in a busy day to pause, ponder and reflect.
What is the view like from your desk?
by Marja-Leena 
Happy and exhausted from gardening
‘Twas 34C (93F) yesterday
He cleaned the woodpile
Textures intrigued the artist
Wonderful scent of rain in summer
Gentle and warm, first in two weeks
Remembering childhood summers
Standing in the rain in a bathing suit
by Marja-Leena 
Silent Messengers: Assemblage VIII
Collagraph on paper and archival inkjet on mylar layer
Layers attached together at top edge
A unique assembled print
35.5 x 28.5 cm.
