by Marja-Leena

another print

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Some time back, I presented a little show-and-tell on how I proof my prints before printing the whole edition, a standard practise for printmakers. I’ve mentioned that I’m working on a series of archival inkjet prints based on manipulated photographs of rocks (taken last summer), with collagraphs printed over them. A number of readers expressed great interest in seeing the process and have been asking me to show more. I showed these collagraphs, but forgot to take the camera on the day I printed that edition. Heavy beast that it is, yesterday I did make a point of taking it along.

First I did a trial print (above) of this collagraph on plain white paper to get a feeling for the right inking and wiping technique as well as the best consistency of black ink. Happy with that, I printed it on an inkjet print on inexpensive proofing paper. Notice that I’ve wiped the ink more cleanly to allow for more transparency. I was very excited and pleased with the result (below). Then I moved on to the editioning, printing the collagraph on the archival inkjet prints that I’d printed some time back. All went well, looking even better than this proof, being on superior paper. I wish everyday in the studio was as successful!

I hope to make one more collagraph for one more inkjet print to complete this group. Once that’s been editioned, dried and documented, I will setup the camera on a tripod and take some GOOD photographs. Watch for them here in two or three weeks!

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March 17, 2007 in Being an Artist, Digital printmaking, Printmaking 11 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

venation

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March 15, 2007 in Being an Artist, Nature, Photoworks 7 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Kalevala and Vietnam

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I know that the Finnish national epic the Kalevala is read around the world, translated as it is into 61 languages. So I’ve been quite intrigued to read a fascinating story about two Vietnamese women and their involvement with the Kalevala and how it inspired a project to compile a Vietnamese national epic with help from a Finnish foundation. Here are some excerpts:

The home of artist Dang Thu Huong in Hanoi is an austere one-room apartment with nothing unnecessary in it. The eye rapidly focuses on paintings leaning against a wall. They depict Finnish barns and national costumes. Huong has made illustrations for the Kanteletar, the companion work to the national epic poem, the Kalevala, which has been translated into Vietnamese by Bui Viet Hoa. The next effort of the women is to compile and illustrate Vietnam’s first national epic by the end of next year. The two are getting support from the Juminkeko Foundation, which specialises in the Kalevala. It has received development cooperation funding for the project from the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Lönnrot wrote the Kalevala based on folk poetry from the oral tradition that he compiled during travels in Russian Karelia in the 19th century. Hoa translated the epic into Vietnamese in 1994. [Bui Viet Hoa ] has been referred to as “Vietnam’s Elias Lönnrot”. Lönnrot wrote the Kalevala based on folk poetry from the oral tradition that he compiled during travels in Russian Karelia in the 19th century. Hoa translated the epic into Vietnamese in 1994.

Vietnam has 54 ethnic groups with dozens of oral miniature epics. Hoa uses them as a basis for her own work, which is to unite the nation. The most challenging job is to compile a unified story out of very many different epics. Hoa solves the problem by dividing the book into two parts – the world of myths, and the world of heroes. Like the Kalevala, the Vietnamese myths describe the origin of the world. In both epics, everything begins with a bird’s egg. In Hoa’s book, there is a separate story about how water-buffalo and rice came into being.

Like Lönnrot, Hoa has travelled among the people to collect her stories. Accompanying her was the third worker in the project, Hoa’s husband, linguistic researcher Vo Xuan Que. The two have gone into Vietnamese villages and asked men and women of different ages to sing for them.

(Photo from Juminkeko archives)
Related links:
the Kalevala
Epics of the world
Juminkeko Foundation
about the word “Juminkeko”

*****************************
UPDATE March 14th: Bill’s comment below has prompted me to do another search for an online English translation of the Kalevala. The Finnish Literature Society did have a full translation on their site three years ago when I’d first mentioned the Kalevala on this blog, but now offers only the original Finnish, and a synopsis in English.

Checking out Bill’s leads, I see that Wikipedia has a very good page on the Kalevala, including a short synopsis as well, and links to translations. The translations are all by John Martin Crawford and I am not impressed with this version.

However, there are many translations in print. After some research last year, I found and bought this translation by Eino Friberg. It is excellent, capturing the wonderful oral quality of the Finnish original. I recommend it highly to any interested readers.

On a side note, the Wikipedia entry excites me because of the illustrations of some of the famous paintings based on the Kalevala by my favourite Finnish artist of the late 19th-early 20th century Akseli Gallen-Kallela. But there’s another subject for a very long blog post one day!

March 12, 2007 in Books, Culture, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Folk Legends & Myths 14 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

International Women’s Day 2007

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Today we are celebrating the achievements of women around the world on this International Women’s Day. It’s an important way to remember the struggles of women who fought for equality for their sisters and coming generations of women. My own gratitude and thanks to all women!

Canada is well-known for its human rights and the rights and equality of women. Yet there are still problems with violence against women whether they are prostitutes or wives of abusers. This day is also a reminder that there are still severe problems in many parts of the world. Read Where the equality gaps still exist.

Finland is noted for being the first European nation to grant women the right to vote and to hold a seat in Parliament. Learn more about Finland’s parliament: pioneer of gender equality.

Image above: the colours of IWD, with some controversy about the white.

March 8, 2007 in Current Events, History 4 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

fevered

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foggy
feverish
fluey*
phooey!**
Tuesday’s garden therapy didn’t succeed in averting incipient signs of illness, a cold/flu that’s been going around in our family. I’m frustrated with the delay in completing my project. Now for more hot tea then back to bed. Wish me a VERY speedy recovery!
———-
*fluey – Is that a word? Occasionally used here verbally, but not a recognized word even in the Dictionary of Slang
**phooey  – expression of contempt, 1929, from Yiddish, from Ger. pfui (attested in Eng. from 1866); popularized by Walter Winchell. Phoo “vocalic gesture expressing contemptuous rejection” is recorded from 1642. – Dictionary.com

March 8, 2007 in Being an Artist 11 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

garden therapy

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morning sunshine
a rare event
eyes blinded
cleaning garden
finding green shoots
buried under fall leaves
liberate to air and light
garden therapy for them
for me

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March 6, 2007 in Being an Artist, Canada and BC, Photography 13 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

broken blog

On Thursday evening (March 1st) this blog suddenly appeared very odd in design and showed only some of my very earliest posts from 2004 on the main page. The links (underlined as of yore!) went to wrong pages using the old html instead of php to which we later converted. The RSS reader did the same, and where I first noticed the break. Thankfully the contents in my blog editing program Movable Type (v.3.34) seem to be intact still.

But, yikes! I was extremely upset, thinking the blog has been hacked and I’ve lost it forever. Morbid thoughts, thoughts of all the work lost, thoughts of all the work to restore from backups that aren’t the fully restorable type! I’m going into grief mode…

I had no clue how to fix the problem, I needed help. My clever internet savvy daughter Erika came to the rescue and fixed it that evening.

Or so we thought. Yesterday afternoon, the problem came back. Erika quickly fixed it the same way, but we were left with the question of why this was happening. Today, it went awry again near noon. I’m awaiting a fix as I type this, knowing posting this right now isn’t going to make it appear to you, dear readers. Maybe later***

Many apologies to everyone who’s visited and found my blog broken. With luck and a lot of knowledge on the part of my helper, I hope the problems will be solved very soon and permanently. It does not seem to be a server issue since other family members who are on the same server do not have problems. I know I haven’t given much technical information because I don’t understand the problem. Erika and I’d be very interested and grateful to learn from anyone else who may have had a similar problem with their blog and how it was fixed.

***Two hours later – Erika fixed this again, but we don’t know how long this will last. I’ll post this now in hopes that visitors will get a chance to see this message. We may have to consult with J, my son-in-law and the original designer of this blog. So patience, friends. Patience and a calm heart, Marja-Leena!

Much later: J. found an issue and corrected it! Hopefully that ends the problems. Please let me know if you encounter any more weird stuff here.

March 3, 2007 in Blogging 17 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Tallinn’s Print Triennial & Conference

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Many printmakers may be aware that there is a call for entries to The 14th Tallinn Print Triennial in Estonia. The exhibition will be held 17 October – 27 November 2007.
The deadline for the first stage of jurying is April 2, 2007. Please check out the regulations and the theme:

The organisers of the 14th Tallinn Print Triennial invite artists to address two themes: Political and Poetical, that may at first seem mutually antagonistic, but which are important (or essential) aspects of the graphic arts. Throughout their history the graphic arts have been employed in both the social/political and the personal/poetic spheres. They have offered the mechanism for the mass promotion of political ideas and created conditions in which personal and liberal self-expression can flourish.

This year’s print triennial is a particularly exciting one because it’s being held in conjunction with The Impact 5 International Printmaking Conference:

Impact 5 will take place simultaneously with the 14th Tallinn Print Triennial (on the exhibition ground of Kumu), that has its own history reaching back to 1968. Today it is an international event in the world of printmaking, with participants from all over the world. The Impact conference is an international forum for printmakers, curators, critics, collectors and suppliers of art printing materials and presses.

The conference is held every second year in the autumn. The first Impact Conference was held at the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of West England in Bristol, England in September 1999. The 2001 Conference (Impact 2) was held in Helsinki, Finland. The 2003 Conference (Impact 3) took place in Cape Town, South Africa and the 2005 Conference (Impact 4) in Berlin, Germany and Poznan, Poland.

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The main building of the Art Museum of Estonia – Kumu Art Museum.
Architect: Pekka Vapaavuori. Photo: Kaido Haagen

Very interesting for me was to learn that the Kumu Art Museum (photo above), which includes a conference centre, was designed by the Finnish architect Pekka Vapaavuori and opened just over a year ago.

Tallinn has a special place in my heart. Newer readers may not know that in 2002 I had an exhibition in Finland with two other Canadian artists and friends. We travelled to and around Finland and also Tallinn on the other side of the Gulf of Finland. We fell in love with Tallinn where we met and became friends with artists Loit and Virge Joekalda (whom I’ve mentioned a few times elsewhere on this blog). The Estonians are close cousins to Finns, as part of the Finno-Ugrian group of peoples, so it was thrilling for me to see Loit’s exhibition of frottages and photos from his expeditions to sites of rock art by Finno-Ugrians in Karelia. And now Loit is one of the organizers of this conference! Small world! How I wish I could go to this triennial and conference.

March 2, 2007 in Other artists, Print Triennials, Printmaking 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

The Danish Poet

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Torill Kove, a Norwegian-Canadian animator with Canada’s NFB (National Film Board) won an Oscar this year for Best Animated Short Film. Her film, The Danish Poet, is a “charming 15-minute meditation on life’s peculiar coincidences, based loosely on a tale her father told her about how he met the woman who would become his wife and her mother. It is narrated by Liv Ullmann, the legendary Norwegian-born actress and director and Ingmar Bergman muse.” – from the Montreal Gazette.

Now I’ve just discovered that the film can be viewed in its entirety on the NFB website! You can also read more about this Canada-Norway Co-production, view an interview of Torill, short clips of the film and order a copy on its own website. I hope you enjoy this delightful animation as much as I did!

UPDATE Feb.28th, 7 p.m.: Some readers may be interested to know that Art Daily has short excerpts of the winners at the Academy Awards, including The Danish Poet.

UPDATE March 5th: It’s come to my attention that the full-length feature is no longer available on this site. It seems that it was up for the duration of the contest, which has ended. I think I struck it lucky finding it just before. Time to either buy it or rent it!

UPDATE Dec. 2013: It is available to subscribers or to buy the DVD.

UPDATE March 2014: Quite by accident I discovered it may be viewed for free at Open Culture.

February 27, 2007 in Culture, Films, Other artists 9 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

my Monday

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After breakfast, I took my tea with me and sat down at my computer to read emails, some news and a few blogs, as I usually do most mornings if I don’t leave the house early for the printmaking studio or an appointment. Today, I wanted to make another collagraph for my ongoing Silent Messengers print series. I wrote about one of them a while ago, in case you missed it.

I had an idea of what I wanted but needed a little inspiration to clarify it. I decided to have a look at The Bradshaw Foundation website, and was excited to find some new additions to the already rich collection of rock art images from around the world. Some of the Baja, California petroglyphs seemed along the line of what I was after, so I started sketching my own idea.

From time to time, I looked out the window next to me and noticed that it was snowing big fat white feathers! This kept on going all morning, though melting on the ground. I could not resist taking a few photos. I think the one above of the wet snow on a skylight is rather interesting, even though I’m not impressed with this weather this late in February!

Later I moved into my little home studio to make the collagraph. First cutting some matboard into the desired shape, I then began slowly cutting and gluing paper shapes including crinkled tissue paper onto it. I used acrylic medium as a fixative as well as coating all the surfaces including the back. Tomorrow, I’ll have another look at it, and will add more detail if needed and more layers of medium. I found a way of applying gloss acrylic very smoothly onto areas that I want to wipe clean (ie. white) when I ink it for printing. On Wednesday I hope to print some proofs of it. Wish me luck, and maybe I’ll show you how it develops!

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February 26, 2007 in Being an Artist, Home, Printmaking 15 Comments »