by Marja-Leena

daily drawing

Danny Gregory at Everyday Matters has written a very inspiring post on the importance of drawing, and doing it every day.

I want to live my life to its fullest and I find that drawing what I encounter deepens my appreciation. While I share my work with others, I make it for me. When I have unusual and interesting experiences like I’m having in Rome right now, my drawings seem to have a wider interest. But my core philosophy is that every day matters. Every single day. The day you meet the president. The day you have a baby. The day you find a special on sirloin at the supermarket. The day you get your shoes back from the cobbler. I find that drawing helps me to commemorate those events, large and small, dull and transformative. For me, that’s the point of art. To deepen my understanding of my life.
Go read all of it!

July 31, 2005 in Being an Artist, Other artists Comments Off on daily drawing

by Marja-Leena

cuneiform

MLRcuneiform.jpg

This is my monogram in cuneiform the way an ancient Babylonian might have written it. See what yours looks like at Write Like a Babylonian. With my interest in petroglyphs and pictograms, I was fascinated to learn that “Pictograms, or drawings representing actual things, were the basis for cuneiform writing”. Cuneiform was written on clay tablets, and then baked hard in a kiln; here’s how to make your own, a fun project with the young ones in your life. Interesting historical stuff here too.

One can view many excellent images along with translations of the cuneiform collection of the Science Museum of Minnesota.

UPDATE: Blogisisko (in Finnish) has picked up this story, with another interesting link to a Finnish-Sumerian dictionary. Apparently in the ongoing research to find origins of Finnish language, some possible connections have been found to Sumerian.

July 30, 2005 in Anthropology, Rock Art & Archaeology 3 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

welcome

Welcome to newly launched Printmakingblog! It is written by Dean Clark, who introduced himself in a comment on my post about new printmaker blogs. Dean is the president of Graphic Chemical & Ink Company, a major printmaking supplier in the U.S. whose products are widely used by schools and professional artists everywhere. While his blog looks like it will promote company products, it will also address subjects of interest to printmakers, such as the IMPACT international conference of printmakers, being held this year in Berlin, Germany and Poznan, Poland, beginning in late August. I had hoped to attend the second IMPACT conference in Helsinki in 2001 by timing my exhibition in Vaasa, Finland for that time, but it ended up being the following year.

July 29, 2005 in Printmaking Comments Off on welcome

by Marja-Leena

Janus Revisited

JanusRevisited.jpg
Janus Revisited
etching 56 x 38 cm.

July 29, 2005 in Older Works, Printworks Comments Off on Janus Revisited

by Marja-Leena

opera in Finland

Savonlinna.jpg

I’ve suspected for some time that Charles Downey of Ionarts is “quite a Finnophile”, as he admits in a great post about Finnish opera and the Savonlinna Opera Festival.

For me, Savonlinna is a special town in the beautiful lakes region of eastern Finland, the region where I come from. On two different visits to Finland with my family, we stayed with an uncle there. The first visit he treated us to a performance of Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” at Olavinlinna Castle, where the Savonlinna Opera Festival has been held every summer since 1967. The opera was magical and memorable with the magnificent setting of stone walls and open sky.

In 2000 we went again and saw Gounod’s “Faust”, again a truly great experience, now with a permanent cover over the courtyard. I’m sure that on our next visit to Finland someday we shall go back, and also it’s not far from my favourite art gallery Retretti.

Charles Downey “harbor(s) dreams of going one day to the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland” perhaps in 2007 – and perhaps we shall meet there! Thanks for jogging some happy memories, Charles.

July 28, 2005 in Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Music 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

island time

IslandTime.jpg

We’re back! We’ve had a wonderful little trip to southern Vancouver Island for a few days, visiting family and friends. The weather was in its very best Westcoast summer mode, and we quickly unwound to vacation mood on the beautiful ferry trip over Georgia Strait. We were especially fortunate to get on the ferries without waits in both directions, by traveling Sunday morning and Tuesday evening, thus contributing to the relaxed holiday feeling.

With this gorgeous weather, beaches and backyards were prominent settings for good times spent visiting everyone. We stayed in North Saanich with my husband’s sister, joined by niece and nephew – it was really wonderful to connect again with these very energetic and busy individuals. We also visited my favourite 82 year old uncle and his wife in their Victoria home.

Then there were our dearest friends who have just retired and moved away from our neighbourhood to an old cottage on the water overlooking Cordova Bay, just outside Victoria. We just had to see them and have a tour of their ‘new’ home – what a wonderful view across to the San Juan Islands and Mt. Baker, no wonder they fell in love with this community! It was delightful to stroll along the sandy beach, watch the birds feeding on sandbars and the kids skimboarding, comment on the many styles of homes from old modest cottages to architectural masterpieces (one was an almost windowless monstrosity I must add!) and stop for lunch at the popular beachfront restaurant. Time flies with good friends and dear family!

Of course we took numerous photos, mostly typical holiday pictures of gorgeous scenery and family and friends, but I was really pleased to find and capture some images of interesting weathered rocks that may be useful in my current series of prints, and I might post some later. But for now, above are some highlights of this Westcoast beauty that we are so grateful to be able to enjoy.

July 27, 2005 in Being an Artist, Canada and BC 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

green prints and more

I’ve been browsing through Cedric Green’s website. Green is an artist/printmaker who has carried out research into safer methods of making prints and eliminating the toxic acids and solvents traditionally used. He has revived some 19th century electrolytic methods for etching and making plates which he has called Galv-Etch, and discovered a new electrochemical mordant to use with zinc plates, called Bordeaux Etch. He has documented this research in articles, a free booklet entitled “Green Prints” and in a website containing most of the content of the booklet. There is a lot of useful reading for printmakers and artists interested in exploring the medium.

While I was still imagining making green prints, I read Beth’s lovely post on Green, the colour of Vermont – do go read it!

This in turn made me think about colour symbolism. Common symbols associated with green are “nature, environment, healthy, good luck, renewal, youth, vigor, spring, generosity, fertility, jealousy, inexperience, envy, misfortune.” Yet this differs according to culture – check this out.

Finnish readers may be interested in Coloria, a comprehensive site totally devoted to the study of colour (mentioned here earlier). She has several pages of fascinating information about green, such as the numerous names for the numerous shades and phrases in different languages using green such as “green eyed monster”.

Strange how my mind has wandered around with this word “green”….

July 23, 2005 in Concepts, Printmaking 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

distractions

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the first coat

The domestic scene here has kept us very busy lately. We arranged to have the worn-down hardwood floors in the main living areas of our home refinished. In the end it will be lovely but it has been an incredible amount of work to remove all the furniture, the art work, the knick-knacks, the plants, and clean out the fridge – like moving house! Fortunately we’ve been able to settle into a space downstairs formerly occupied originally by my late parents. This entailed taking down linens, clothing, kitchen stuff, personal necessities, and computers of course!

A side benefit of all this work has been the clearing out of unnecessary and no longer used stuff, being the packrats we are! (Maybe that’s why many people move every four and a half years?) Once the floors are dry and hardened, we will take advantage of the cleared spaces and having to wash down everything but the floor anyway, by painting the ceilings and walls. So it will be a few weeks before we are back to living in our normal but freshly renewed spaces.

No, dear readers, there’s not much art being done, as usually happens in my summers with their various domestic and holiday distractions. My little studio is also inaccessible beyond those transforming floors, with no room to work in it anyway with the piles of books on the table and other household stuff on the floor! But I still have my Mac and can still blog now and then to satisfy the creative urge!

July 21, 2005 in Being an Artist, Home 5 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Art in Nature

Doesn’t this scene look very magical and surreal, with the strange almost man-made looking sculptural forms scattered about in the landscape?

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Photo from the World Conservation Union (IUCN), via BBC

It is the desert floor of Wadi al-Hitan, or Whale Valley, south of Cairo, littered with fossils of the last whales known to have legs. The remains reveal the transition of whales from land-based to the ocean-going mammals we know today. It is one of eight areas of natural beauty that have been put on the World Heritage list by Unesco (do look at them all).

National Geographic also reports on this, stating that “Egypt’s Wadi Al-Hitan (“whale valley”) reveals one of the iconic transitions in the record of life”. Have a look at this photo of a whale, and another at UNESCO World Heritage Centre where you can also visit all the sites around the world on their list. Check out how many are from your country.

July 20, 2005 in Culture, History, Photography, Rock Art & Archaeology 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Janus

Janus.jpg

Janus
etching
40 x 37.5 cm.

July 19, 2005 in Older Works, Printworks 2 Comments »