by Marja-Leena

new printmaking blogs

A warm welcome to new printmaker blogger Printfreak, a graduate student in the US. Amongst other things, she has been writing about well-known printmakers Mauricio Lasansky, Stanley Hayter, Kiki Smith and some interesting artists new to me.

Printfreak also has some great links to printshops and the marvellous new Print Australia blog, which I’ve just discovered and also wish to welcome to our still small group of printmaker bloggers! I believe it comes from a member of the Print Australia community that is well-known for their online resources for printmakers. This blog has announcements of print exhibitions, calls for entries to printmaking competitions both international and Australian, printmakers’ conferences, a book and so on. I’m so pleased and excited to see this presented in the blog format and with RSS feed, which really helps printmakers keep on top of the latest news in the international community.

ADDENDUM: And a specially warm welcome and thank you to Josephine Severn for writing in below. As I suspected, Josephine is the author of the Print Australia blog, as well as being the founder of Print Australia, “an online community for printmakers, book artists and papermakers. International in scope, it comprises a research library, a mailing list/forum, a weblog of activities and an online gallery of member’s work. Print Australia seeks to provide a forum for printmakers interested in contemporary print practices; including safer (less toxic) printing methods such as photopolymer plate, and the combination of traditional print practice with new technologies.”

Josephine also has several interesting webpages of her own, her Dalwood Studio, on water and on mud.

I apologize for some lazy reading regarding Imprint Magazine which is a publication of the Print Council of Australia, not Print Australia which I wrote before (and have now deleted).

June 23, 2005 in Other artists, Printmaking 3 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Arthus-Bertrand in Helsinki

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Yann Arthus-Bertrand over Helsinki – photo from Helsingin Sanomat

I’ve been really enjoying browsing through some fantastic aerial photos by celebrated French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. He has an extensive summer exhibition, Earth From Above, in Helsinki, including a World Map spread out in Kamppi Square. One of many currently on display in Europe and beyond, the exhibition contains 120 large aerial images of different corners of the world. Upwards of 50 million people have seen it before it reached Helsinki.

Arthus-Bertrand is also captured in action (above photo) as he took the opportunity to fly over Helsinki for more aerial photos.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s website Earth from Above shows over 200 photos out of 300,000 taken in over 150 countries! You can select which country to view, such as his native France ( wow, I did not know France looked like that! ). There are a only a few (yet!) of Finland and Canada. And there are even more of his projects and working methods to view at his very extensive website, so do go and enjoy!

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Heart in Voh, New Caledonia – Yann Arthus-Bertrand

June 22, 2005 in Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Photography 4 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Midsummer nights

Many summers ago my husband, our two little girls and I were traveling by car and ferries through Germany to Denmark, Sweden, Finland and back again to Germany before flying home to Canada. The night we arrived in Denmark we went to friends for a delightful family dinner in their home. Afterwards we were invited to come with them to a lovely big midsummer’s party at the gracious manor-like home of our friend’s company manager. At midnight everyone walked down to the coastal beach to see the many bonfires lining the shore – a magical scene.

The next evening we were in Sweden in a little town by the sea, wondering why the town was strangely empty and quiet. Walking around we soon heard music and merriment in a park on the outskirts where we found everyone celebrating Midsummer’s in a fairground theme including something like a maypole. Our children loved the rides and lively music.

In Finland the next night we again enjoyed a Midsummer’s celebration, actually Juhannus (St. John’s Day) with bonfires on beaches and young birch branches tied to posts everywhere. Everyone with a summer cottage was out there with family and friends. According to Virtual Finland, “the interminable nights of winter have given way to the white nights of the Finnish summer. Midsummer, celebrated at the summer solstice, has been very important since pagan times, especially in northern Europe, where the difference between the dark and the light seasons is particularly dramatic. In the north of Finland, Midsummer marks the peak of the exotic appeal of the Arctic, as the sun remains above the horizon all night.”

Obviously the actual celebration dates are rather flexible in each country for convenience, and our family struck lucky to enjoy it three times in three countries where it is a major annual event. It’s strange to me that it’s called midsummer, when it’s really the beginning of summer, especially in the North. Sadly though, from now forth the days are starting to get shorter. Those white nights are truly unforgettable!

If interested, you might like to read more about this in last year’s post, and at Answers.com. In Britain, Stonehenge is open again for solstice celebrations.

Hauskaa Juhannusta! Happy Midsummer’s!

UPDATES: Stonehenge in Pictures at BBC, and this article in National Geographic

June 21, 2005 in Culture, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric 6 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

badlands, hoodoos & petroglyphs

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Hoodoos near Drumheller 1999

We have been planning a short driving holiday through the Rockies into southern Alberta, visiting friends along the way in BC and Red Deer, Alberta. Our ultimate destination, Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park is a place I’ve been wanting to visit for some time. I want to photograph the hoodoos and petroglyphs for my continuing Silent Messengers series.

On a visit to Red Deer in 1999, our good friends took us to see the Hoodoos and the Royal Tyrrell Museum near Drumheller. They were so inspiring that some of those images eventually went into a few of my Nexus series, such as Nexus II and again recently in the first three Silent Messengers.

Some time in the 70’s we first drove through the Alberta “badlands” on the way to northern Saskatchewan, unfortunately in too much of a hurry to stop for photos, but that sight left a lasting impression. Much later, during Expo 86 in Vancouver, that memory was vividly revived by an outstanding Imax 3D film called “The Last Buffalo” by Stephen Low, set in those same badlands. It features the creation of a sculpture, so the artistic theme appealed too; I’ve seen it twice and recommend it highly.

In fact, Tom Montag and I had an email conversation a while ago about the Alberta hoodoos which he’s visited “twice in this lifetime”. Tom said: “I think the hoo-doos at Writing on Stone are more personal; they speak right to you. I think the hoo-doos at Drumheller are more impersonal; they’ll talk to anyone…. if you get what I mean?” Having nothing else better to compare them to at the time, the Drumheller hoodoos still spoke very powerfully to me!

So, we have been looking forward to revisiting some of these unique areas as well as to our first visit to Writing-on-Stone. However, a week ago we heard from reports in news media and friends that there was flooding in this normally arid southern Alberta, and that the Park was closed due to washed out roads. Now we’ve learned that central areas of Alberta are experiencing severe flooding and travel is not advised. I feel empathy for the suffering Albertans, and very sad and disappointed that we’ve had to cancel our exciting trip. Hopefully we can make it later this summer – I really need to add to my image library!

June 20, 2005 in Being an Artist, Photoworks, Rock Art & Archaeology, Rocks 3 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day to all Dads everywhere! We enjoyed revisiting last year’s wonderful poem/card by our daughters to their Dad. This year’s celebration is quiet with only one daughter home, one living several hours drive away, and the third out of the country on vacation. We are also remembering and missing our own fathers, gone many years now.

According to Wikipedia’s history of Father’s Day, it became an official day in USA in 1972. I notice also that Father’s Day is not celebrated the third Sunday of June everywhere, for instance in Finland it is in November.

June 19, 2005 in Culture 1 Comment »

by Marja-Leena

visiting Sacral Spaces

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copper dome of Rock Church, Helsinki

Another exhibition that we went to see on our Friday jaunt about town was Sacral Spaces at the Emily Carr Institute. The main attraction for me was, of course, that this featured Finnish architecture (did I ever mention that I almost studied architecture?).

The exhibit consists of very large colour photographs of twelve churches, copies of architectural sketches and 3D mockups and a video. They all have in common great simplicity, light and often views of trees to connect to nature. All are wonderfully designed spiritual feeling spaces, but I’ll just mention two that to me are most unusual. St. Henry’s Ecumenical Chapel in Turku by Matti Saaksenaho (1995) is like a ship’s hull or an ark, upside down, sitting on a hill clad in patinated copper, reminding us also of the Christian symbol of a fish. I wish I could have found a picture on the net for you, or stolen a photograph of it.

Most memorable is the famous Temppeliaukio (or Rock Church) in Helsinki, because we’ve been there a couple of times as tourists. I wish we’d had the time to attend a service or concert there, the acoustics are supposed to be fantastic. Designed by Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen (1960s), it was excavated in the bedrock in the heart of the city, with only a dome rather like a flying saucer showing above the rock when walking in the rocks above. The centre of the dome inside is burnished copper with ribs going outward to support glass circling the outside of the dome (in photo above). The walls are the natural rough rock with flowing water. “It recalls ancient burrows and holy mounds… The archaism arouses a strong primal feeling.” (from exhibition notes). Do have a look at this slide show of Rock Church.

While on the subject of churches in Finland, I want to tell you about a more modest one that we discovered and fell in love with in 2000, on a visit to Paateri, the studio-home of well-known Finnish sculptor Eva Ryynänen. It’s a lovely wooded acreage with a small lake, and here she also designed the log chapel and all the carvings, doing much of it herself with assistants including her husband Paavo. We were very lucky to be there when there was a wonderful performance by a beautiful young woman playing the Kantele. Below is an interior view on the right which really doesn’t show enough details of the fine carving on almost every surface. On the left is a closeup of the altar, made using the roots of a tree, with a window behind and above to enhance the connection to nature and the spiritual, often utilized in Finnish churches and chapels.

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June 19, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Other artists 3 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

visiting Champuru

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Ikuko Hanashiro installation

I wrote a while ago about Champuru, an exhibition of contemporary Okinawan art in Vancouver that I’ve been eager to see. Yesterday afternoon, I picked up my husband from work for an evening on the town. We headed over to find it at Tinseltown, a still new, huge three-story shopping centre and movie theatre on the edge of Chinatown.

Being our first visit there we felt a bit lost as we wandered around trying to find the exhibition, even asking security and store personnel, who were all helpful but still misdirected us. As seems usual, we found it in the last place we hadn’t looked – left of the doors looking out to GM Place stadium with a small handwritten sign, should any readers be heading there. Our first impression upon walking in was of a cavernous grey concrete space with a huge wall of glass and the few installations looking quite overwhelmed.

We did enjoy studying each artist’s work aided by some interesting stories offered by the helpful and knowledgeable attendant. Ikuko Hanashiro has two installations, shown in the photo above. I was intrigued by the group of what looked like miniature boats sitting on the concrete floor made of slices of wood from a young tree with little wood cages on top. These represent an Okinawan custom to send off the spirits of the dead to China, “a better place” (or if in China, to Japan!). On the right, note the shaman stick, for the artist comes from a family of matriarchal shamans. She had denied her calling until recently and thus her work reveals an interest in prayer and Okinawan folklore ceremonies. Some of her earlier work can be viewed on her website (click on WORK and year).

Hiroya Maeda, artist & curator of the Okinawa Museum of Contemporary Art being built presently, has a beautiful spiritual feeling installation of small sculptural wall and floor pieces, with subtle textures of shiny and matte black, and with small pools of water in some of the floor pieces – all too difficult to capture in a photo unfortunately.

Ryujin Ie is a calligraphic, installation and performance artist. He “performed” calligraphic expressionist works on huge sheets of paper at the opening that are up for viewing. It is interesting how he uses the traditional scroll with contemporary imagery, sometimes using rolls of many metres long, such as in a performance on Central Park, New Your in 1988, as shown in the exhibition printouts. The image below shows his sculptural installation with scrolls that we found compelling.

Overall, the connection to their culture and history is what makes these artists’ works meaningful to us both. It’s a shame this exhibition was not presented in a more congenial space, especially with some connection to nature, which I believe is a strong aesthetic for the Okinawans. The new museum in Okinawa should be such a wonderful space.

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Ryujin Ie installation

June 18, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists 1 Comment »

by Marja-Leena

freedom blogs

I rarely touch on politics in my own little blogworld, but thought this international effort worthy of a mention:

Reporters Without Borders selected around 60 blogs that, each in their own way, defend freedom of expression. The organisation then asked Internet-users to vote for the prize-winners – one in each geographical category. Check the results after two months of voting.

Via Pinseri (a Finnish blog).

June 17, 2005 in Blogging, Current Events Comments Off on freedom blogs

by Marja-Leena

art gallery rules

This is hilarious:

Other than on 57th Street or the Upper East Side, women should not wear couture when visiting galleries. Uptown, men should wear ties, but never in Chelsea, Soho, Tribeca, or Williamsburg; but guys, even artists, should never visit in workclothes or they will be asked by the 22 year-old socialite stationed at the front desk if they are making an art delivery or have come to fix the sink in the storage room. Students don’t have to worry, because no matter what they wear they always look like students. And of course no one should talk loudly (to oneself or to others) or wear discernable perfume or cologne.

Celebrities are allowed to visit only during the week; not on Saturdays, when they will distract from the art. The “celebrity bubble” used by a certain scion of a publication family does not work; he, his wife, her dog and at least one guest swan from gallery to gallery on Saturdays (!), limo somewhere offstage, thinking that the plastic dome they have imagined surrounding themselves is adequate sound-proofing. Just because you do no see or acknowledge other people does not mean they do not see you. Or hear you.

No cell phone use in galleries, please. Most galleries, I am told, have installed Cell-Kill, a device that senses activated cell phones  and silently and immediately fuses those little chips they have inside.

There are many more good tips, especially if visiting New York galleries, amusingly presented by John Perreault at Artopia.

June 16, 2005 in Art Exhibitions 7 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

on artists & celebrity

Poking around in my bookmarked “articles to re-read”, I was taken in once again by this Guardian interview of JG Ballard about a year ago. His thoughts on today’s art scene struck a chord with me:

Today’s art scene? Very difficult to judge, since celebrity and the media presence of the artists are inextricably linked with their work. The great artists of the past century tended to become famous in the later stages of their careers, whereas today fame is built into the artists’ work from the start, as in the cases of Emin and Hirst.

There’s a logic today that places a greater value on celebrity the less it is accompanied by actual achievement. I don’t think it’s possible to touch people’s imagination today by aesthetic means. Emin’s bed, Hirst’s sheep, the Chapmans’ defaced Goyas are psychological provocations, mental tests where the aesthetic elements are no more than a framing device.

It’s interesting that this should be the case. I assume it is because our environment today, by and large a media landscape, is oversaturated by aestheticising elements (TV ads, packaging, design and presentation, styling and so on) but impoverished and numbed as far as its psychological depth is concerned.

Moving off topic, I want to learn more about the author and discover there’s a lot of material on Ballard to sift through, but Answers has a nice summary. JG Ballard is the author of numerous books, including Empire of the Sun, which was made into a film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is one of my favourites that I’ve seen twice. Amazingly, the early part of the story has autobiographical elements and makes me want to see this very powerful and moving film again. (Maybe I should read the book too, something I don’t like to do AFTER seeing the film.)

June 14, 2005 in Being an Artist, Books, Culture, Films 8 Comments »