OTHER HOME

A little bit of adventurous landscapes for this grey Thursday. Paths in wind, in sounds of silence. Homes from the past.

Dreamy greetings!

(Photos from Iceland from 2004 and 2005. It is seven years today that I first time landed in Iceland. What a wonderful journey it became.)

WINDY WIND

Dear all,

The sky and the lake wear the same gray dress today. Wind is collecting the summer greens and hurries them to go hiding. Slowly, but visibly more and more every day. 300 km away from here there were many more yellow leaves during the weekend. Still bicycled with Mum to our summerhouse and swam. A theater play about sea and an island welcomed the earlier dark evenings.

While searching more wool for the colder days, I remembered that I have used wool for other things than clothes too. A small exhibition done in Reykjavík with a small group in 2005. Lovely ladies of handicraft shops gave us bags of small balls of wool. With them we built our own wind with a girl called Nadia. With some red wool I drew a girl so big that she did not completely fit inside. Her hems in the wind. There was a parade outside while we worked. We were locked inside and could only see a bit of the trumpets and drums marching on the street through a window. Later a friend that I had not yet met took a picture of another friend visiting the exhibition. The last picture I found from an old email and it was taken by Þórarinn.

Cold fingers of the autumn are searching their way inside this house. Time to close the balcony door and say bon voyage to the sun traveling further, to the other side. Eager about the new season, the new colors, the new scents and sounds.

Have a calm new week with colors of rowan berries and rose hips (their tastes too).

Hearts, from me to you.

(Third picture by Þórarinn.)

PARTLY CLOUDY

A lighthouse that appeared while the darkness came. A spring storm was arriving and we were stuck in black sand. Just watching the blinks of the lighthouse over the bay of sea.

Hiking in highlands middle of two glaciers. Wondering if those landscapes still exist after the eruption last year. The warmest day of that summer, bare feet on the softest moss. The coldest water of a glacier spring, tasted so good.

Up in the North in sunset going to see birds nesting by the sea. Partly cloudy six years ago in three different places in Iceland, partly cloudy also today.

More calm winds to the other side of the world, please.

P.s. Thank you so much everyone for your precious words in the last post. I will keep the idea about making the patterns into textiles in my mind. Hearts to everyone!

BLANKETS AND WINTER´S SEA

Dear Thursday,

Some snow and snow clouds that I collected from my older journeys for you. Feel soft inside them! I keep my hands busy, did not have the time to go to buy a Name Day flower today. But tomorrow. Stepping from the arctic weather inside a flower shop feels like entering a rain forest. Tomorrow I can imagine the wild animals laughing up in the trees of colors.

Evening greetings of soft piano tunes and lullabying snow covers,

Anna Emilia

(The painting is for a poem called Alda Aldanna, by S. The photos are taken in Iceland the year 2004

and 2005 while climbing Upsafjall in Dalvík and from airplane while flying over Vatnajökull.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISSING YOU

Happy birthday Iceland!

Gleðileg hátíð, gleðileg 17. júni!

Just sending my best greetings to the land of winds and surprises. These pictures were taken during the summer nights in 2005, when the sun never set. Yesterday I remembered how I worked with the elderly and silver-haired people there. One of the ladies was very known palm reader, people traveled to meet her. Once when we were in the kitchen all alone with her, her cup of coffee and milk already cold, she told me: "Hey you, come here!" (Heyrðu! Komdu!). I sat next to her glancing her newspaper, we used to read the news together, she teaching me Icelandic or we talking about her childhood in Denmark or of her known painter father. It was one of those days, when the sky and the sea are the same color and the horizon is difficult to recognize.

Suddenly she took my hand in hers and watched it for a second and started to read my palms. Telling the truth and forecasting the future. I was amazed and happy and even this lady maybe never remembered it afterwards, I knew that we shared a secret. Next year I was there working again. The same happened. "Hey you, come here! But your palm lines have changed from the last time!" she said and told me a few new things, but the deepest ones still remained the same. I am not sure if to believe them or not, but at least it is one of the nicest memories I have to feel a smile on my face.

Thank you once again for your orders in my shop, Apple Blossom Meadow -print is almost sold out, I am in awe!

See you very soon again, have a good Thursday and see all the blue and red and white things around!

WALKING IN SOUNDS

These are the places I dream about today. A waterfall joining a river and running down to the sea, babbling on its way. Wind very gentle. Secret huts and a small bridge. Caressed by round mountains around and a hint of snow to make everything fresh. Afternoon nap in Meadow buttercups.

Here sunset has arrived, snow melts quicker every moment, a rabbit eats seeds by an oak in the safety of the arrived darkness, sauna is warming up and tummy is filled with berries, fruits and tea. Have a good long weekend!

(The last picture taken by Heikki.)

A LITTLE BIT OF MISSING

It is rainy and +5 °C today in the treasure island Iceland. Quite different it was in the summer of 2005, when I was there the second time. It was very green and an 80-years old gentleman called Halldór was teaching me the names of the mountains around Reykjavík. We sat by a coffee table and looked the landscape opening behind the window. So many mountains fit in one view.

Is there a place that you miss sometimes?

Edit:

P.s. The smell of Reykjavík is of course the wind and the sea, but also vanillin. Very strong vanillin as there is a cookie factory in the middle of the town. Vanillin to my coffee today!