The Way Way Back

I'm currently sitting at Helsinki nursing a really overpriced beer with a few hours until my HK-bound flight takes off. I don't want to make this post some sort of misty-eyed summation of the last 8 months - partially because it seems reductive and perfunctory, and also because I don't think there's any real way to reduce the entire trip into a few vague sentences. All I can say is that it was an experience - equal parts wonderful and terrible (well let's be honest it was way better than it was horrible), and I'm a different person now to when I left home last July. 

I left Korpo on yet another gorgeously clear yet frigid day this morning. I bid farewell to a clean empty apartment and I'm 1000% sure I didn't accidentally leave anything behind. The buses back to Turku and Helsinki were smooth and uneventful. After lunch I caught up with Outi and Miika once again, and with the temperature outside still stubbornly in the negative-teens, our only option was to eat more food and wander around the malls. 

It was sad to say goodbye one last time, and as optimistic as I am, I honestly can't say when I'll see them next. I purposefully gave myself an overly generous amount of time to wait around at the airport. There's nothing worse than being late for a big international flight to the point where you're screaming at traffic despite knowing that that will have absolutely zero chance of getting you on board sooner. So here I am in airport purgatory, killing time with beer and internet. In 11 hours I'll be landing in the pseudo-motherland for the first time in about 5-6 years. Mum and Dad will arrive a few hours after me and together we'll attempt to eat our way through the city until my next and final flight on Sunday evening. 

It's time to go.

Extremities Numb

We come to it at last. It's a bizarre feeling to think of the 8-month-long trail of destruction that I've left behind me crisscrossing around northern Europe. This trip was bigger and more arduous than what I could have imagined, and it wasn't a straightforward journey by any means. At times I was just so frustrated with myself and questioned why/what I was even doing here. It was an immense learning curve, but overall I feel mostly proud and happy to think of all the places and experiences I've seen and done since leaving home last July. 

I wandered around outside for a bit this morning trying to soak in a little bit more of the archipelago with the time that was left. For the last few days the mercury has slid further down to hover in the negative teens, and at that temperature my face and fingers quickly started to tingle and ache at the slightest of breezes. Unless you're completely swathed in furs and thermals it's pretty nightmarish to stay outside too long, and your brain and body feel like they're shouting for you to get back inside ASAP. It's a strange contrast when the plentiful sunshine lulls you into a false sense of security when you see everything from inside. 

I triumphantly finished my last two pieces yesterday night, so it was nice to have earned a day to do basically nothing. Following my walk I spent the majority of the day cleaning the apartment and fitting all the bits and pieces of my life back into a suitcase. 

Tomorrow I'll take a mid-morning bus and get to Helsinki in the afternoon. My flight to Hong Kong won't leave until close to midnight, but it'll be good to get to the airport early and waste some time spending my last remaining euros on pointless crap or a nice meal. I'm going home.

Why The Long Face?

Work-wise everything's feeling on track, which is legitimately a great feeling! I've been burning that midnight oil trying to stay on top of things in the last week since coming back from Jurmo. Without prematurely jinxing anything I'm pretty confident that after tonight I'll be left with just a couple of pieces to wrap up. It was a great and terrible decision to start watching Fellowship at 1.30am last night, which meant I went to bed at about 5.

I'm glad I have Netflix to keep me company in the studio, but more often than not I just feel let down when their library inevitably doesn't have what I'm looking for. I'm also really confused why they would ONLY have Fellowship of the Ring available but not Two Towers or Return. Netflix basically invented (or at least normalised) binge watching so why they wouldn't make a LOTR marathon possible is beyond me. 

Back to the work, and these two stippled drawings were finished last night. It builds on my other distorted drawings and I may or may not tackle a bigger piece or two when I get home. How strange to think that I'll be boarding a plane on Wednesday...

Frozen

I suppose winter this year is going out with a bang? It certainly feels that way. The last week has been stunning weather-wise. The sea has frozen over almost entirely now, with the exception of the channels carved out by passing ships and ferries. Despite the subzero temperatures the sky has stayed brilliantly clear for the most part, and the days are brilliantly lit with the sun shining directly into my apartment as well as being reflected by all the pristine white snow and ice. I actually find myself squinting and feeling traces of warmth on my face for a few hours in the morning, which is definitely something I hadn't experienced for a few months at least. 

A small part of me wants to venture out onto the frozen water and see how far out it would support my body weight, though I'm almost completely certain that that would only end in disaster.

Jurmo

Though the majority of my time here has been solid isolation, I haven’t completely ignored the outside world either. On Sunday evening Outi and Miika drove over with Ami the poodle for a few days down in Jurmo. As I might have mentioned earlier, the Finnish archipelago is incredibly huge. There are literally thousands of minuscule islands scattered like glitter from the southern end of the mainland. 

I had been told by more than a few locals that Jurmo was a must see, and Outi seemed totally on board as well. A great thing about Finland is that the ferry service that connects the archipelago is completely free. It makes total sense that the people living here year round shouldn’t feel restricted by ferry fares every time they need to get off their respective islands, though charging passengers is still absolutely logical to keep the boat running if the government has other priorities (looking at you Norway and Shetland). Bridges on the other hand would be expensive, potentially an eyesore, and in my opinion take away that essence of remoteness and safety that comes with living the island life. By not having bridges I think it forces people to look inward more, and not treat the place merely as a casual place to spend a few summer months each year.

Anyway, early the next morning we boarded the ferry bound for Jurmo, which conveniently leaves from the docks right next to the ferry connecting Korpo with neighbouring Nauvo. The trip was cold but calm, and we stayed cosy in a booth inside as the darkness grew to the standard wintery blue-grey. There were a few stops along the way to drop off mail and supplies to other islands, though of course it was all a lot quieter than what I imagine summer would be like. Three hours or so later we landed at Jurmo with horizontal snow blowing in from the sea. 

We walked about a kilometre to our little cabin that sat near the lone cluster of houses on the island. Jurmo isn’t massive, and I think only one family lives full time on the island. Our cabin curiously didn’t have running water or heating, but there was power to run the stove and the lights. Heat came from a central fireplace and there was a drop toilet attached to the nearby barn. Water was fetched in buckets from an old fashioned communal water pump and showers were covered by the sauna, of course. 

The next few days were quiet, cosy and relaxing. We walked from one end of the island to the other, across pebbly beaches and frozen lakes. There wasn’t much to do, but it was nice to just curl up inside with a book or my sketchbook while the snow came down outside. In the off season there aren’t any shops open so we brought all our food with us. The locals also happened to keep a small herd (5) of alpacas in the barn for some reason. It wasn’t as bizarre as camels in Norway, but still unexpected. I think they were more scared of Ami than anything, but one of them did get a bit too cocky with me on the last day when it randomly started hissing, head butting and spitting on me after I tried to feed it a carrot. 

We were obliged to stay for two nights as the ferries only run on certain days, but it felt like the right amount of time. I got back to the apartment late on Wednesday evening feeling ready to take on the last leg of this long winded adventure. 

Almost

As I probably should have expected, my blogging has slowed down as things wind down towards the end of this crazy run of residences. It’s hard to believe that I only have 10 more days here at AARK before I make my way back to Helsinki and then finally back home (by way of Hong Kong).

The last month has been busy for the most part, though I’m choosing to stay mostly within the confines of the studio. I know it’s not entirely healthy, but I know for sure that I’ll miss this space and solitude the minute I get back to the ‘real world’. It’s always the case that I get nothing done when the end is a distant and hazy possibility, as compared to seeing the finish line and suddenly realising that you have your back to the wall as the days trickle away.

On the top of my priority list now is wrapping up the current series of sea paintings (7 more in 10 days). If all goes to plan then I’ll have ten pieces for each month starting from October. (twenty from Bressay/Sumburgh and thirty from Finland/Estonia). That leaves me with ten extra pages, which I’ll probably fill up with a series-within-a-series once I get back to Melbourne. 

In between that I’ve extended my stippling series, which I’ll dedicate another post to when it starts to take a bit more shape. 

I’m honestly starting to feel excited about going home with all this work and shaping it into more shows and exhibitions that will keep me busy (and mostly penniless) for the rest of 2018 going into 2019.

Month 8

So here we are! Month 8 of 8 is upon us. It feels like another lifetime ago that I was wondering around in Lofoten with a giant pack strapped to my back. Despite the close geography this trip really was so many disparate parts butted up against each other into a steady continuous stream. I can't decide if splitting things up like this feels longer or shorter compared to just staying put in one place for a similar amount of time. 

I've just pulled off one of my favourite stippled pieces thus far. It's a direct copy of a bronze statue seen briefly in Call Me By Your Name, so think of it as the closest I'll ever get to 'fan art'.

"Muscles are firm, not a straight body in these statues. They're all curved, sometimes impossibly curved, and so nonchalant - hence their ageless ambiguity, as if they're daring you to desire them." 

I suppose the goal of these drawings is to really get the texture and subtleties correct in the translation from a three-dimensional form to a flat, shrunken facsimile. It doesn't escape me that the process is pretty devoid of any real creativity, but I don't think there's any shame in momentarily focusing on technique alone. That's one of the things I struggle with - figuring out and understanding why I'm doing all of this. There's a sweet spot between expression and technique that I'm still trying to find. I don't know if I'm meant to find that perfect equilibrium, or if it's a case of the journey superseding the destination. 

Open

I had a lovely little open studio a few days ago. It was a chance to clean up the apartment, put on a bigger pot of coffee, and have some visitors in to see the work that I've been making. It makes me look forward to curating everything later on this year, but I'm also reminded of how much more work there is to do!

Travel Mishaps Vol.20-something

I suppose with more travel comes a higher chance of something going wrong, or at least that's how I choose to excuse any mishaps that have happened so far on this and other trips. I should be in Tallinn right now, or at least that was the original plan. I had booked most of the appropriate buses, trains and most importantly the ferry to take me over the Baltic. Being still within the eurozone it didn't occur to me that I needed to bring my passport. Heck, I didn't even get checked or stamped when I landed in Helsinki from Aberdeen (via that silly Parisian detour). But alas, they refused to take any form of ID other than my passport, which was still lying in my room back here in Korpo. I changed my booking to another date in a few weeks time and retreated back to base with my tail between my legs. Such is the post-Brexit horrorscape that we now live in that I actually need to carry my passport on me at all times. 

So that's what happened today! I'll work backwards to recount what else happened after Christmas at the tail end of 2017 in the following post. I'm pretty happy to see 2017 behind me, though getting my head around 2018 will still take a bit of time I reckon.

Come At Me 2018

All of a sudden it looks like we're on the cusp of a new year. And what a year 2017 has been... I would go into more detail but time is of the essence. I'm about to catch the bus over the Helsinki to meet up with mama and papa, who have flown in for a whirlwind visit. There are a few more new years and new year-adjacent plans while I'm in and around the capital but I'll fill in the blanks next year!

For now, feast your eyes on the drawing up above that I pulled an all nighter to get through last night/this morning. It's simultaneously the best and worst stippling I've ever done - based from a photo of the rain-lashed windows back at Sumburgh Head. It was rough, but I'm glad I'm over that mountain. 

Happy New Year! (Hyvää Uutta Vuotta)

Hyvää Joulua

So it's Christmas! It's a bit surreal that I'm celebrating out here, of all places, but it's a nice break from the norm. The festivities have been pretty quiet for the most part, and like other Finns I did most of the celebrating yesterday. 

I went over to Renja's place in the evening for their Christmas fiesta. Renja prefers a quieter Christmas, so it was only the five of us - her and Benkku, their daughter Helmi, and Benkku's mother Arla. Nevertheless, we had enough food to feed a small village. The traditional Finnish Christmas starts with a cold course of smoked/preserved fish, pickles and salad followed by the main course that involves the usual suspects of turkey and ham, as well as baked and mashed swedes (lanttulaatikko), potatoes and other root vegetables. To drink there was vodka-spiked glögg, straight up vodka and beer, so by the end of it all I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and overfed.

Dessert was provided by yours truly, even though dessert would usually be the last thing I'd volunteer to take care of. It was my first time making an apple pie from scratch - pastry and all - and I was pretty pleased with the end product! The only downside was that it was a bit hard to truly enjoy said pie when we were already so full of food at that point. 

Given all that wintery darkness, it's also commonplace in Finland to honour departed loved ones by visiting cemeteries and lighting candles to honour the dead. On the way home we stopped by the church cemetery in Korpo and Renja gave me a candle for Yi Po as well as Charlie. It felt good to honour them in this small way and make sure they weren't forgotten. 

Solstice

So, the winter solstice came and went. It was a beautiful day, but as with any other day my initial plan was to stay cooped up inside to work. Fortunately Renja was so excited by the clear sky and the golden light that she basically forced me to get out for a bit. I'm glad that she did so. 

Whether it's global warming or just the latitude that we're at, I don't think I'll be getting a white Christmas. The snow has all melted and the temperature has stayed just a hair above 0 for the most part, hence stopping any more snow from falling or staying on the ground. But nevertheless, it's still a beautiful place to be, and the consensus is that January and February are generally colder months. 

I biked into town to pick up Christmas things, and I was pleased to find that my body wasn't screaming out in protest as much as my first ride a few weeks ago. I took my film camera out for a spin instead so the photos above are not from yesterday specifically. Anyway, all was going well and good, until a little way into the ride home. I must have slid over a lone icy patch of the road and I crashed pretty spectacularly, launching the basket off the bike and most of my shopping with it. My pants are no more as I tore a massive bloody hole in one knee and my hands got cut up when I landed on my palms. Luckily no one was around to see my dented ego splayed out on the asphalt. The adrenalin kept me going until I got home to staunch the bleeding and bandage myself up. Lots of couch potato-ing ensued. Happy solstice to me.