Like last summer Ólafur Arnalds’ “Doria” (“Island Songs”) crossed my way on the flight to Iceland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFp6xnJbs0w
I listened to it on the route from Reykjavík via Vík, Jökulsárlón, Egilsstaðir and Mývatn until I reached Skagaströnd. It deeply vibrated with my mood riding through the lava and moss landscape, covered by snow and ice, becoming aware of the nuances of the light, passing in fascination the wildest sea I had ever seen.
It reminded me of the finality of the shape in which we are walking.
The geological age of Iceland goes back to (only) 20 million years ago. As a volcano island it is still active.
Skagaströnd
My “home” for the next weeks – a fishing village in the north of Iceland with the Nes Residency, surrounded by mountains by the Arctic Sea.
A piano piece came up in the third night here:
Day 9, early evening
A snow storm kept us inside the house and the studio for two days…
Last night the storm eventually slowed down, and I could go for the walk I intended for days, outside the village, towards the snow covered mountains, then meeting the sea again…
I feel as if I landed in a timeless zone. There is hardly any thought of “tomorrow”. And – once again – Iceland feels endless to me. Whenever I pass a mountain, a fjord, and before thought I would arrive “somewhere”, at an edge, a point, a “last one”, the next one appears and keeps me walking…
Encountering the formation of the ground of this place, one more time I loose the illusion that there is any ending.
Altogether it feels hard to believe that it’s been already 9 days since I arrived, and I still feel in a process of adjusting to the place and my new rhythm in it.
I spent time to get to know my mates – right now: Janet, a landscape artist from England who paints the sea, Sue, an artist from Australia working with watercolor and collages and Alex, a writer from the the U.S. – usually sharing diner in our house in “Fellsbraut 2” (every night one of us cooks – excellent cooks here 🙂 ), working together in the studio or having conversations about whatever is present – be it the art work, the boat trip with the fishermen Janet will do tomorrow, a book about Icelandic women of fishermen in former times, a book written by a Scottish woman about her relation with a mountain in the highlands of Scotland in the 50s, the impact of light and shadow on the landscape (and on us), the unusual visual dreams that I and another one us have here, personal topics, or the new corona virus…
I spent days just trying to find my rhythm between working in the studio and in the “tónlistarskóli” (the music school where I have access to a piano), perceived my time as still too full and too little “empty”, and eventually came to the conclusion that I want to drop all that is not necessary and first create more space…
Usually on my travels I work in direct contact with nature. The impact of nature is a significant part of my work. But realizing that it is simply too windy and too cold to stay outdoors with my work material, as I am used to – my fingers freeze after only a few minutes – I decided to try to bring “nature” – natural “tools” I find by the sea – into the studio.
I took water from the ocean, melted snow and found an icicle to use as a brush…
Day 10
The day started with an online sharing with my triad from my sangha from home. The present topic was the corona virus, how we feel about it, how it starts to impact our actions and decisions, how we can make the best decision in a situation when there is uncertainty about consequences and what is the right thing to do… We also look at the development with curiosity, openness to the bigger picture and process behind it, wondering in what way it will impact and change us…
The topic is present between us here in Skagaströnd, and we begin to encounter it several times a day in different occasions. It is present in conversations. It is now present in the concerns of the two from the US and Australia of not getting back home. It is present in reactions and emotions. It is present in the supermarket where the women at the checkout started to wear masks.
It is present for me, following the development at home… And I was starting to ask myself if I should stay or travel back. For now it still feels right to be here and continue what I started…
Day 11
I went to the studio early in the morning, as usual. It’s the time of the day when I have the space to myself.
I listen excessively, over hours and days (as I often do once I encounter a new piece of music), to “Dream 3” of Max Richter’s “Sleep” album that seems to vibrate with the images I am working with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FENbmz8ffRw
Starting last summer in Hesteyri in the West Fjords also here I keep encountering the sense of an ending of something.
Images of lava and the topic of the unseen are moving in my mind and senses since the landing approach to Keflavík – a view in slow motion over the arctic sea and the frozen landscape…
Day 12
The night has been loud and windy. The storm kept hitting against my window and kept me awake for hours…
The view in the early morning out of the window of my room in Fellsbraut was surreal after this wild and sleepless night – the most gentle, softest light put the mountains in pinkish colour.
All was calm, the sea was still.
Around ten another dark cloud approached and since then the village is being challenged with another snow storm.
The place feels silent. Turning inwards. Waiting.
Day 13
6:45h, again early in the studio. I begin to feel deep gratitude to be here. This morning, maybe after a piece of music found its way into a piano melody yesterday, I feel myself arriving here deeper.
Another storm announced…
The studio starts to become empty. The first one of us is leaving tomorrow. No new artists are going to arrive . The corona virus starts to have noticeable effects…
Day 14
The morning – after the next snow stormy night – began with a coffee with my two flatmates Sue and Janet at the kitchen table and and light, warm, creative and slightly melancholic laughters about ideas of making a film or writing a novel about the entire situation with corona that reaches us in this remote place Skagaströnd and meets each of us in a different way.
And I keep thinking: How will we think and feel about this moment now from a place in the future, looking back? Besides the various emotions that come up in each of us – anxiety, stress, sadness,… it brings up a feeling of connectedness, of sharing the same experience. There is some gentle depth and intensity to it, to this so unusual situation…
The rest of the day we all spent doing research on travel conditions, new restrictions, did phone calls to friends and family to reflect and discuss what is best to do and not to do, what feels most safe…
For now I decide to stay.
Day 17
The past days have been fully occupied with decision making. Nearly every hour updates reached us, changes of travel condictions, warnings. New, so far unknown emotions encounter those of us still being in this unusual situation.
The village begins to shut down, protect agains the spread of the virus. My second residency, Brekka, is locked in snow and unaccessible. The situation feels extreme, unpredictable.
Day 18
Two days ago my father got diagnosed the corona virus and went into hospital and isolation.
I am leaving Iceland tomorrow.
This piece came up on one of my first days in Skagaströnd. It transports the lightness of my beginning. It still resonates.
The unexpected and forced turn and breakup of my residency time in Iceland adds its own specific vibration to my experience.
A gift of a very special kind.
🙏🏼