for better and for worse

sunshine

darkness

snow

... and rain

More goodbyes to my apartment (my home since 2002).

bye bye apartment

This coming weekend is going to be the last one in my apartment. So - I'm saying goodbye.


bye bye magpie who likes sitting on the antenna.

bye bye rosé wine and supper at the balcony


bye bye fish on the wall


bye bye coffee in the kitchen

karin kaster
ivan andersen

packing and storing

zara wood
dan-ah kim

tea party

tonight we had a goodbye party for me in my studio. Cheese, bread and wine. The Chèvre was great. I've been sharing this studio - Studio 5 - with some other artists for 7 years. That's a long time. You can not imagine the amount of trash I've saved ( "this might turn out useful one day"). I do not feel in control. I go there every day and just stare at the mess. Then I pack two drawings. Monday is the last day of June - will I be able to move out by then?

One of my colleges told me tonight about the "new thing" were you have to be as an artist - THE BLOG. This is the way to reach people. You go to other blogs and comment that they are great and then you can get a network all over the world.
Hm , I said - it's not that easy...

Tea party - another sketch for my children's book. Like the mad hat maker in Alice in Wonderland - one of my favorite books.

sulky

These days I do nothing but cleaning, arranging, throwing things away - and moving things (to store in my mother's house). It's very frustrating to just make some "night sketching" and nothing more.

Friday's celebrations

birthday breakfast

midsummer moves (photo by Hector Mora)

pinup girl and Gandhi

Tomorrow is Midsummer's eve - and my birthday.

silence

next page in my "childish" sketchbook.

disorganized collection

Ah. These things you save being an artist.

I have a whole collection of "white walls" that I cut away in the good old days before digital cameras. The photos were of my art pieces and I was amused by how the surrounding white walls "changed" depending on the dominant colour of the art piece. So I saved what I cut away. I planned to - one day - make a white wall patch work style.

This disorganized collection of white walls went to the garbage today. Camilla on the other hand has her organized collections. She even started an organized collection pool. I could pretend and try to participate - but my collections are utterly disorganized...

sketchbook page

more from my children's book project.

teddy bear

Some years ago I worked on an interactive teddy bear in a wheel chair. (Poor guy - the only thing he wanted was to be able to move around and have a functional sexual life. But something went wrong during the operation and he ended up in a wheelchair - angry and bitter.)

But robots and programming is not anything for me. The sketches, drawing, photos and everything around turned out much more interesting than the final "art piece".

Japanese with wig

When my father Johannes got a bit older his father gave him this little Japanese doll with different coiffures. It was bought in Japan. It's interesting that they gave a boy this kind of toy, back then. You can see it's been played with.

Click on the pictures to see them bigger. I especially like the little teeth!

my shop is open!

My new website has actually been up and running for almost two months now, but I didn't want to make it "official" until I got the shop open.

WELCOME!

balancing toy

My father's second toy was this little wooden man balancing on his chair. No matter how much you lean him and change the arms' position he'll keep swirling around and never fall off.

The third toy?
It was the same kind of toy, but in brass and ornamented. That was the toy Johannes was supposed to play with when they had guests and only then. But it was not as good at balancing as the wooden one. Johannes preferred the wooden toy.

My half siblings have the brass toy, so you will just have to imagine that one!

little elephant

My father, Johannes, was born in Dhanora, India 1912. His parents were missionaries; the father Swedish of poor origins, the mother German from a wealthy family. Johannes' first languages was hindi and his first toy was this little elephant.

Johannes had only three toys as a little boy. He kept them all his life. I will show you the second one tomorrow.

toy week

We got these little clowns to entertain our son from someone who was cleaning out her mother's old stuff. But of course we don't let the son play with them. Checking on internet the other day we found out that they were sold with their original box (we have that) for 150-170 British pounds each. As we had suspected.

So they are collector's items. Not toys.

As we are about to move I look at many old things these days: useless mass produced toys and old toys with stories ... and collector's items. This week I'll share pictures of the second kind of toy.

drawing day

Yesterday was drawing day. I made some quick sketches of people enjoying the sun, but that was all. Did you draw?

Or you could make a drawing a day.
Lauren Nassef
More people with the same idea: drawing of the day and Lisa at the end of a year of drawings.

National day and new citizens

Yesterday was Sweden's National Day and the new Swedish citizens in Göteborg were invited to Slottskogen (the big central park) to get some gifts and eat a buffet. As I had a new Swedish citizen in my family I could go also.

The gifts?
A book about old Göteborg, a year ticket to the Amusement park, tickets to the Symphonic Orchestra and to the Garden exhibit and a year ticket to the museums. A nice and cultural gift!

Food?
After more then an hour waiting in line and realizing it would take more than two more hours we decided it wasn't worth it. It was an Italian buffe (?!) I actually think they were trying to teach the new citizens to wait in line and to be grateful they got something from generous Sweden.

Ok, I got a bit grumpy. Probably just bad organization.

boy and bird

another of my sketches for my potential children's book.

portrait sketches

Last Friday, after dinner, we were 7 people throwing a portrait party. We posed 5 minutes each. These two watercolours are mine of Elisabeth and Susanne. I should do this more often - it's great fun and an excellent exercise.

The 12th of June the BP Portait Award 2008 will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery. Lately the winners have been too photo realistic for my taste.

sun setting and twilight

The light this time of the year is so special at the evening and night. First the strong warm sunshine reaches deep into the rooms - the sun is setting slowly. Then it's just below the horizon giving a very light sky, but no sunlight on anything. Finally the sun sets, but stays for a long time close enough to the horizon to produce a beautiful turquoise sky. It's like one of Magritte's unreal paintings.

Last date to apply to Grafik i Väst is 8th of June.

like somewhere else

Back home after spending four days in the countryside with a bunch of wonderful people. The sun has been shining so strong that we thought we were in Provence. So we ate accordingly.