I have always been very interested in folklore, and especially the tales of Selkies. Ever since I learned of Selkies, I have been very inspired by them. For those who haven’t heard of these magical creatures before, they come from celtic and norse folklore. A selkie is a half-woman half-seal, sort of like a mermaid except they transition from one to the other by putting on or taking off what is called a selkie coat. In some tales, they lose their coats or their coats are hidden from them by men who have fallen in love with their woman form. I enjoy the stories most where the selkies return to the sea in the end.
This month, I got the chance to see some seals myself for the very first time. I was immediately inspired to create the drawing attached below. The drawing is made from paper that was dyed with lupin, ink, stamps, embroidery thread, and beads. The embroidery thread represents the threads that make their coats, either setting them free or boxing them in. I used beads that mimic the colours I’ve seen around the ocean shores.
I am writing from you from House 35 and I thought that it was important to tell you how grateful I am to have met you. You see, we had already heard such good things about you from Kathleen, but I will admit that I was a little bit hesitant about spending time with you. However, thanks to your lovable, warm, and inviting nature, I fell for you instantly. I mean, who wouldn’t?! Just look at your fun slides!!
I would like to thank you for hosting all of us from Montréal, and welcoming us with open arms as we learned about Icelandic culture. You became a place for us to meet and interact with locals and visitors, and where we came together as a group to chat, drink coffee, relax, and unwind. I think that the reason behind the cool, calm, and collected nature of the Icelandic people is thanks to you. Having time away from devices to simply just be in company with others was really special, too. You always know exactly what we need by just being you.
I really appreciate the fact that everyone keeps you so clean by showering (sans bathing suit) first, cleaning up after themselves, and respecting you as a key figure in their daily lives. What would the people here do without you? What am I going to do without you??
Thank you for helping me appreciate the art of the cold plunge. Sure, I absolutely adored being in the small warm pool next to the 5 degree bath, but sometimes a little reset is necessary. When feeling too hot, uncomfortable, or even just right, a light shock to the system helps to return to a familiar place feeling different, refreshed and peaceful. I appreciate this lesson from you.
Dear pool, thank you for all you’ve given me. You have changed my view on (Icelandic) public pools. You’ve shown me the magic what is possible when everyone can be at ease with and accepting of their bodies, and the treasured human connections that are created when sharing little moments in the day with others.
I love you and will never forget you. I hope we meet again.
Love, Catherine Faiello (aka. the Canadian with purple in her hair)
Often times when I use art materials, I don’t always have a connection to them; where they came from, who made them, what they are made from. This month, we were so fortunate to experience the life cycle of wool; from the sheep, to washing and carding, to spinning, to dyeing, to weaving. I am so excited to see what my yarns turn into next, having witnessed each process myself. It is a very special thing to create such a deep connection to the materials you are working with. It gives them a personality, a life, a story. Just like my wools, I feel transformed by this experience.
With Johana’s LambsLearning to Spin WoolResults from the first time hand spinningBuying wool and natural dyed yarn from Johana, the expert sheep farmer and hand-spinnerPreparing the lupin dye bathMy first hand-spinning dyed with lupin
For my personal project while undertaking this residency at the Icelandic Field School, I decided to make a mask. A hand crocheted mask that would allow the wearer to blend into the natural environment and blur the line between “figure” and “ground”. I returned to crochet for the first time since I was a teenager and painstakingly constructed its hooded shape out out of moss stitch (which I loved) and yarn over-slip-stitches (which I detested). I became obsessed with the repetition of the crochet hook. It was refreshing and rewarding to make something useful and wearable (I make paintings for the most part).
When it came to determining the design I would use within the central mask insert, I had dozens of ideas, varying from drawn tracings of wallpaper patterns found within the Kvennaskollin residence we were living within to piecing together an image of the surrounding Bloundos landscape out of scrap fabric. But when our professor Kathleen Vaughan suggested I think about working with the image of grass, the project started to shift. What about creating a mask that would allow the wearer to attempt to camouflage into the grass?
On numerous hikes through the surrounding area with my cohort we had instinctively laid down in the grass, it’s tall tendrils inviting us to be held as well as briefly escape the biting wind at a cliff’s edge. What about creating a mask that would invite the wearer to take this comfort and moment of communing in whatever grass they might find around them? I decided to felt together a loosely interpreted image of grass to fit inside the face hole of the hood, using Icelandic lopi wool and yarn, and miscellaneous fibres.
When I started this project I was mainly thinking about the photographs I would take of myself or others wearing the mask once it was done. But in constructing the mask, putting it on and being inside it and the sensory deprivation it creates; in seeing and photographing others wearing it while also wearing my clothes, I have realized that this project is not just about constructing an image but sharing the act of wearing it.
I titled the project “How to be no one” because this mask invites the wearer to enter a state of positive self-effacement. However, the project is also stronger when multiple people don the mask because it underscores that anyone (and therefore no one) could be inside. Instead of donning a mask and becoming a character, you become something eternal (grass).
Our group exhibition opens tomorrow and I plan to invite visitors to wear the mask and lie in the grass. Hopefully some people will go for it and try to become grass….
In the middle of the month of June, I decided to embark on a trip to Akureyri to see the work of the Table Collective with the rest of the group. Everyone was going, and I felt excited by the idea of leaving our tiny Blonduos, seeing the mountains, and feeling the landscape passing by quickly through the car window. Feel the speed again.
The roadtrip was great, hearing friends laughing was a blanket for my heart, and a herd of horses crossed the street, in a dramatic and spectacular manner. It all felt great.
Until!
We arrived in the city, and suddenly my body started to feel out of place. I didn’t know where to go, what I wanted to do. Everyone seemed to have thought of this before: which places they wanted to visit, where the best ice cream was, how to find a cheap fish and chips. Shops, restaurants, streets, cars, supermarkets. City things. Money spending. Yes Flo, Akureyri is a city, and this is where you wanted to go. What did you expect?
I quickly realized that I was not interested in cities since I arrived in Iceland. This feeling was confirmed when I walked an hour from downtown to the camping site, on a road crossed by fields, pastures, a little piece of forest, and breathtaking mountains. I feel a need to be in the tall grass in the middle of nature’s sounds. A silence filled by everything else.
I want to feel like a tiny creature between the mountains and climb them to prove me that I’m big. I need isolation and a huge calm. And not the kind of isolation that distances me from people, but the one that makes me see fewer of them, allowing us to get closer.
I left Akureyri very happy to have seen the Table Collective’s work. I can also say that I enjoyed our little moment in the Botanical Garden, all of us sitting in the grass with live music, having a glimpse of the Icelandic unpredictable summer.
(But yes I was reassured to be back in the silence that I got used to. Not the silence silence, but the birds-howling, wind-blowing, sea-singing silence.)
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat, Whom I may whisper—solitude is sweet. (William Cowper)
Please don’t ask me for photos of Akureyri. I only have a photo of my tent.And this precarious bridge that Renny and I had to cross to find somewhere to sleep
We had only just arrived and already were personally greeted by the sun on our first day, they decided to welcome us to Blonduos with one of the most amazing sunsets I have ever seen and then proceed disappear for the next week leaving us with a storm that was latter described by locals as “the worst weather ever seen in June”. A fine rival for Montreal’s winter.
But then, they came back, not only with their beauty but with their very much appreciated warmth, underneath which we learned how to spin and might even have tanned a little bit.
It is hard to explain what 24h of daylight does to your body and mind, yet I find it even more difficult to describe the feeling of witnessing a sunset at 1am, knowing the sunrise will follow in less than an hour. A never ending spectacle where the sun doesn’t just go down, it sets sideways.
Yet there I was, on the 11th of June, alone on the rocks of the old port of Blonduos, whitenessing what I can surely count as one of the most incredible sunsets I’ve ever seen. (I know I said this about the first one but honestly they just keep getting better)
Suddenly everything is more. Emotions, colors, sound… I am hypnotized by the wavy texture of the eater that looks as if it was an animated film. Extremely grateful for the orange dots that cover the rocks for making the act of sitting so much more interesting. Feel much more connected to the family of ducklings floating in front of me and genuinely wondering how they know when to sleep.
And even though I tried to capture it (I mean I really tried) that kind of beauty is just too much for our human cameras. I will still leave you with some of the hundreds I sent back home, and ask you to imagine a landscape where the beauty is at least 278% greater than them.
Blönduós is the kind of place that makes you wonder, how is this even real?
Being with the Blanda River (65.662622, -20.29695), 2024.
Go outside–preferably to a location with some plants or trees, like a forest, walking path or ravine.
Find water (a puddle, a river or an ocean).
Once you find water, sit/stand/crouch with water as close as what feels comfortable.
Try not to refer to water as an “it.”
Take a moment to connect with water.
Breathe.
Notice if water makes a sound. Does water bubble, gurgle or swishhhhh?
Still of rushing water.
Reflections are best found in still water–water that patiently waits, and listens back. Though the practice of being with water can happen anywhere. You can only see reflections in still water.
When you find water. Look.
What do you see on the surface of water? What do you see in the depths of water?
Sometimes, instead of reflections, you might see shadows, or ducks, or seaweed on water. That’s okay. Witnessing reflections is a practice that takes patience, and consistency. Reflections are fickle, and ephemeral. They may appear when you least expect it.
Sylvie looking at her shadow in the Blanda River.
Sit/stand/crouch with water. Be with water.
Thank water for existing, for experiencing this moment with you.
Return as you wish.
—
In 2020, I started a walking practice to get outside and connect with the land near my parents’ home while living in isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On my daily walks through the West Highland Creek watershed in Scarborough, Ontario, I became mesmerized by reflections on water–in puddles, rivers, and lakes. I began taking photos and videos to document what I saw–shadows of tree branches, reflections of the sky, pebbles on the ground.
Still of reflections over the West Highland Creek (43.763481, -79.264918), 2020.
Four years later, I find myself returning to the practice of witnessing reflections (though they are much harder to spot on the Blanda River as water pours out into the Húnaflói bay). In reflections, land meets water meets sky, and I am able to ground myself in the present moment, wherever I am. I hope this practice may find you when you need it most.
Even before arriving in Iceland, the national costume has been a subject of curiosity for me. The long skirts, vests and jackets, all delicately embroidered with intricate metalwork. But atop every outfit is a particular hat. The skotthúfa is a hat that to me, symbolizes the classic Icelandic look. As my travels through Northern Iceland continue, I have become hyper-aware of these hats and have begun to notice their presence in a vast array of contexts.
At the Prophecy Museum in Skagastrond, the gift shop offers a 19th-century style of the hat, which is knit. This version is untraditional in the sense that the artist has incorporated the Icelandic yoke patterns often found in the Lopapeysa Sweater. At this year’s knit fest, booths were selling kits and parts for creating the hat, which is also a testament to its modern popularity.
A visit to the Textile Museum was naturally a treasure trove of skotthúfa’s. Pictured is my favourite costume from the exhibit on the national costume. This hat is one of the newer styles, fashioned from velvet and clipped to the hair with a comb, with a very long tassel hanging down. Further into the museum, in the exhibition on the life of Halldóra Bjarnadóttir is a portrait of the woman herself. In this painting, she wears the skotthúfa along with the traditional Icelandic costume, which is characterized by the large bow of fabric in the front. Both these examples are housed in a location that prides itself on the textile history of the area, so the abundance of skotthúfa is no surprise. However, as we get further from the museum, the hat remains a persistent character.
At the Glambauer Turf House Museum, a museum dedicated to documenting the daily lives of farmers living in the turf houses during the 20th century, there is a room full of portraits. Most are men, but the two women in the room are both sporting the skotthúfa!
Apart from these historical documents, this traditional Icelandic hat also appears in a variety of artistic renderings. At the Fairytale Garden at Oddeyragata 17 in Akureyri, folk artist Hreinn Halldórsson has created fairytale figures out of wood. Many of these are women wearing the Icelandic National costume, including the hat. Pictured are three separate sculptures. The Blonduos Hotel has a framed cross-stitch piece of a woman wearing the national costume, interestingly, the tassel of her hat is the only three-dimensional aspect of the work!
Finally, I found it so intriguing that I made my own version! Tracking the presence of this hat throughout my Icelandic travels has been a fun way of interacting with the culture as well as learning more about the traditional costume. 🙂
