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About two weeks into our artist residency some of us started referring to Kvennaskólinn as home. We would say to each other, “I’ll see you later at home”, and “I forgot it at home”, or “I’m going home after the pool”. I saw this as a sign of how quickly we felt comfortable, supported and entrenched in our new routine during the residency: we made the residence ours – even if for only a brief time.  

As we settled in, and got to know each other over breakfast, lunch and supper, elements of our personalities surfaced. For instance, early on the dining room table was partially taken over with puzzles that most of use would spend time, which was occasionally frustrating, trying to complete before moving on to another. One resident held marathon sessions late into the night at the table doing one puzzle after another. The table is also where we shared food. A few among us would go beyond sharing a pie bought at the store (nothing wrong with that) and cook big pots of rice and beans, waffles and banana bread pudding. Two potluck suppers with the rest of the group in the second residence led to an astonishing buffet and gave us all a chance to socialize outside of a class structure. These gatherings were not just about breaking bread, but created trust and bonds between us. We shared details about our practice, our experiences and skills, offered help, material and equipment. We became an art collective of sorts as we all created work made-in-place deeply connected to the land and water.

Everyone’s generosity is what stands out for me the most, and not just from the other artists, but also the staff. After explaining to Elsa, the Textile Centre’s director, that I needed a dark space to do my work, she offered me the garage at the textile lab, and she entrusted me with the key so that I could access the space anytime I needed to. This made all the difference in my ability to execute my vision for my project. Then there was Jóhanna, one of the instructors, who showed limitless patients and encouragement while teaching me to spin wool.  Project manager, and horse owner, Katharina included us in a horse roundup as a group of residents moved a small herd from one pasture to another. I’ve rarely had the experience to be so close to horses, let alone while they are running at full speed. It was thrilling. Ragnheiður spent hours, and then gave us extra time, to teach us the art of tapestry. In Akureyri, both she and her daughter, Thora, came out to support a group of Concordia students among us who were holding an exhibit. I also really appreciated my conversations with Hanna, the housekeeper, who took such good care of our home.    

 

 

There were moments, as I walked the halls and interacted with the staff and students on my way to my room, that I wondered if this was what it was like to be Harry Potter at Hogwarts? I may not know any spells, but there was a lots of magic inside this home. Corny, but true.

Instagram: @dalejcrockett

Website: https://www.dalecrockett.com/

During my first week in Blönduós, I had a dream. One of the most vivid dreams I’d had in awhile.

I was standing on what our field school cohort has dubbed “the secret beach”, on the north side of town, past the end of Hafnarbraut (a name I have only just learned from Google maps: I know it as the long nameless road that flanks the ocean and winds past the slaughter house and soup factory). I knew it was the same beach because of the black sand, the craggy rock formation to my right curving into a crescent shore, and the stones threatening to become boulders underfoot.

But the beach was so much larger than the one I’d visited in my body earlier that day. In my mind, asleep in bed, the beach was W-I-D-E, the waves HIGH and relentless, the rocks barriers as much as buoys to brace myself on. The air was blue, heavy with grey. And when I looked around, suddenly there emerged 12-16 or so slick forms from the black waters. They were seals. Glossy and blubberous, awkward yet graceful. All watching me. It felt like they were there for protection but also to communicate some kind of warning. Or maybe just to watch. Should I put on some kind of show for them? I knew one thing for sure: they were no ordinary seals. They were selkies. Their thick skins hiding the faint outline of coats that could be shrugged off at will to take another form.

All of a sudden, the ocean became AN OCEAN and I was flat on my stomach on a bare mattress headed for a waterfall. Being sucked away towards the horizon behind me, l cried out, looking beseechingly to the selkies for help, but they just stared; their eyes empty hollows, equal parts curiosity and sorrow, stuck between worlds.

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In my drawing of the dream, the selkies came out looking more like moles than seals. Something cartoonish always seems to happen when you try to convey something mysterious in drawing form (or maybe that’s just me and what my hand does). It’s also hard to capture the ambiguity of a feeling or an aesthetic experience with something as concrete as a conté stick. But there’s something about their eyes, or lack thereof, that I got right, especially in the main figure. She knows something that I don’t. A secret about Blönduós that can’t be learned in a month long residency at the Textile Center here. A secret that probably can’t even be learned in a lifetime of living here. A secret held by the land and water for itself. A secret held by and for the selkies.

Adapting and pivoting is an important part, I believe, of growing as an artist. I have learned many things during the residency in Iceland, and the one feature that has had a dominant impact on my art-in-place practice has been learning to embraces the alterations the natural environment has imposed on my practice as I explore the Icelandic environment and unique material found within it.

Setting out with a plan is important to me, but equally important, I’m discovering, is adapting that plan to the elements I encounter along the way. This is not always easy for me. I can get very attached to my plan and see anything short of it as a failure. This approach, I have learned, can deny me the magic and beauty of unforeseen and unexpected results. In Iceland, I am working with natural elements; they are my collaborators, but I can not control the wind, rain, snow, hail or lack of sun that we have experienced while in Blönduós. My work involves creating cyanotypes by using the natural movements of ocean waves or the flow of a stream. During the process I may place material found in the vicinity on the canvas or paper, such as seaweed, sand and rocks, or they may find themselves picked up during the act of submerging the material. Sometimes the wind blows things onto the canvas, sometimes it blows it off, and sometimes a dog, who is very excited to see me, walks all over my work. As with any collaboration, we must work together, make compromises and embrace those unexpected outcomes. That is what Blönduós is teaching me. 

Instagram: @dalejcrockett

Website: https://www.dalecrockett.com/

Sylvie Stojanovski

To get to know a place is to become enchanted by its ordinariness 

attuned to its subtleties

textures, colours, shapes, sounds, smells

textures, colours, shapes, sounds, smells

To get to know a place is to 

look out a window

open a door

step outside, 

and notice–

what has been there all along. 

—

According to Daniel R. Williams and Susan Stewart, authors of the article, “Sense of Place” (1998), a sense of place can be defined as “the collection of meanings, beliefs, symbols, values and feelings that individuals and groups associate with a particular locality” (p. 19). For me, place has been a constant in a world that feels so uncertain. 

I grew up in the same city my whole life–Scarborough–an inner city suburb of Toronto, a place of cascading ravines, asphalt roads, and meadows. Although in recent years, I’ve travelled often between Canadian cities and provinces for school and work, I found that travelling to Blönduós felt surprisingly disorienting at first. I was taken by the town’s proximity to the Blanda river. The presence of the mountains. The vastness of the sky. Unlike in the big city, where the day is met with a sense of urgency, in Blönduós, the day unfolds slowly, then all at once, like a dandelion bursting open from flower to seed. 

In this blog post, I consider what are some of the simple but extraordinary things that make Blönduós Blönduós? What are some of the things that give Blönduós its “sense of place”? What will I continue to remember long after I leave?

* Note for the reader: The title and inspiration for this blog post came from an exhibition I attended at the Doris McCarthy Gallery in 2018, under the same name. It Can Only Be This Place, curated by Tiffany Schofield, drew attention to some of the quintessential things that make Scarborough Scarborough (from its delicious cultural cuisine to its infamous blue-car light rapid transit system)… Perhaps I’ll make a post on that another day, when I return home.

References

Schofield, T. (Curator). (2018). It Can Only Be This Place. Doris McCarthy Gallery. https://dorismccarthygallery.utoronto.ca/exhibitions/it-can-only-be-this-place

Williams, D.R. & Stewart S.I. (1998). Sense of place: An elusive concept that is finding a home in ecosystem management. Journal of Forestry, 96(1), pp. 18 -23. 

At about 65° 40′ 0″ N, 20° 18′ 0″ W, Blönduós is a small town in Northwest Iceland where the Textílmiðstöð Íslands – Icelandic Textile Center ( 65.6623273, -20.2933079 ) is situated by the Blanda River and just below the Arctic Circle, which is at 66 degrees north.

These are references which may help us orient ourselves in space, but do not give us much a sense of place. As artists, we tend to care more about what it is like to experience a place – what a space feels like and what is meaningful or special about it.

Before I had arrived to Blönduós on June 1st, 2024, I had seen pictures of the Textile Center and views of the surrounding area. These were photographs likely taken by past participants in the field school and by our program leader Kathleen who first visited Blönduós in 2016 and fell in love with the place. These fragments of landscape, architecture and sky certainly played on my imagination of what the place might feel like or be like to live in for a month. I arrived at the bus stop at the gas station in the higher part of the town and a new sense of the place formed immediately by the shockingly beautiful mountainous surroundings and view of the sparkling ocean.

Not to mention how the weather quickly changed my sense of place in the first week of settling in. Uncharacteristic for June, we experienced snowfall coupled with heavy periods of rain and winds. The birds sheltered themselves in the bay in front of our residence, and we sheltered inside over our tapestry looms. Overnight, the surrounding mountains changed from a blueish-green dotted with crevasses of stubborn snow to alpine snowy peaks. Once this strange weather system passed, the skies cleared once more, and the hills were alive with “the sound of music” =========== or in this case the sounds of spinning, workshops, knit festivities and birdlife returning in full force!

More on the process of art making in Blönduós in a later post :).

Vanessa, aka “Van”

Florence Boucher

Settling in – to stay, to rest

After traveling around Iceland for two weeks with my partner, a small car and a tent, I felt ready to stay in one place. The month of May was still cold, and the idea of having my own bed, in my own heated room, was (more than) exciting. A true luxury. I was also looking forward to discovering new rhythms in Blönduos. To try a slower pace, one that allows for deeper observations and a sense of familiarity with the place. To make home.

The very first day, I entered my room, the one that I craved so much when I was shivering in my sleeping bag. I was surprised to find myself a bit disoriented in that empty little nest. I immediately started to move the furniture. I unpacked a few rocks and skulls that I had collected during my trip and aligned them on the windowsill, pretending to be Georgia O’Keeffe. I placed my books on my tiny desk, orchestrated a mess as if I was already living there. Ok, I’m ok.

My first week in the residency was allocated to long walks where I discovered the abandoned port, the secret beach and its pebbles, some mysterious marine species, my favorite rocks, the forbidden island full of geese, the smell of the slaughterhouse, the sound of the river, the sound of the birds, the sound of the constant wind. I wanted and tried to grasp everything. But the knowing, the familiarity, demands slowness. So I tried to walk every day.

Settling down – to calm down, to transform

Inside of me I have something that makes me want to constantly move. I am struggling with constancy, regularity, or any kind of routine. I have a lot of trouble sitting down. While settling intentions for the residency, I wanted to challenge myself to live a simpler, slower life. In Blonduos, dullness felt good. I remember Jessica Auer talking about living in the isolation of Seyðisfjörður. She mentioned that the limited possibilities relax her nervous system, and it stuck with me. I found myself happy with a quotidien of walks, going to the pool, working on my projects, reading, writing, cooking, running, talking, talking, listening. Nothing else, except maybe going to the thrift store on Tuesdays.

Be still in Iceland. Let the air replenish you by its freshness. Let it be part of you. Let it enter your mind, it will make place for intuition, play and nourish your ideas. Let it brush your hair in the direction it points you to. Let it take your spirit to the mountains and to the sea. The reward will be the memories that can’t be captured in your phone, no matter how hard you try.

Tels que les sons qui naviguent sur le vent, le chant d’un huard m’ont amené un Canada auditif lors de mes premiers jours en Islande. Ma patrie me souhaitait bon voyage. La prochaine fois que je l’entendrai, sera une semaine avant mon départ me promettait un retour chaleureux.

Here you must breath in the oxygen medicine. Tes poumons te remercieront d’avoir inspirer l’inspiration du moment.

L’oxygène ici est régénératrice.
It will give you space and time
It will spin you right enough in
Try to say its name, Súrefni

Travelling from Montreal, Canada, to Blönduós for a unique experience of creative endeavours during my Iceland Field School is a treat. Living in the Icelandic textile centre’s housing as an artist-student in Blönduós is one of the most amazing experiences I have had in many years. Beside jetlag and long hours of day light in my new location for the month of June, I was thrilled to know that the student group will actively participate in the preparation of the KntiFest by lending hands.

Photo: The beautiful pin on the KnitFest

KnitFest started in 2016. This year’s KnitFest was from June 7-9 in Blönduós, and our group was there to enjoy the festive weekend with artist talks, shopping for wool from local makers and vendors, coffee, and homemade pastries. We were given a special handmade woollen wristband spun by the wonderful Svana so that we could access all the talks for free.

Photo: The handmade woollen wristband

We were informed that there were four workshops that would be delivered in English, and interested students could take them for a fee. I am always keen to learn various traditional skills in person. Learning traditional crafts from experts is a sustainable way to pass the knowledge on to a new generation by widening the maker’s or practicing community. Safeguarding craft knowledge for the future is a crucial part of UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage and sustainable craft practice.

Photo: Deborah Gray in a picture taken at the drop-spindle workshop

I made the decision to attend a total of three workshops on Saturday and Sunday in order to enhance my learning experience. The three-hour workshops included needle binding, drop spindle spinning, and solar dyeing. Although I had some prior experience with the drop spindle, I was completely unfamiliar with two of the workshops. My goal was to broaden or enhance my current skill set in crafts and creativity. But before I knew it, those two days had passed by very quickly. I explored sustainable local material sourcing and employ it in my creations.
Most of the material and tools were provided by the workshop organiser. Foraging plant to dye, wool to spin and wooden needle to knit were special. 

Photo: My knitting using the handmade wooded needle

Photo: Two-ply Icelandic wool I spun.

Photo: Icelandic spun wool for solar dyeing

It was hard to learn, unlearn, and start over. Throughout every workshop, we were urged to embrace the results that were brimming with “learning residues.” It is an honour that I have this educational opportunity to further develop my expertise in knowledge creation and heritage practice.

Me at the needle binding workshop. Photo taken by Rebekah.

Please check the following link for more details: https://www.textilmidstod.is/en/store/about-the-iceland-knit-fest

Thank you for reading!

Sharmistha

Regardless of the purpose for the trip, visiting Iceland is a treat because of the country’s abundant natural beauty. One popular gesture made by passengers is to peer out of the aircraft window to catch a bird’s-eye view of the landing strip before the plane touches ground. The first thing I noticed when my bus departed Keflavik airport was how draped with moss the ground was. At that point, the view was different and there were no tall trees.

One of the main attractions for tourists visiting Iceland is the sheer number of active volcanoes in the surrounding region. While I was waiting in the Montreal airport to board my flight to my university’s one-month Iceland Summer School, I saw in the news that there were some eruptions (Sundhnúksgígar started on May 29, 2024) occurring in Iceland. I was hoping to witness, if my luck permits.

Photo: The full group

The bus from the airport to Reykjavik departed on schedule. The majority of bus passengers were drawn toward the volcanic eruption site’s view. I was seated in my bus seat, watching the incident from a distance. Through the bus window, I was fortunate enough to witness some fiery red and orange flashes of magma. It was an extremely unique encounter.

 Volcanic eruption: the smoke and the small orange flashes (not visible in this photo) of magma taken from the bus

After one and a half days of staying in Reykjavík, I left for Blönduós. Most of the students in my group met at the Mjódd bus station to catch the bus to our final destination, Blönduós. It was a rainy day, but it did not affect our energy. As my bus moved, the landscape started changing. It was a wonderful view with trees, rivers, fountains, and big mountains with flat tops.

I could not take my eyes off the surface of the ground, wondering what might be below. For the first week, there were a lot of frequent events, such as the lengthy daylight hours and the chilly, wet wind. Eventually, bright sunny days came filled with various classes, KnitFest and swimming in the pool.

Photo: Rain and mountains from the bus window

Photo: River and hill from the bus window

Elsa Arnardóttir, the director of the Icelandic Textile Centre, and our professor, Dr. Kathleen Vaughan, met us at the Bloduos bus stop. We much appreciated Elsa’s car helping us move our belongings to our apartment buildings. From our apartment, we get a stunning view of the surrounding structures and the body of water. No matter the weather, it’s always a true delight. Taking a stroll along the river to watch the sun set has turned into a regular source of enjoyment. This location is particularly unique to this experience. I frequently had the impression that the purpose of the “light and sound show” was to draw in the human soul.

Photo: The residences and the Textile Centre during a beautiful sunset

Photo: Other houses from my residence 

Photo: Sunset 

Photo: Mountains from the car window on the way to Akureyri

Photo: Northwestern region of Iceland

The fascinating, overpowering landscape of Iceland and my first impression when I arrived in this country inspired my tapestry weaving. It was our first class on weaving with wonderful Icelandic textile artist Ragnheiður Björk Þórsdóttir (Raga). For the weaving class, I worked on a vertical composition. I used one of those bigger frames that she had offered to all the students. I learned quite a lot about the complex yet meditative process of weaving. Weaving needs the focus and dedication of a maker. As other instructors, Raga was constantly reminding us, especially the beginners, how to work with mistakes and embrace the possibilities of learning. I loved the outcome of my first tapestry weaving. I am looking forward to incorporating weaving into my future research and creation projects.

Photo: Verso of my tapestry weaving

Photo: Recto of my tapestry weaving

Thank you for reading.

Best,

Sharmistha