And You, What Do You Seek?

So, I’m in Iceland for a bit, continuing my “field studies” series/project (suite of works? ongoing saga? relentless meandering?) in this insanely and amazingly varied landscape.  I’m currently situated in the north of Iceland at a wonderful artist’s residency called Listhús in the very small town (population appx. 800) of Ólafsfjörður.  Prior to arriving here, I spent a couple of days based out of Reykjavik and traveled around the southern portions along the Ring Road to the famed glacial lagoon Jökulsárlón, surrounded by Iceland’s largest glacier, Vatnajökull. Any rate, I don’t have a particular plan for the nature of my work while I’m here – as usual, I’m looking/thinking/responding.  I expect I’ll amass a fairly large archive of still images and video clips that I’ll get to spend a lot of time working with back home in the studio.  I’ll fiddle with things a bit while I’m here, and will post a smattering of stuff, to offer a sense of what I’m being drawn to. 

So far, I’ve been really intrigued by the almost hallucinatory effect the landscape is having on me – I don’t necessarily mean the perceptual illusions that result from immeasurable and/or difficult to discern distances, or tricky mirage type effects (although that’s part of it) but more so the disconcerting feeling of simply being out in the space.  Part of it has to do with the otherworldly qualities of particularly barren spaces or those dotted with anthropomorphic forms – but as well, there is something about the intense presence of geologic time surrounding you at every glance – up/down/forward/back. And, for someone as clumsy and uncoordinated as myself, wandering around and within these hills - and much further up into mountains than I’ve ever been inclined to go before – produces a bit of vertigo and, in some instances, outright fear (the random encounters with various wildlife has contributed to that as well).

Anyway, here in Ólafsfjörður, I’m looking a lot to the ground and sky, and thinking about reflection and refraction as well as diffraction, I suppose – there is something really intense about the hot, white of the snow coating the mountain tops and how its appearance can shift so drastically depending on what’s hitting it (the really close by sun ball) or what’s covering it (various layers of cloud, mist, ocean air).  And sometimes the streams that run down from the mountain gush so quickly they turn white too, at least from afar.  And then the larger pools of water (the lake, the pond, the ocean) serve as mirrors, or secondary skies.

Noticing this led me to think about incorporating common, man-made materials that share these visual qualities into some of the images.  So far, I’m fiddling around with tin foil, bits of sheer, semi-translucent plastic and crystals of sugar.  As I generally do, I’m capturing imagery in a relatively straightforward manner and am also toying around with materials in the field and in my make-shift studio in the residency apartment.

Lastly, I’m trying to think about linking this space (and this imagery) to my other "field studies" (Goldfields and Airfields) and am thinking about the commonality of earth chunks/dirt and the piled forms it gathers in, and have decided to read a few books that deal specifically with mountains in one way or another.  I’m venturing into territory I don’t normally go (such as sci-fi with an H.P. Lovecraft novella, At the Mountain of Madness, as well as a bit more mystical style with Rene Daumal’s Mount Analogue – the book that Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain was based on, yeah, I know, very unlike me…).  But, I’m starting with Nan Shepherd’s, The Living Mountain, which is (I gather) a bit more of the nature writing/philosophy type.  As well, I’ve got a book of Icelandic Folk Legends I’m dipping into.

So yeah, that’s where I’m at right now.  As I said, I’ll post some images into various groupings now and then, and more when I get back to the states.  A few single images are below – I’ll end up combining these with others, or similar versions, and will post those combinations as I work them up…

Click on images for larger view.

Runways, Skies, Horizons

The runway itself is almost complete – you can drive across the whole expanse and hardly feel the incline.  During my artist talk at Studio Henning Haupt (thanks again to Henning for offering his space), Aviation Department Deputy Directory, Doug Webster, spoke about the inevitable transition of the site and the form it will ultimately take as an ordinary, everyday space.  A highly orchestrated series of transformative cuts, marks, pushes and pulls will turn what is now perceived as an ordered yet chaotic site into a precisely constructed and fully integrated plot of land – it will soon become entirely familiar.

I was thinking about some of this as I gathered new material on the site and its periphery during my visit this May. As well, I traveled a bit further down into the Everglades National Park to think a bit more about the delicate ecosystem the airport is a part of.  I found myself looking to the sky, and the horizon – linking the birds in flight and the long, empty space of sky and water to the expanse of the long, interrupted surface of the runway, and the sameness of the blue above, in both spaces.

Party on Top of the Hill - After School

One of the more enjoyable experiences of this visit was the opportunity to spend time with a group of kids from a local after school program (and surprisingly so, to be quite truthful – I’m not a HUGE kid person, but this group was amazing).  We drove up to the tippy top of the construction site to get a view and see the progress on the runway, and stopped in one of the terminals to see an in-progress terrazzo floor piece.  I got a chance to talk with them about my participation as artist-in-residence and they were so enthusiastic I wound up giving prints to anyone who wanted them – which was everyone, and they had a hard time making choices, and I couldn’t say no, so, like I said earlier, most of my work proofs printed during the community studio hours went right back into the community.  It seemed entirely appropriate.

A few images from the school tour are below.

Community Studio in the Airport, Once More

There was a bit less hustle and bustle in the airport during the community studio hours in May, as the holiday travelers weren’t descending upon the region en masse as in December, and I didn’t have the school kid orchestras as my neighbors busting out the Christmas jams. But, the semi-quiet was good too.  This time I got to know the airport employees a bit better – some of the baggage claim staff for various airlines, the cruise line gang, one of the Sheriff’s deputies that patrol the airport, and Artie, the Airport Ambassador, in particular.  He let me share the space around the information booth with him, and we shared tons of stories - about his years as a pilot for Delta, growing up in New York, old photographs, family and travel.  I gained a lot of perspective from Artie, as well as a new appreciation for the day-to-day minutiae of the airport itself.

I had so much fun talking with people this time, that I didn’t spend as much time working on still-life set ups during these hours, but instead focused primarily on printing work proofs (which I promptly gave away over half of during the after-school program visit that also took place that week – more on that in the next blog post).  A did make a few wee little foothills though – a composite image is below....