by Marja-Leena A quick update: Carolyn at studio notebook* (May 21, 2004 entry) visited the Big Print Show at the Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle, about which I posted recently. She comments on her favourites and has good links including the gallery’s extensive on-line print catalogue. Have a look! Thanks, Carolyn, for sharing!
* site is no longer active, link removed
by Marja-Leena Going through some of my old bookmarked links, I came across a favourite saved sometime around the year 2000, The Karelian Journal. It is a fascinating real-life story about an international group that travels to the northwestern region of Russia called Karelia to attend a conference to save the beluga whales of the White Sea and see the best petroglyphs in Scandinavia. It also gives us a glimpse of life in this much-ignored region of Russia after perestroika.
The author is Jim Nollman, who was invited to join the expedition. He is “an American conceptual artist who works with themes pertaining to human/animal protocol, and a musician who has spent twenty years attempting to communicate with various whale species in the wild. [In 1997, he] staged a theatrical performance on the subject of shamanism in Helsinski, which was promoted by a poster displaying [a] petroglyph.”
Leader of the group is Rauno Lauhakangas, an engineer with Nokia and “a researcher at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in CERN Switzerland. CERN is where the World Wide Web got started and Rauno was there at the inception”. He started The Whalewatching Web, “which promotes the idea that wherever whalewatching flourishes, whaling must wither. Today, the site flourishes with tens of thousand of hits every day, and has helped instigate the growth of whalewatching around the world, especially in Japan, the Azores, and Spain… Rauno is also the president of the Finnish Society for Prehistoric Art, and an avid student of Northern European history which dates back several thousand years.”
“Scandinavian bedrock is adorned in many places with petroglyphs, some dating before 5000 BC. The images run the gamut from moose, swans, whales, ships, astronomical motifs, men with giant hands, battle scenes, and depictions of village life so effusive in their detail that they could have inspired Breughel. No one can say for certain whether this art was created by Finno-Ugric people…, or by ancient Saamis (Lapplanders)…. Some of the best petroglyph sites are found in Karelia, the Russian Republic that shares a long western border with Finland….Much of the oral folklore upon which the Finnish epic poem, The Kalevala, is based was actually collected in Karelia.”
Because of this Rauno Lauhakangas “organized an international conference on petroglyphs in collaboration with the Russian Academy of Sciences. A secondary reason for organizing the conference relates to his compassion for whales. One of the best known Karelian petroglyph sites on the White Sea displays several reliefs that depict human beings interacting with cetaceans. Many scholars believe they are the oldest pictures of whales found anywhere in the world. The fact that belugas still reside in the White Sea, suggests to Rauno that whalewatching tied to a program of petroglyph interpretation could provide the spark to ignite Karelian tourism. Because Russia was one of the world’s most active whaling nations until ten years ago, the current economic pessimism could easily entice them to start it up again, perhaps focusing on coastal species like belugas. But if whalewatching is established on the White Sea, it will obviate the resurrection of whaling, while contributing one more building block to the edifice of Karelian self-sufficiency.”
“Two of our traveling companions in the backseat are Estonians, Vaino Poikalainen (president of Estonian Prehistoric Society) and Loit Joekalda, author and designer of the first book in English on the subject of Karelian petroglyphs.” Other participants include “Juhani Gronhagen, a Finnish archeologist who conveys the most uplifting story of the day’s long journey. Frustrated by the illegibility of ancient paintings found at a lakeside dig, Juhani brought in two Finno-Ugric tribespeople from Siberia to help interpret.”
Nollman writes that the region “is the worst of the Third World. The town is falling down before my eyes, as if years have passed since anyone bothered to change a street lamp, repair a window, or pick up the trash.”
There’s a great deal of interesting reading here, full of interesting connections.
This story is very personally meaningful for me for two reasons. The first is known to regular readers of this blog concerning my interest in my Finnish ethnicity and the ancient rock art of northern Europe.
The second is about synchronicity again. My research into this area started around 1999 – 2000. In 2002, in conjunction with an exhibition in Finland with two colleagues, we made a trip a trip to Tallinn, Estonia, where we met Loit Joekalda and saw his work about the Karelian petroglyphs. It wasn’t until later back at home, rereading this web page that I made the connection, not having remembered Loit’s name in the article!! One day I hope to go and see these sites for myself.
Additional information on Karelia: from wikipedia, the Many Karelias*, a map*, and
on travel to Karelia (this is mostly in Finnish, some English, and with good photos).
* links expired and removed)
by Marja-Leena 
As a child I loved reading books and fairy tales were my very favourite. My first books were in Finnish written by Finnish authors, but most loved were the tales collected by the Grimm Brothers. This edition, a very well-worn almost 500 page Finnish translation, was the most beloved of them all, perhaps that is why I still have it. One old house that my family lived in for a few years had an attic where I had my very own little artist’s garret, with my papers and pencils and paints and books and my daydreams by the little window overlooking the street.
(Thanks to Amy at ever so humble* for inspiring this little trip into the past.)
*sadly, this blog no longer exists.
by Marja-Leena 
(a deep-etched copperplate of mine)
Scribblingwoman recommended having a look at a post over at wood s lot about Brian Eno and A Big Theory of Culture.
This is essentially an interview of Brian Eno about his book, A Year With Swollen Appendices – long but very fascinating and inspiring reading. Here are a few excerpts to pique your interest:
The informed viewer or listener is invited to think like an artist and therefore in a sense to become an artist. This is good for art and good for civilization…
We see what a good artist does with his mind all day. It’s inspiring.
“is there a way of understanding why humans continuously and constantly and without exception engage in cultural activity?” We don’t know of human groups that don’t produce something that we would call art. It seems to be something that we are biologically inclined to do. If we are, then what is the nature of that drive? What is it doing for us?
The first assumption is that all human groups engage in something that we would call artistic behavior – if they are at all capable of it, that is if they are beyond the most basic problems of survival – and even when they aren’t, they will engage in decorative, ornamental, and often very complex stylistic behavior.
This is the point at which there is a deep connection between art and science: each is a highly organized form of pretending; of saying “let’s see what would happen if the world was like this.”
One of the things art does also is to remind you constantly of this process that you’re most of the time engaged in – the process of metaphor-making.
and much more…. recommended reading!
This has taken the earlier posted discussions of Why Make Art? to a higher level.
by Marja-Leena As regular readers of this blog know, I have a special, sometimes passionate interest in the rock art and petroglyphs of ancient people, particularly of Northern Europe and the northwest region of North America. So, this comes as good news regarding the recognition and preservation of these culturally significant works, from the Stone Pages.
Exhibit of Native American petroglyphs opens
A new exhibit of Native American petroglyphs opened quietly this spring in the Columbia River Gorge, which marks the border between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. The region once held one of the richest deposits of tribal rock imagery in the world. But hundreds of the petroglyphs were submerged under water in the 1950s, when the federal government dammed the river. Some of the petroglyphs were rescued before the flooding, and now federal officials are trying to make amends.
[There are] 43 chunks of rock, covered with Native American figures chiseled in the former cliff face hundreds if not thousands of years ago […] Each rock image holds spiritual significance to northwest tribes. There are stick figures of deer and elk, swirling lizards, and haunting owls.[…] they’ve been moved and delicately cleaned and restored. […] centuries after their creation, the petroglyphs remain enormously significant to northwest tribes.
[…] the 200th anniversary of the explorations of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark will bring thousands of tourists through the Columbia River Gorge. […] the petroglyphs [are] a one of a kind opportunity for them to learn about northwest tribes.
Read more at VOA
The Columbia Hills State Park site (not yet updated for this announcement)
by Marja-Leena A few days ago I wrote about the Newfoundland and Labrador Museum exhibition commemorating the events surrounding the Viking landfall in L’Anse aux Meadows – Full Circle: First Contact.
Then National Geographic News posted an interesting article called “Sagas” Portray Iceland’s Viking History. I enjoyed learning more about Iceland and what importance it places on its sagas, especially after just revisiting my own older posting A Europe of Tales.
But what particularly struck me as a bit of synchronicity is to note among the numerous great links at the bottom of the article, one to Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, a Smithsonian website of the same subject, and it is an excellent one, well worth visiting.
by Marja-Leena The work of Finnish visual artist Anni Rapinoja was recently brought to my attention by Irma H. of Finland, who initiated an interesting correspondence since finding my blog. Rapinoja uses collected plant materials to create her unusual sculptures and earth installations. On her site it says:
Nature has always been an important factor in Anni Rapinoja’s work. Natural materials are her raw materials and workmates. Earlier her work lingered relieflike, on walls. But as the artist, who originaily is a trained biologist, became more aware of environmental values and started actively to protect the nature of her home island, her work, too, started to changed shape and spread also to walls and ceiling, out of the gallery and in to the nature.
Seeing her work reminded me of another nature or environmental artist whose work I have long admired, Lyndal Osborne of Canada. Osborne states on her website:
I feel like an archeologist seeking and retrieving discarded fragments of the urban environment and the dried out remains of natures’ seasons. All have gone through their prime of life and now remain as relics of past glories. The objects are then recreated by me as a direct response to my encounters in nature in the role of observer and participant. I am expressing in my work images which are about timelessness and regeneration. In one sense it is a form of purification, but it is also a way to understand death and to celebrate life through our need to define and humanise our existence on this planet.
Do have a look at the beautiful and moving installation works she has created and the wonderful stories behind them!
I really wanted to share this with readers because both artists’ works have some resonances with my own work and thinking, though of course they are a very different medium from my prints.
Addendum: This is very interesting: read the comments below, then have a look at the work of Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. I could not find the older fibre-based works that I loved so much, except for 80 Backs, lower down the page consisting of a good review, some journal entries and a few more photos of her work.
Addendum June 13.04: Just saw this review of Osborne’s latest work in Canadian Art magazine.
by Marja-Leena Notes from my sketchbook, January 27th, 2000:
— the places one walks, the surface under one’s feet
— the journeys one makes, physically and mentally and artistically
— the explorations into unknown territory… as in walking on new ground, new places…learning new ways of working ie. computer technology and how to apply it to the printmaking studio…new media …web art…
— where do these “paths” lead to?… “heaven”, some other “state”…..?
— connections to previous work, such as use of images of Hornby’s rocks also relate to “Paths” theme
The Paths series of prints (1998 – 2000) began with experiments in totally new techniques for me and the studio: digitizing images and using photopolymer emulsion*.
*Technical notes on photopolymer intaglio:
See Tools. Simply put, a photo sensitive polymer emulsion is applied to a metal plate (I usually use copper), the inkjet film positive is placed on top, and exposed to a very bright light. The first emulsion that I used was ImagOn, which is thick and takes on etching-like depressions on the film that hold the printing ink, so no etching is necessary. I prefer etching, so later started using a thinner emulsion Z-Acryl that allowed for this. Of course, the printing process then follows in creating an edition of prints.
Read more about printmaking at What is a print? and more on prints.
by Marja-Leena 
We came across this tree stump on our recent vacation on Vancouver Island.
Then I found Rick Chapman’s photos of circles at Conscientious.
by Marja-Leena One hundred thousand years ago, our ancestors walked out of their African homeland to explore and settle the rest of the world. The paths they chose were to lead them to all corners of the earth. While some tribes turned left into Europe, others turned right into Asia. It was not long before the descendants of those who turned left ran into the uncrossable barrier of the Atlantic Ocean.
The descendants of those who turned right found a larger world at their feet. The path led them across Asia and to the narrow Bering Strait – the gateway to North America. When these people set foot on the island of Newfoundland 5,000 years ago, they could not have known that they stood on the other side of the Atlantic barrier.
It would be the Vikings who would close the circle. Driven by ambition and a need to find new lands, they ventured farther and farther from mainland Europe in sturdy, ocean going knarrs. Their journey brought them from Scandinavia first to the Orkneys and Faeroes, then Iceland, then Greenland…
In the early summer of the year 1000, Leif Ericson and his crew sailed from Greenland to explore a land hidden in the distant mists. What the Vikings discovered was a vast wilderness already inhabited by aboriginal people they called Skraelings . After one hundred thousand years, the descendants of the people who turned right were about to meet up with the descendants of the people who turned left.
Humanity had come full circle.
These are the opening words to the fascinating history of the Vikings and the First Nations in Labrador and Newfoundland: Full Circle: First Contact. In the year 2000, the Newfoundland and Labrador Museum commemorated the extraordinary events that surround the Viking landfall in L’Anse aux Meadows at the turn of the last millennium with tours in North America and this website. It is full of interesting information and links to related sites about the Norse and North American First Nations.