Category: Inspiration

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Living in France

It has been a while since my last update, but I am finally making a new post! In July I graduated from Aberystwyth University, which was a great experience, but also a bit sad as it was the ending of three amazing years.

I continued to stay in Aberystwyth over the summer and had a great time. I met some lovely people and was actually able to enjoy the beach and the sun (I do understand why people travel to Aberystwyth in the summer).

For a long time I had wanted to move to France, and in September last year, my boyfriend and I packed our most important things and left the UK to find a place in France. We aimed for Lyon and stayed in an Airbnb for a week before deciding it was an impossible task to find somewhere to live. A tip: if you don’t have a pre-planned flat ready to move in to and are moving somewhere new, try to get there before all the students. In one week we had three offers, two of them were people trying to scam us and the third was a flat more humid and moldy than a basement (a fan had to be on 24/7 and the smell was still unbearable).

In the end, we decided to continue our journey and left Lyon, hoping that there would be a not-too-expensive and furnished flat we could rent in Grenoble. And there was. We are now living in a lime-green painted, two floors flat with no actual sunlight, but it is not too bad and it is great to have a place!

We have been living in Grenoble for about six months now, and it really is a nice city. I love being surrounded by mountains. Here are a few pictures of Grenoble:

Regarding my artwork, I have not been creating nearly as much as I wish I had. I am currently doing a full-time psychology course, and have to focus on my exams. I do, however, feel pretty inspired lately, and hope to get started painting one of these days. When I do, I will post some pictures on my blog.

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Careers Fair

Today I spent the early afternoon in Aberystwyth Arts Centre, at a careers fair arranged to help students gain more insight into the different job markets.

Aber Careers

I went to two talks aimed at students studying Arts and Humanities, Working in Arts & Curation and Working in Creative Writing, Journalism & Publishing. The former was held by Carrie Canham, curator at the Ceredigion Museum in Aberystwyth. It was a great talk about her personal journey, how she has been working on various projects in several different museums, and eventually ended up in the job she has today.

Canham also mentioned the restoration of the Ceredigion Museum, a truly great museum telling the history of the county, and how she and her team approached the task. The new renovation has been amazing and a great improvement. Another great thing about the museum is that it is completely free of charge to enter (and they do have great coffee in the new café).

Ceredigion Museum

The Ceredigion Museum’s web page: http://www.medwynsmuseums.co.uk/ceredigion

At the end of her talk, she mentioned a few advice for everyone seeking a job as a curator:

  • Think about your specialism, what YOU can give to the museum.
  • Think about skills you can develop: fundraising, writing, communication and IT.
  • Think about doing some volunteering or get work experience in the field.
  • Think about networking, get contacts and friends.

I really enjoy events like this! By listening to other peoples experiences you can truly learn a lot. If there is something I have learned today; if you wish to get your dream job, do not to let the opportunities slip by but grab them when you have a chance, and never ever give up on yourself (even if it seems hard, there is a lot of competition or people give you bad reviews).

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Dirty Sinks

Since the beginning of the autumn and my third year at uni, I have worked on a project for my painting module – painting dirty and neglected sinks. The project started in my first year at uni when I had to walk around the School of Art, drawing and painting scenes of the building that inspired me. I had to fill a sketchbook with artworks, seen from a specific perspective, as a type of persona. As a result of this project, I chose to find and study the different and interesting sinks in the building.

 

‘Drawing as Documentation
Sketchbooks can be used in many different ways: to record information, as a personal visual diary, as a visual library of motifs or ideas, as a means of preparation for painting. Sketchbooks often reveal much about the way that an artist sees the world. This week’s project, which you will finish off next week (Week 9) in between your tutorial times, is to fill a sketchbook with drawings, studies and/or paintings of some aspect of the School of Art. Begin by exploring the inside and outside of the building. The object is to communicate, through the things you depict and the ways in which you make your images, a way of seeing the world. Working from observation is a requirement but idiosyncratic, obsessive and subjective approaches are all welcomed.’ 

– Simon Pierse
(Lecturer in my module at Aberystwyth University, School of Art, Art Practice A, 2015)

 

I do not remember exactly what I wanted to achieve at the time I was drawing the sinks, but I do remember there was something that attracted me to the sinks in the building. They were left to themselves as they were, used for different art practices like painting, printmaking, and photography, and as all other sinks, to fetch water from and wash hands. Most of them were not cleaned after every use and left dirty with paint, spoons and even cobweb.

After finishing my second year at uni, having had painting and printmaking as my main modules for a year, I decided to continue with painting for my third-year module. As I had found it interesting to paint my living room left by itself, focusing on the light, atmosphere, and mood, I decided to go back to my sink-project, not only to draw the sinks but now also to paint them.

Here are some of the sketches I made in 2015 that inspired me for my painting project this year:

 

I am not only painting the sinks in the School of Art anymore, I walk around with my camera collecting images of any sink that I find interesting and worthy of study. Sinks that are dirty, neglected and maybe even forgotten. My aim is to make these sinks come alive, by creating an eerie and gloomy mood.

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Holiday in Lisbon

I had some amazing days in Lisbon this summer much thanks to Luciana and her family that were very kind letting me stay at their house. The 17th of July I landed in Lisbon and had some lovely days filled with sun and warmth until I had to leave again the 26th. While I was in Lisbon I experienced several tourist attraction, a museum and lots of lovely food!

The first day I had some of the best ice cream I have ever tasted – a sorbet from a place called Nannarella. I could not have had a better start on a holiday since I just love ice cream. During the holiday I also tried a lot of great seafood (as well as eel that I did not find as good), more delicious ice cream, the dessert famous tart paséis de Belém and right before I left, I even tried snails!

We went to the Oceanarium, saw the national palace of Sintra, took the Telecabine, Hippotrip and different trams and did a bit of shopping in Vasco da Gama.

The museum I went to see with Luciana was CCB – Centro Cultura de Bélem. A museum for modern art where we saw art by Francis Bacon, Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dalí and many more. There is also plenty of amazing street art, murals and tile art around the city which I find fascinating.

Thank you so much for a great holiday to Luciana and her family!

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Road Trip in America

In this blog post, I am going to write a bit about my (almost) three-week long road trip to the USA this summer. I went with two of my best friend, Ida Taule and May Eriksrød Selle. It was about two years ago that we decided to go on this trip, and we booked the tickets already one year in advance – actually as soon as they were put out for sale! Before we left Norway we had found a car rental in New York and paid for a few hotels along the way so we had some fixed dates to keep our journey in place. Our driving plan (which we basically followed) started in New York the 20th of June and ended in Seattle the 8th July:

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On the Road

20th June

  • Land in New York

23th June

  • Drive to Niagara Falls – spend a night

24th June

  •  – Drive to Toronto – spend a night

25th June

  • Drive to Chicago – spend a night

26th June

  • Drive to West Des Moines – spend three nights

29th June

  • Drive to St. Olaf University (May is studying there)
  • Spend a night in Northfield

30th June

  • Spend the day and a night in Minneapolis

1st July

  • Drive to Rapid City – spend a night

2nd July

  • Drive to see Mount Rushmore
  • Drive to Yellowstone – spend two nights

4th July

  • Drive to Boise – spend a night
  • Celebrate the day!

5th July

  • Drive to Seattle – spend three nights

It was an amazing trip and one of the best holidays I have ever had! I definitely want to go back at some point and experience even more of the country.

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From Aberystwyth to Borth

It has been a while since my last blog post, so now I am finally doing something about that. Since the last time I wrote here, I finished my second year at Aberystwyth University, visited my grandparents in Denmark, travelled home to Norway, went on a coast to coast roadtrip in USA with two of my best friends and visited Luciana and her family in Portugal. Now I am back in Aberystwyth and are staying here until I am officially a third year student at the School of Art and probably until Christmas.

This summer, and all my adventures, have given me a lot of inspiration that I will use in my future artworks – I can’t wait to get started (the only problem is that I have no idea where to begin). My plan is to write some posts about some of my experiences later in the summer, hopefully along with some finished paintings.

Today I did something I had been dreaming of doing for so long – I went walking from Aberystwyth to Borth. The walk is about 6 miles long and took me around two and a half hour. Luckily for me there was no rainy clouds today – the weather was behaving really well for once. You meet a lot of friendly people here in Wales and walking on this costal path there is no exception (I also got to see a lot of cute dogs). I had a really great experience and I am so happy for finally doing this. I am also really tired – even though the walk is not that far there are more hills to walk up and down than I am comfortable with. Here are some pictures from the walk:

I strongly recommend everyone that lives in Aberystwyth (and have not done it before) to go on a walk to Borth.

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Inspiration in Welshpool

Yesterday, Luciana and I had to take the train to Welshpool to get our National Insurance Numbers. While we were there we decided that we might as well to do some sightseeing so we went to see the Powis Castle – a medieval castle build around 1200. Since it was such a lovely and nice day (rain) we only went to see the inside of the castle, but it is supposed to be an amazing garden there with plants from all over the world.

Both of us got a National Trust membership, so now we can visit as many places as possible within a year – I will try to do my best!

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Except the weather (I have almost got used to it by now) it was a really great and interesting day – I got lots of inspiration for my paintings and even did a few sketches.