Seven's Change

Seven is sadly saying good-bye to Charter Member, Pia Skarrer Nielsen.  With Seven since its conception in 2006, Pia has left the group to further study in the textile fields of Tapestry, spinning and all things woolly.  She continues with her business Wonderous Woolerie.  Pia and husband Soren are spending much time sailing our South Shore and enjoying other adventures.

Pia made a spectacular contribution to Seven, participating in shows at /Argyle Fine Art, Halifax, Awakenings at Harvest Gallery, Wolfville, and leading our group to our largest adventure to date- Three gallery shows at various locations in Denmark, and culminating with our presentation at the Craig Gallery, in Dartmouth.

We will miss Pia and her input to our group. But we understand that everyone's life must evolve and priorities change over the years. 

Smooth Sailing!

We were tired after the arrival to Copenhagen on Friday afternoon, but thankfully there was someeone to pick us up at the airport, two cars with two happy drivers whom I hadn't seen for 5 years. Time easily passes when living on two different continents.
We scaled the stairs to the fifth floor appartment we have been installed in - and ... The suitcases flew up the stairs, helped along by my brother who ..... Lives on the 6th floor and bicycles every day. Thank goodness for his help, we made it up with some huffing and puffing but no danger of cardiac arrests, our legs will be extra strong when leaving to go home again.
A telephone call was made to the shipper before closing time and ..... Tomorrow morning, Monday, we will go to the gallery just before 9 am and wait for the delivery truck to arrive sometime before lunch. We did make it down to the gallery on Friday afternoon and visited with Elin Friis the gallery owner for a little while, got instructions and a key, we really are here and tomorrow it starts up full speed ahead getting the exhibit out of the crate and organized on the walls.
Deborah did post a blog for SEVEN on Friday .... But in the jet lagged atmosphere of the appartment it ended up here
Such is life and today is another grand day with inspirational visits around town, much walking and even more talking and planning for future work and ventures.
Stay tuned!
Pia

Arrival and departure

It is early in the morning and I am done sleeping for now anyways.
Yesterday was a big day - which started out with an email notice that our crate is ..... Where it is supposed to be for now, in storage with the shipping company in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Phew, deep breath, now it is time to start thinking seriously about how to and what to pack.

Except there was one more important point before commencing to pack to take care of yesterday. A couple of months ago we had contacted the local CBC Radio Station to let them know that we were up to something exciting, interesting, something worth while informing their listeners about. Yesterday on the programme Close to Home, CBC Radio I had a few minutes in a telephone interview to talk about our adventure and our plans.
I prepared lists, I called around to the SEVEN ladies and asked questions about which words specifically they wanted me to use when/if describing their works,I made lists, plural, mostly because I was doing it on the confounded confuser and so ... In the heat of the moment I deleted the first very exciting and full list. Once I discovered that and I had my breathing under control again I made a new very satisfying list with our general goals and other important stuff.
Then it was time for the interview and ... Time flies when you are having fun they say, even nervous fun I now know is covered by this, for ... In two blinks of an eye Yvonne Colbert was wrapping it up again and I was hanging up the phone.
On the table in front of me was the initial hand drafted list and on the screen was the confuser list and in looking them over I realised that I hadn't really covered one tenth of what I really wanted to express, and talk about. So many points of importance (to us I might ad)so little time, and in real life I suppose that what would suit my needs as an incessant talker would be more like a three hour show featuring a monologue or perhaps a panel discussion with SEVEN.
In hind sight it probably is very good that I only got a few minutes, they took enough planning as it was and overall I think we are ready to start the trip and not interested in anymore time consuming planning sessions in order to make another another large impact statement.
As we are just arriving in Denmark the second of two articles written about us in a Danish arts/craft magazine, Husfliden will be sent out to their membership - we had to make sure we were covered in the Danish Press as well. We have been in contact with the local newspaper covering the area where we are exhibiting at the gallery in København, Østerbroavisen and I know that they are working on making room for our press release as well as the ad we have ordered. It is beyond exciting to be doing this, beyond description to feel the wave of support we have met where ever we have turned, and this is only the beginning, we aren't even there yet. Wow is all I can say!

Group Goals which help us keep focused:
1. Create opportunities/shows together
2. Artistic companionship
3. Professinal Development: artistic and the business of being an artist
4. Yipppeee Factor ... Getting Juiced Up!

We are on our way,

Yeeeehaaaaaww, this is me galloping across the kitchen floor swinging a skein of yarn with glee!
Pia

Fill the Big Crate Day!

Tomorrow is the big day, we will be packaging up 49 pieces of art work, in all shapes and sizes. We are planning to meet at noon when according to weather forecasts the rain is supposed to stop, which is good since the crate is too large to get into anyone's house anywhere, except that is if you have a big wide barn door and a forklift.

There are of course no photos of this event in this piece, since what I am talking about hasn't happened yet, but it is busily and happily making noise and summer saults in my head.
I cannot decide if this is like:
A - the night before Christmas, when often a lot of time is spent excitedly packaging up this year's treasures or treats to be shared in the morning or....
B - this is like sending  your kids off to summer camp for a while, wondering if there are enough dry socks (styro foam) warm sweaters (bubble wrap) and the little bag with toothpaste and brush and all the necessary grooming utensils (official documents galore stapled on the inside and the outside of the box) perhaps never even to get unpacked and used.
It is not easy, for me at least, to let go of tapestry pieces when I haven't had time to hang out with them for a while - there is an emotional attachment. I guess I like to do a slow travel through all the ideas and visions and how they came to be as I look at them and feel them.
The other vision right now is coming to fruition and we really are going. On my new Ipad which I talk about so often these days I have found Trepkasgade #5 and when I push the right buttons on Google Maps I can go and 'stand in front' of the gallery we are exhibiting in Copenhagen.
I can look at the shapes of the art which is hanging there and I can almost see it through the glare of the windows.
These are my thoughts for this day. The day before gathering the goods up and organizing everything safely and comfortably in the box. When we wave goodbye to the box tomorrow afternoon when we leave Marilyn's house it is scary and fantastic and amazing to think about the fact that next time we encounter it and put our hands on it  ........ it will be in Trepkasgade, in Copenhagen, unloading and preparing to hang our show, which has been underway for so long and from so far away.
And as I got to here I did realize that..... I can probably attach a jpg of our poster for all to see and enjoy!


Sweet dreams and fruitful visions everyone! Cheers, Pia

The traveling box for our artwork is HERE!

Ladies and Gentlemen
I have to tell you this has been quite a journey and we haven't even left the county, the valley, never mind the country yet.
The latest hubbub on our journey was the venture of getting a suitable crate built - we thought from the papers that we read that....
we needed certified wood and that was it. So a good supporter used to building houses had offered to built the crate for us to our specifications and within the rules and regulations as we had understood them.
The builder had a hard time getting through to the powers that be who were in control of the certified woods we were allowed to use.
And now it was Monday, July 5th and still nothing - phew, this gave even my husband a slightly sweaty brow and he had gone on an early morning internet search while I was still far away in dreamland.

He found a certified company near Bridgewater and later that day started a flurry of phone conversations with the company boss. It turned out that the builder also had to be certified and .... our builder was certified but not for this.
We were so fortunate that Tecbox was able to quote us a price and also.... build us the crate in two days. They got our measurements 4' x 4'x 4.5' (well, sort of anyways) and they put it together. We were so pleased that this could happen on such short notice.
This afternoon Soren and I drove down to get the box, first though we went sailing with the dog in the Lunenburg Backharbour, where his boat is moored for the summer and we had a little sail about in the warm sun with slight wind on our faces keeping us pleasantly cool.
 

And then...... we drove to Tecbox to pick up the creature - (the photo is Soren and Marshall unloading) and I had meant to take photos as the box was being loaded but..... I chatted with the owners and Soren took care of all this outside in the heat with one of the men from the building room while I was inside an air-conditioned office with the dog. It was pleasant, fun, excellent service and if anyone ever needs a special crate for something try out this place.

I haven't looked into the box yet, the lid was screwed on (note to self bring the right kind of screwdriver in the suitcase, screwdrivers are not the same all over the world ) but I was told that there are styro-foam lined sides + 5 sheets of 1 inch styrofoam for us to cut and divide to the size of our works so everything can arrive safely in Copenhagen.

More unloading with Soren and Marshall

Dear Reader, are you aware that we are only 3 weeks away from being there now, actually, at this moment in time three weeks ahead we will be having a cool drink and relaxing our bones on the roof top terrace at my sister's appartement. I guess that really this is a rhetorical question, I had to ask it since I am wildly eager to tell you that I am aware, very aware and the good anticipation for the whole adventure is growing wildly and fabulously by the minute.
Will our artwork get motion sickness once we get it all packed and it has to move around with a forklift again?

We drove home from Bridgewater with the box on the truck, stopped to secure it with some of our sailing rope before we  hit the highway and then..... I fell asleep as did the dog and we didn't open our eyes again until we were at almost the other end of highway 12, which means we were almost home.

A slightly forlorn looking box, funny how the size changes when you have nothing to measure it against with your eyes, this is surely a small box - well, no, not really!

Now it was time to take the box to the Randsland Farm - a magnificent broccoli farm employing lots of  people. Marilyn's husband is one of the brothers in that big family and also their consultant, keeping the whole fleet of needed machinery running smoothly at all times.

This was very fortunate for us, for as this aforementioned box is not a small box and as we are not exactly is sharp training for the Olympic competition of weight lifting,  getting said box off the truck and into an appropriate spot might have been an interesting experience for the three of us.
However,  Marshall has access to ..... forklifts ...... hurray!
I don't think we saw the words 'forklift knowledge and driver required' when we were reading our to-do list in the fall of 2009, that was when we really got into the swing of our preparations.

So the box got forklifted into place and I had the fortunate experience of looking at one of the 10 or 20 greenhouses on the property. Each greenhouse holding close to a thousand trays of broccoli - each tray holds 270 broccoli plants 270.000 broccoli plants in the photo. They are about one thumb high and they are 'three weeks old'. They will cover approximately 10-11 acres of land.

When they are 6 weeks old they are big enough to be harvested and then they go .... to many different places - we saw an enormous truck being loaded with broccoli headed for Newfoundland.
And here are the workers who labour hard in the fields for us all summer, cutting,  sorting and packaging the broccoli  available for us in our supermarket, near and far from here.
This of course was a little detour from what we are doing but...... people say never forget where you come from, and I don't, and on top of that I would like to add 'never forget where your food comes from, and if you don't know, then please start to ask questions at the place you get your groceries. 

Going back to where I come from for the first time in 5 years in a few weeks is truly amazing and ...... when we open the box and share  with the audience across the atlantic in a not very local spot for the rest of the group I will be looking at surroundings which I grew up in, lived life in and .........  I am so looking forward to go back for a visit.

See you soon, Pia
 Wonderous Woolerie and super SEVEN

We're on our Way!

Well, we haven't exactly packed yet, but..... we have started talking about the crate which our works will travel in when we do head out into the world on July 29 at 22.10 in the evening. Awwwww, don't know which leg to stand on thinking about it.
Time to breathe in and out and then do a revision of the priorities on the list which seems to keep growing and growing.   This is all good though, since as the list grows  the section of already done items and priorities have been scratched out. I like to scratch out things on the list with a bold red pen, then I feel like I have really accomplished something, since the list...... at times can be very red. Especially when.... you put even the minutest little items down on the list, not just the overall goals. Ah, the carrots we hang in front of our own noses.

Freia wishing I was done weaving so ...... she and I could go out again, although, as you can see from her paws we had been to the woods once that day  already. Dogs live with lots of hope and love in their lives, every day!







Other than focusing on the list I am heavily engaged in finishing my last tapestry for the exhibit  at Basal Elin Kunst in København and later at VærkstedsGalleriet in Kerteminde.
Tapestry weaving takes lots of time, as I might have mentioned before, but..... I love doing it, I love seeing how the piece progresses, how the type of yarn and colour I choose in the end has an effect on my initial thought and idea. The texture of yarns and colours continue to amaze me and every day I spent in front of the tapestry is a pleasure, often a pleasure which is tempered  by sore muscles when I get too carried away and don't remember to get off the bench to do some stretching and getting the blood circulation going again.
As a matter of fact, I find that I can enter into this very interesting space, where all that matters is .... the movement of the hands as they feed the yarn butterflies through the shed which I open with one foot or the other on this particular upright loom.

 Taking a break in the sheep pen an early spring day just a few months ago with my special good friend Sam.

Now although my eyes feast on the work and progress in front of me my brain wants its own input and starts saying:  feed me too, feed me too please! I accomplish this by listening to audio tapes or cds which I get at our local library. Thank goodness for the library. Sometimes I come home with grand literature, sometimes I am not sure what it is and other times it is just total entertainment and lots of laughs are intermingled in the weaving.
So when people ask me if I read a lot, well, I do have to say no, but..... I sure listen well!
And as for now, right this moment, I can feel the thoughts starting to also circulate around where I would like to take the group when we do arrive in Copenhagen.
The Round Tower, with the most magnificent view of the city, the main pedestrian walkway in the centre of Copenhagen, oh, Tivoli Gardens, yes, we must go to Tivoli Gardens, and I have heard there are special fireworks on August 15th. When I was a kid in the last century there was fireworks twice a week, but that has been changed now and there are lazer light shows going on instead twice a week, but..... I want to see the real fireworks and so I guess we have to make it there on August 15th, a fine finale for the group trip since many of our participants are heading home to our beautiful Canada the next day. 
Off to the looms, Pia             

Resistance, reluctance - patience!

Time is running - Departure Date is coming closer .... the lists are getting longer...... excitement is sending uneasy and joyful currents through my body and soul.
I had a good friend visiting on the weekend. We always end up talking and talking and our ideas and thoughts on business, artwork, and execution of same is never ending.
Some of the things on my to-do list for this particular trip to Denmark are very business related. There are papers to read, sign, send off, all in time for everything to be in place by the time I have to start packing my suitcase.
This seems to create a certain resistance in my head, a reluctance in my body to move and get what needs to be done done - and why is that???
I have asked that question again and again. Some sort of a answer has shown the first little leaves of its nature.
There is a lot of uncertainty in my head about how my business model fits into the great system of tax and government regulations which one has to abide and model a business by in order to legally and easily export/import goods from Canada to Denmark.
Pam described some of this very eloquently in her earlier blog post from May 6th 2010.
Breath in, Breath out ........  I just have to saddle the horse and tackle it all one step at a time.

And so on this bright day where the barn swallow on the lines outside the bedroom window enticed me to get up with the sun I am in great luck, since it is a holiday and I cannot possibly call around to agencies to get answers to my questions.
I have to be patient and this in turn will allow me to work on the red tapestry some more. Right now the sun is shining on the bench by the loom so I had better go in and feel the warmth and the joy.

Comments about other grand ways of coping with growing pains are very welcome, or..... other comments in general.
Input is always appreciated!

Pia, the Warped One, who was also the Twisted One for a little while this morning (some final spinning had to be done for another project before the words for this blog would arrive and line up)

Language

Using language correctly when you are trying to communicate in a different culture is acutely important. When making the effort to write/speak as clearly as possible the chances of misunderstandings occurring are greatly diminished and thus clear communications can take place and lead to happy endings and great results.
A challenge for this trip which I think about and face every day of my life is ‘the language barrier’. Fortunately for me my brain and my tongue have never really considered English a barrier. However, now we are going the other way - and although the majority of Danes are quite used to both listening to and using the English languages it is still important to be  very clear and concise.
And so the challenge for me on this trip is to polish up the language which I grew up in. But since I don’t use it with lots of people for exchange of ideas and thoughts every day the vocabulary tends to stagnate a bit.
This I discovered to my great dismay when I sat down to translate our bios - well, I thought it would be a ‘quick job’. And I was wrong.
The thoughts which were so clear and vibrant in English suddenly got muddled and murky when I started to translate. The intensity of the sentences or the ideas were weakened and truthfully I started to sweat a little.
Someone had mentioned the translation services on Google and I admit that initially I laughed it off. But as I struggled along I thought, ok, what will happen? and .... I asked Google to translate a bio for me. What happened was not that I was suddenly relieved of all the work.
No, I still had to keep myself in the midst of the word pie. What became abundantly clear though was that now I could see what the words in the bio were not saying. When the translation was way off in left field it became easier for me to see or hear the word combination which was the right one for this or that sentence.
It was quite a revelation, for the ‘confuser’ translations were sometimes so outrageous that I had to laugh before I changed the words and thus was able to get the ‘right’ sounds and feelings out of each bio.
I also had the great pleasure of spending lots of time on Skype with both a friend and family members, whom I had sent all the bio’s to. I had several hours of language discussions switching between Danish and English before being satisfied that the translations sounded great and coherent in Danish as well as being as true to the original English pieces as possible.

First tapestry for the exhibits in Denmark coming along nicely - ah, the inspiration of those walls around us can be quite captivating and twisted!

These days I am working on putting together an article for the magazine Husfliden, a magazine connected to VærkstedGalleriet in Kerteminde where we will exhibit our creations from mid September until mid October. The article is fermenting and changing shape and colour most every day, but I do think that it is almost there - the time is neigh for the words to come out in one long stream - hopeful a coherent and delightful stream. We shall see.

Weavingly yours,
Warped participant in SEVEN,
Pia
Wonderous Woolerie

Importance of flexibility and regular meetings.

Once upon a time the seven of us met up for the first time and made some good decisions planning future activities for our group  which we named SEVEN since.... there are 7 of us.
We have kept up with monthly meetings over the past 2 1/2 years. Each meeting is about 3 hours long, at the moment we are doing morning meetings, nine o'clock 'till noon.
Mostly we have all been able to attend, sometimes a person or two has had to miss a meeting or two - other times we have tried to accommodate the person who was having trouble with a meeting date and if it has worked for the rest of us, we have moved the meeting to the day which would fit into everyone’s schedule.
From my perspective it is of crucial importance that we all try to make the meetings every time one is planned and it is important that we are flexible around these dates and it is important to recognize that sometimes things just cannot be moved around, due to other people’s pre-existing schedules and plans.
It has been one of my personal stumbling points at times where I have had to breathe deeply and try to keep calm. Possibly because ......... I don’t have all that many balls to juggle these days ...... and other people in the group do.
What does delight me is that although we wriggle and writhe and try to make it fit and it sometimes feels like it is really hard to get it all together, it always works out in the end.
In some weird way it seems that when we finally make it to a meeting all of us, the bending and shifting was absolutely the right thing to do even if it didn’t feel great while it happened.
Making a collection of very different people and minds work as an entity, uniting each and everyone of our deepest and strongest wishes, for ourselves, our businesses and our group is a challenge of dimensions.
First off where do we as individuals put the priorities on the three aforementioned points, which one is more important:
The Group, Our Businesses, Our personal selves?
We have worked on it from the first time we met and somehow somewhere something must have been working. For we are all still hanging in there with smiles on our faces - a grunt escaping at times, but.... mostly smiles. When wanting a ‘long-term relationship’ to work out there is a lot of work involved always and ..... we are doing it, loving it and surprising each other and ourselves along the way.

Pia, bouncing member of SEVEN
Wonderous Woolerie

Inspired SEVEN member and tapestry weaver on the loose!

July/August is coming up at an incredible speed. Well, speed is relative, but the days do keep disappearing and very soon it is not longer March but April. This means that I have to turn up the heat under myself in the effort of making my ideas for our EXCHANGE exhibit come to life sooner than three days before I have to board the plane and head for Copenhagen.
Today I picked up the glauber salts and the dyes which I had ordered at Gaspereau Valley Fibres, a much visited local yarn and fibre place.


It is not as if I had no dyes already, but it is important to always replenish your stash before you start another big production.
I had spun three ply skeins with different fibres represented in each skein. The original hue or colour of each yarn chosen for the ply was decided upon intentionally for its effect on the final dye result.

The skeins of yarn soaked in the tub  while I was out doing errands and thus when I returned home just before lunch it was nice and easy to put on the big dye-pots and all I had to do was wait for the water to get to a boil

When the two post started steaming I added dyes mixed to my liking and dumped the skeins into the bubbling liquid. I use two large pots at a time since once I am in it, it seems it just cannot go swiftly enough for me.

The next step includes lots of patient stirring and waiting for the water in the dye pots to go clear = for all the dye to be absorbed in the fibres. This can take quite a while so the trick is to have something on the go in your head or a good radio show in your ear.

Sometimes I pour the skeins into 11 liter icecream containers for their cooling period, that way I can get back to dyeing the next lot. It is interesting to watch the un-dyed wetted fibres up close to the newly dyed and vibrant skeins.

 I had  dyed some very small samples of yarn last week in order to see if I was headed down the right path with the dyes and the yarns. I checked it out by weaving and trying out techniques on my small tapestry copper frame  and this is what the sample looks like at this moment in time.

And as a little 'pre-view' to the larger not yet finished tapestry,  this is the initial idea put down with water colours to get a clearer vision of where I really wanted to go with the EXCHANGE exhibit in Denmark at Basal Elin Kunst in Copenhagen, and VærkstedsGalleriet, Kerteminde, my view of walls and surfaces which I have observed and felt inspired by here in Nova Scotia, Canada.



Cheers, Pia
Wonderous Woolerie

International Transplant

Hi, I am Pia, the transplanted Dane in the group who has had the immense fortune of landing in this beautiful spot on earth, Nova Scotia, Canada. I am a textile artist, a weaver of shawls and scarves, and a tapestry weaver from the inner core of my being.

Barn wall, inspiration for Tapestry #1
I have lived here since July 1989 and have enjoyed each day, every day, all day. Watched my kids grow up and fly away from our comfy nest on strong Canadian wings with a feather or two of their Danish genes shining through.
So many opportunities have shown themselves and one of the biggest ones I would say is when life took a turn of its own and I suddenly found myself with this group of fun, interesting and inspiring women. We are all full of passion about what we do. I think we dream it at night, and float away on thoughts about projects in the middle of the day. Our creativity is pervasive in our every breath and........ it is lovely, exhausting and very inspiring.
I grew up in Copenhagen, Østerbro to be more precise, and it is lovely that our first exhibit in Denmark will take place in Trepkasgade at Galleri Basal Elin, just a few blocks away from where some of my siblings still live and bring up their families. Big City surroundings, lots of buses, cars, bicycles, and bicycle paths, trains galore to get from A to B or just strong legs, used to getting from here to there at a brisk walk.

Living here in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia is something I would never trade - I cannot easily see myself anywhere else now. It has to be added though that when Seven decided to travel with me to Denmark and we were given the opportunity to exhibit our artwork, not only in one or two places, but a third place turned up - well, then I did get rather and extra excited about the whole plan.
National pride is something funny, you never know when it will turn up and how it will express itself. As it is for me right now, I have so may interesting places I would like to take my group to when we arrive in Copenhagen - Cannot wait to take them all to the top of Rundetaarn, so they can look at the city roofs, new and old, a place which I usually go to when I do go back for visits. Art museums - Statens Museum for Kunst, where I remember doing an essay about a most humongous painting when I was 17 and getting a good grade for it. I spent hours in front of that painting - do not know if it is still there, but ...... I know the museum was renovated some years ago and so there will be so much more and other pieces of art for us to look at and to get inspired by.
My approach to "Exchange" is to study and get inspired by the surfaces, textures and colours on buildings surrounding me where I live, and when I go to Copenhagen I will study the surfaces surrounding me where I grew up - back then I may not exactly have noticed them.

This is a steaming pot of newly dyed yarn for the first project which is off the loom already.

Piece #1 came of last Sunday, it still needs to be finished up for hanging, but it is off the loom and the warp has been re-tied and tightened so when the yarn has been dyed I can sit down and start to weave this next expression of joy which is galloping around in my brain.
Today I will start organizing wool and yarn for the next tapestry piece which I will bring to Denmark. 
 
Until next time I have an overflow of words spilling out of my fingers,
Pia