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

Danish Press Release

Fiber, fantasier og farver fra Canada

Syv canadiske kunstnere udstiller på Sjælland og Fyn i august og september og oktober.

Syv kvindelige canadiske kunstnere, hvis valg af materialer spænder fra ord og uld til fiber og farver, og som er gået sammen i gruppen SEVEN, udstiller i Danmark til august. Deres første stop bliver Basal Elin Galleri i København 5.-8. august efterfulgt af en endagsudstilling på Basal Elin Studio i Hørsholm 14. august. Gruppen udstiller derefter på Værkstedsgalleriet i Kerteminde fra d. 12. september til d. 12. oktober.

Gruppen er baseret i Nova Scotia på østkysten af Canada. De vildsomme maritime og skovmiljøer samt rustikke landbrugsomgivelser i denne provins har stor indflydelse på kvindernes arbejde, ligeså vel som tanker og idéer om bæredygtighed, kvindelighed, menneskelige relationer og livet i det hele taget har stor betydning for deres inspiration. Deres kunst er sensuel, sjov og farverigt; det er nærværende, rørende og reflekterende.

Gruppens medlemmer er Pam Frail, Marilyn Rand, Marie Jardine, Pia Skaarer-Nielsen, Kelly Marie Redcliffe, Deborah Nicholson og Angela Melanson og deres aldre er fra 37 til 56 år. Selvom de alle hver for sig er selvstændige kunstnere med talrige udstillinger og bestilte opgaver på deres respektive cv’er, så har de dannet gruppe for at finde gensidig støtte og inspiration. Respekten for kvaliteten og spændvidden af hinandens arbejde og potentialet for at gå på opdagelse på nye veje binder dem sammen.

Dette er deres første europæiske turné.

Læs mere om gruppen, deres arbejde og deres turné i Danmark på
http://www.sevenartisans.blogspot.com/ eller på facebook http://facebook.com/SevenArtisans


Udstillingerne:
Basal Elin Kunst, Trepkasgade 5, 2100 København  
5.-8. august 2010
Torsdag 5. august 12-20, Fernisering samme dag kl. 18-20

Fredag 6. august kl.12-20
Lørdag 7. august og søndag 8. august fra kl. 10-17

Endagsudstilling i Hørsholm, Løjeltevej 12, 2970 Hørsholm
Lørdag, 14. august fra kl. 11-16

Værkstedsgalleriet, Kerteminde fra d. 12. september til d. 12. oktober
Fernisering kl. 12-14
Gedskovvej 3, 5300 Kerteminde

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