Ren Powell, poet and teaching artist, is my hostess here in Norway and thanks to her I'm having the most marvelously intense time teaching photography here.
She took this photograph in downtown Stavanger yesterday and let me play with it a little.
Thank you, Ren :-)
I love the amusing things I'm finding here in Stavanger, Norway. The big red supply ship, with the huge mouth and sharp teeth painted on the bow, parked in the harbour below. The hairdresser's sign in the photograph at the end of this post. And the graffiti ...the graffiti here needs a whole its own post. It's divine.
And Norwegians speak the most beautiful English. Ylvis prepared me for the English but oh... it is everywhere in this country I've not known until now. The interview I'm linking to, switches to English at about 1 minute but these guys were my very first introduction to Norway.
Today though, we were in the most exqusite teahouse I've ever had the privilege of visiting. Thank you to Selman, for his hospitality and kindess, and his truly good tea.
Rebecca and Karoline were such a pleasure to spend time wandering with, and I'm loving the light and the photography too.
It's like that.
I grew up in a small town called Mosgiel, population something small, a place where people raised their families. Near a city (Dunedin) but not a city.
I grew up with aunts and uncles living 'away' but close enough to visit sometimes. I adored my Nana and Grandad (mum's parents) and often begged to go stay with them in their Invercargill house. 3 hours away in those days ... cars got faster, roads improved. It's not so far in these days.
My Grandma and Grandad were delightful too but that appreciation of them came later. When I was small, it was all about Nana.
My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer back in 1998, my Nana (her mother) slipped away before her, with undiagnosed cancer. Surprising us all.
These days, so many years later, I still imagine them alive and so I have these conversations with them going on in my head. Not 'voices'. I guess I simply talk to the memory of them. The memories of who they were, the memories of how they would react to things in my life now.
But I 'find' them via my senses too. There might be a sight Mum would love, or an experience I wish I could share with her, or questions I so want to ask her. And then I've wondered, in the years since losing her, if Nana ever wanted to travel ... but I never knew to ask. Who knew I was going to do what I did.
And, of course, I thought they were forever folk. We never considered that thing called Death while they were alive, there was no, 'this is last time I will see them'. And then it was complicated by the fact that Mum wasn't even 60 when she died and that she so very much wanted to live.
Fast-forward to Now and I was invited to visit Lake Como. I went, full of misgivings, knowing the Genova was the place that had captured my soul ... but curious to see what was there at this much-talked-about lake.
It turns out there was a whole lot of 'home' just waiting for me to discover it. The lake and the mountains there created a bizarre, and yet beautiful, split in my reality. It was so very like Queenstown, New Zealand ... and yet, not. The scent of lake rocks warmed by the sun, cleaned by a massive lake ... so very familiar. The early morning peace ... 6am lake-lapping, birds calling, and air so clean that it took me back home in the peace of it all.
But another 'experience' was the food. That first night Helen and I ate on the lakeside balcony of Ristorante Helvetia, in Lezzeno, and oh how we dined. We ate every course, unusual for us but we were celebrating the end of a first fantastic workshop back in Genova.
For me, the course of the evening was this incredible piece of pork, with cheese and ... other stuff. It took me back to those times, when I was safe in the kitchen of Nana, eating meals that comforted me at some deep soul level, even while she denied she could cook.
I wish I could share my journey with these women who formed me. I feel that they watch over me since dying, and I hope that they do because I miss them. My sister will come here one day and we'll travel for sure, toasting those women we loved as we wander. Those women who made us the creatures we are today.
But anyway, all of that just so I could post this photograph of a dinner that I hope to repeat sometime soon.
What can I write ...
I feel so extraordinarily grateful to the three women Helen and I invited on our A New Way of Seeing workshop, in Genoa, Italy.
Since then Lisa, Leah, and Laura have written of working with us in ways that have filled my wee kiwi soul to overflowing.
Leah, from Help. I Live With My Italian Mother In Law, wrote of her experience with us in an English magazine.
Laura, from Ciao Amalfi, wrote up her experience with us over on her blog.
Today, I'm just in from reading Lisa's account of her time with us over on her blog. That would be Lisa, from Renovating Italy ... the Lisa who had me laughing so hard that I could barely stay standing out there on Via Porta Soprana. She has a talent for laughter but the weekend was full of laughter, of stories and photography too.
I borrowed one of Lisa's photographs from her post about it all. I love this particular image, taken by Silvana, wife of Pino. Pino is the man nestled in-between Lisa, myself, and Helen ... late on that laughter-filled evening in Genova.
Silvana and Pino own the very best pizzeria in the world and I adore them. Their pizzas too. And so it seemed entirely appropriate to be photographed together. Silvana, after a hot and exhausting evening, decided she would be the photographer ... and no begging her to join us would change her mind.
I have to admit, I'm looking a little rumpled at this point in the day. We were almost home after that first workshopping day.
I would work with any of these women in a heartbeat. They were magnificent. All of them.
Huge grazie mille's to Laura and Lisa, Leah and Helen.
It was a most magnificent weekend!
I have been waiting for my writing voice to return ... waiting for my desire to process photographs endlessly ... waiting for my creativity to reappear.
Tonight, perhaps it has begun to arrive.
It was the oddest kind of day. A 15 minute photo-shoot turned into 8 hours of, sometimes, epic journey that began as I leapt from my train, fearing the doors might close on me but knowing I must leap because Mr Crazy Dog was barking up a storm out on mainstreet, and Miss 10 appeared to be the innocent cause. Or so I was told over the phone.
Crisis averted, I finally caught up with Simon and Paola, over in Brussels, photographed their renovations and talked ..a lot :-) Well, perhaps all that talking was me. Paola is the friend who so generously allows me to use her apartment in Genova. I wanted to catch her up on stories from Genova ... this is my excuse for all the talking.
8 hours after leaving home, I returned. Falling asleep on the train between Brussels and Antwerp but waking in time to get off at the right station.
Tonight, 10.30pm, I began to download a treasure trove of photographs. A portrait session I did at Lake Como, with my delightful business partner, Helen.
And during the downloading I discovered the image below, taken during a lunch with Andrea, from IC Bellagio. Thank you to Andrea for the lunch and for the conversation. It was a lovely way to say goodbye to this country I've come to love.
So many more stories to follow in the days and weeks ahead although ... I'm packing for Norway. I have a photography workshop there soon. Not only that, it's summer too. My little cup runneth over.
We are on Day 2 of this first A New Way of Seeing photography workshop and all I can say is that feels like both an extraordinary privilege to meet and work with these women but it is a huge amount fun too.
I almost fell over due to laughing so hard last night. Lisa, the Australian, was responsible. Trans-Tasman relations are at all time high. Meanwhile I have a few million photographs to download and so many stories to tell but really lacking the time to do. We're off to Lake Como tomorrow ... stories should follow.
Day One of the weekend workshop ended on a restaurant balcony located at the edge of the Ligurian Sea, out at Boccadasse, eating exquisite food and well, yes ... laughing often.
We are a small united nations, with the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and America involved.
Now ... for Day Two.