We are all very excited to meet her first-born. In a month´s time, I´ll have a brand new baby to spoil right next door! How great is that!

This collection will gradually grow, but rest assure, my main objective is to make unique work. This is just a practical side-thing. But I´d like you to have a look. Click on the page at the top, just below the heading

They´re a mix of new and old pictures from Skudesnes that I have worked with, where the Solstad head-office is.  Here are some of them:

Usually I only make unica-pieces, but I do have some pictures that I produce in series, and these are all series-pictures.

Calm Sea, 40×90 cm.

Acrylics on wood.

“Decide to breathe. Don´t just exist.”

Mattie J.T. Stepanek

Yesterday I finished the invitations for the big pre-Christmas party, and tonight I finished the designs for my Christmas-cards and sent them off for printing. It feels good to get stuff done! Now I am eagerly awaiting their arrival, so I can start writing them.

This is the picture you first see when you come into the mess. It feels like the signature picture for the boat, and I am sorry I can´t show you a bigger version with more details in it.

“Horizon”, 50×120 cm

Next to it hangs another picture, with motif from the rocky beach only a few hundred yards from where the ship was built in Søvika.

“Orion Søviknes”, 50×75 cm

The last picture in the mess, also with motif from the area around where the ship was built.

“Sunnmøre”, 40×80 cm

An exert from the text on the picture:

Here you can see the pictures on the walls in the mess.

Yet another picture with motif from the area around the shipyard, these beautiful old boat-houses decorate the day-room.

“Søvik boathouses”, 40×75 cm

On the opposite wall you´ll find this picture of ropes on an old wooden sail-ship.

And here you can see them on the walls.

Another picture with ropes. I think the ropes tell so many silent stories of hard work.

“Ropes”, 60 x 90 cm

From the smokers lounge.

If we move further up into the ship, we come to the cabins. This is the captains cabin.

“Moka”, 50 x 75 cm

I found this old boat in Port Townsend at Artfest this spring, and fell for the withered charm.

(The captain was just moving in, so I had to cut away all the luggage from the photo

“Bounty-anchor”, 50 x 75 cm

This is the anchor on the Bounty. I guess the title gave that away It is in the chief´s cabin.

The final common room on this ship is the conference-room. A work-area for meetings and office-work. So I thought a big picture with vibrant colors would be suitable here.

“Red!”, 80 x 100 cm

All my best wishes for Stril Orion on her journey!

The larger ones we baked in a kiln (below), but the smaller ones we could fire with a buthan-torch, as Lisa is demonstrating (above).

So the PMC is real silver, even a finer version than the usual sterling silver, grinded into a fine powder and mixed with some mystical medium to make it soft, like clay. Fairly expensive, but incredibly fascinating with all the opportunities!

The PMC baked in the kiln took about two hours to bake, but when they were finished you could take them straight out into cold air and into cold water to cool quickly.

At first they appear all white, as if there is a layer of white soot on them, but it´s all just the silver. During the baking the medium is burned away, and your left with pretty close to pure silver.

Giving the beads a good old brush with a brass-brush, brings out the shine.

All the markings on them can be made either by hand or imprint. Or adding layers. I bound mine together and sent them trough the tumbler for half an hour, to really make them shine.

After that I had them in another magical solution for patina, (or oxidization actually) and they turn dark.

Another round of polishing, and the contrasts are much easier to see.

Lisa then taught us how to make the garage-door-coil-chain, and I started to add the different components together. I´ll probably keep on adding charms when I get my hands on more silver.

And now for the piece-de-resistance:

I made a silver-copy of an old brass drawer piece Lisa had made a mold of. This is beyond cool if you ask me. (I drilled the little holes on the side by hand, I have to remember a hand-drill is on my Christmas-wish-list) This is going to be my new coolest-necklace-ever. (Next to the doll booklet pendant necklace I made earlier this week)

And since this is the last day, I just have to add another little treasure:

My little memory-book-pendant necklace I made for Artfest this spring got a beautiful art-addition from the always lovely Misty Mawn.

Lisa and Misty are just about the only two people I´ve met here that I also know from Artfest. It´s so good to see some familiar faces But by all means, it´s great to meet some wonderful new friends too! Thank you so much Glenny and Marie, for a wonderful week! The workshops hold such a high standard, and I´ve learned so much these past few days!

Bergen has a World Heritage site, the quay “Bryggen”. A long row of old sea-houses from the 15th century. In these houses, lots of people worked, all in fish-related jobs. Factoring, buying, selling, storing, exporting.

I wanted to show some of these people and how their work-place was. Now the site is filled with tourists and restaurants and artist and souvenir-shops. Things have changed.

But there are lots of other sea-houses along the shores of the city too. Many of them are ruined or tore down, every now and then we hear that fire has taken yet another one of them.

Here are some pictures based on old photographs (by kind permission from Bergen Historiske Billedarkiv) of what the seaside used to look like.

Already in the 15th century it was Norway´s biggest export city of fish. Fishermen from all along the cost would come to Bergen with their fish and sell i there. Merchants from Germany would buy shiploads and bring back home. To this day you will find lots of German names in Bergen.

Bergen is known as the rainy city in Norway, (and for a reason I might add!) and I was tempted beyond belief when I found this old photo. I had to insert the text: “I knew they kept an arc in here somewhere!”

Another of the “must-see-sights” in Bergen is the fish-market. Now a days it´s more a mix of woolen sweaters, flowers and cheap Asian imports. But the fish is still there.

Here is a view from Strandsiden (“the beach-side”) in towards the fish-market.

In 1916 there was a big fire, that devastated most of Strandsiden (“the beach-side”) and Nordnes. This photo is taken before the fire. Strandgaten looks quite different now. Muren in the background.

Here is another picture with kids playing in the back-yard between houses in Sandviken. These small, old houses still exist many of them, and today they are highly valued on the property marked!

And finally, for the gym, I gave them some real man-power!

Oh, what fun! I´ve said it before, I´ll say it again: I LOVE learning new stuff! I hardly had time or thought of taking photos, I just got in there and experimented and produced one enameled bead after the other.

My workspace for the day. (I want a fire-torch for Christmas! I do! I do! )

My first enameled beads chillin´.

Fire-drill demoed by my neighbor, Gary from New York.

I´m already making plans on my next enameled project

And look who showed up?! Finally a night of ARTing! Tyler is taking a class tomorrow too, and we spent the evening catching up while journaling. Yay to good friends! Yay to creative friends! Double-yay to good&creative friends!

Task: to make paper-like fabric-pieces from silk fibers. The start-kit included both fine fibers, silkworm-cocoons, and “hankies”.

Spreading them all out in very thin layers, adding bits and pieces of waste silk fibers that have been dyed. When there were enough layers, we used a special textile medium , diluted with water, to fix it all together.

Here some of my finished layers are lying in the tub, to dry. Once they are, I´ll pull off the mesh surrounding them, and their true colors will “come shining through”

This class was just so exciting, I nearly blew a fuse!

I LOVE learning new things! L-O-V-E!