In love of the blues..

Marimekko, Ittala, Finland

Isaac Grunewald, Sweden

Alhambra, Granada, Spain

The Red Sea, Egypt

Magritte

The Blue Train, South Africa

Peacock, Gotland Sweden

Interior, Gotland farmstead, Sweden

Ming urn, China

Baie des Anges, Nice, France by Roul Dufy

Ladies´fan, China

Blue eggs.

Blå Blom. Gustavsberg, Sweden

19th century Swedish wall paper
Blue view from my window

Vintage blue..
The Blue Parlor. Gotland

Belize

Not mine..

Spring blues..
China blue
Cowboy blue. Young fashion. Washington.

Blue shadows. Nyhamn, Gotland

Blue flairing dress. Vogue
A piece of coastline. Gotland
Would like one of theese!

Greece, no doubt!

Henri Matisse´s blue girl

Snow Blue. My winter garden
Feeling blue? Nails to match.

Sampling blues

Monet´s blue mood.My blue mood takes over. Normal cherries from the garden. Fake blue.
Vincent, marvellous Vincent

Greece.

Sandhamn

Blå Porten, Djurgården, Sweden

Another of my artist neighbours..

..is the gifted sculptor, painter and stylist Carola Edlund of Ungesmiss, Stenkyrka.
She is very skilled at her craft and most of her sculptures are chiselled in marble and with a sensual/erotic focus. Last year, she called our then Bishop of Visby, Lennart Koskinen, and asked him if he would object to her having an erotic sculpture exhibition in one of the many church ruins of the Gotland capital. To which the Bishop promptly answered: "But of course! Anything on the theme of love can be displayed within the walls of the church!"
Carola Edlund in addition spends a month a year in India to manufacture clothes for the popular Medieval week on Gotland that takes place every August.
This year she produced a calender on Medieval Erotica (together with photographer Carolina Bosdotir and a number of models,) shot in parts in the church ruins of Visby:

Month of July

This model is the great guy who installed my new fireplace last winter. Here he really looks like the crafty handyman he is! :-) (He is also Carolas husband)

Miss Medieval February

Sweet May Love!

Merry "Christmas-kind-of.."

The woods of Gotland..

Finding the needle in the haystack?
October.

A beautiful photo of the artist herself dressed in one of her Medieval dresses.

This week, the many artists in Gotland..

..are inviting the public to view their artwork in their ateliers. Maria Brandsjö-Fredin - and very old friend of mine and neighbour here on the island, is showing her production in her studio by her home in the parish of Stenkyrka .

Maria and I went to the same school of Journalism in Stockholm and spent some time on the US West Coast together in the groovy 60´s. She has been painting all along her years as a professional journalist.

She has a great studio covered with canvasses and paintings on a number of strong themes that doesn´t excactly leave you unaffected. Her satires of local Gotland politicians are stunning. Maria always tries to add a bit of warmth to her satires which is not the case about her series of paintings on the theme of mobbing ..

Growing up..

..trying to cope with your parent´s expectations..trying desperately to please..

..if not successful in meeting your parent´s expectations, you could always dream about winning the Nobel Prize. Then you wold win them.. Perhaps.

Maria´s cold world of school mobbing..

Am I an alien?

"You are a disgusting whore"

A school corridor. You just have to walk past all..

The brutality of youth.
The cold and scornful faces of the silent bystanders.

View from the floor..
Her mobbing painting makes my blood turn to ice.

Maria among her satiric paintings..The politician on the left is the man who is trying to introduce the parking meter here on Gotland!

The coverage she got in the Gotland papers.
"Satires with a "tongue-in-cheek" it says in Swedish.

Meanwhile in Washington DC..

The unmerciful humid heat of a Turkey Hammam has hit the capital..

..and Thalia is spending her time in the little pool at her terrace!
She now looks quite a bit like her father at the same age! Miss her!
She really should be here in Gotland instead in this pleasant summer weather of 20 C!
(Photos: Lorena Gonzalez)

Good Morning!

Greetings from my Gotland garden (at 6.30 AM, Tuesday) foaming with cow parsley!The first rays of this splendid day are filtering through the canopies of the old oaks.

The smells from a numer of different kinds of lilacs are heavy..

So is the sweet fragrance of the cow parsley. The cockoo is repeating its promising chants
in a distance.

With no neighbours I feel free to stroll in my nightie with my camera at this early hour..

Fragrances, fragrances, fragrances..

"Here comes the sun.."

Wood cranebills are promoting the upcoming midsummer! In Swedish they are called Midsummer flowers.

A tale of a very old house..

”The natives were jovial, courteous and humane.”
In 1741, Carl Linnæus visited Gotland:

Carl von Linné

Yesterday, I had a chance to enter a very old house, situated on my neighbour´s grounds close to their beautiful Gotland farm at Nygranne, Gotland.

No one really knows when it was built but a guess is during the end of the 17th century. Very few interventions have been undertaken as to resturation measures - proving the quality of the materials and the methods of the old days..

Layers uopn layers of old wallpapers depicts the trends (and economy) through the years....
The building used to house an inn with lodgings a sort of half-way-hostel 1,5 kms from Visby for travellers heading towards Gotland´s northern coast.

The entrance door..

The tavern..

The surroundings..
Now, one of the historically interesting parts around this old inn is that Carl von Linné - the Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature - once made a stop here for the night. He was en route on his famous botanical trip to northern Gotland. And he spent the night here on the upper floor of this building. And most probably some food and a "Gotlandsdricku" (see video below on the traditional brewing in Gotland. Swedish only) in the tavern downstairs..
Carl von Linné, Alexander Roslin, 1775.
Oil painting in the portrait collection at
Gripsholm Castle.

Carl von Linné is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the father of modern ecology. It is said that he was dead tired upon arrival after having spent some 14 hours on horseback from Visby; the principal town of Gotland.
Actually, he spent some time by my garden too. There is a sign by my fence about his explorations here of the impressive biodiversity of this area.
(The one I´m priviledged to enjoy every day - especially now in the month of May!)
More on Carl von Linné..


God Grief how complicated!
In May 1741, ten days after he was appointed Professor, he undertook an expedition to the island provinces of Öland and Gotland with six students from the university, to look for plants useful in medicine. First, they travelled to Öland and stayed there until 21 June, when they sailed to Visby in Gotland. Linnaeus and the students stayed on Gotland for about a month, and then returned to Uppsala. During this expedition, they found 100 previously unrecorded plants. The observations from the expedition were later published in Öländska och Gothländska Resa,
written in Swedish. Like Flora Lapponica, it contained both zoological and botanical observations, as well as observations concerning the culture in Öland and Gotland. And finally, as a curiosity: In this book he made a note about the living conditions of Gotland farmers as being:
"Good, orderly and well-arranged".