I took the train to Turenki as after Friday’s seminar, Riitta had invited me over to her gallery with the possibility of making some Textile pieces for her to show.
It was a really enjoyable afternoon, and one that i could not had of predicted before i came to Finland. Riitta showed me round her gallery space (which was built as a cinema in the 1960s), talked about the work she had there and some Japanese students that had stayed with her, and showed me the cinema space where they hold performances and fashion shows etc. I had never seen anything like it, there was so much to look at.
We ate warm apple strudel, and i looked through a massive box of 6×4 photographs that another artist had taken whilst he travelled around Lapland. The box invited me to “take any if you want to”, so i now have a nice collection of of desolate scenes of Finnish landscape, only occasionally punctuated by a reindeer herder’s hut.
Riitta showed me around the town; the lake where they go ice swimming, a tiny old cottage that they had bought and call their “grandmothers cottage” with a bed and stove and spinning wheel in, and a vitorian photograph of the previous owners which i thought was a little spooky. The house also had an old sauna down the bottom of the garden which still works, it was charming in its ricketiness. Last of all Riitta took me to a huge 1930’s house they had bought near the sugar factory which they have just started converting into a place for artist residencies and workshops… and then it was time to catch my train back to Riihimaki with the promise that i would send Riitta some work in the post ready for a show in November.
What a whimsical little Sunday afternoon! Perfect!
