Today we leave Blönduos after our months residency here at Textílsetur. We have met interesting people and made new friends, who are mostly taking their leave today but hopefully we will see them again, we shall certainly follow their progress.
It has been a wonderful month and my thoughts move from my discovered ‘leavings’ to what I am leaving behind.
Firstly, the birds. A wonderful surprise to have such a wide variety of birds arriving here during the month from all over the globe for the breeding season.( I counted 43 different species) I leave them to raise their young, to then start their long return journeys at the end of the summer. There are already a number of goslings being escorted by their parents on the river Blanda.
As we head for Reykjavík today we leave behind the landscape that has so influenced our work, in all it’s wide, expansive, rugged glory, the spring flowers erupting and grasses turning to green as the sheep and their young are sent out on to the hillsides for the summer.
I also have left behind some warp that I used for my Leavings III piece, tied up and ready for the next interested resident to make something of.
I leave the mesmeric view from my window which changes day by day, often hour by hour and has become part of a piece of work yet to be completed.
In passing through this wonderful place, I will be leaving nothing of myself, I have been no more than a shadow as it passes in the changing of light, but I am taking a very small collection of the smooth dark stones that made up a nearby beach. I had picked up a handful and arranged them in order of size on the studio table, as their shadows, thrown by the very bright evening sun appeared I was moved to make some photographs, inspiration for a new project. The arrangement, like me, was just passing through,
the stones were returned to the beach and I like the shadows they made, are no longer there.
What is still there, however, is one of my favourite gloves, which I must have dropped yesterday afternoon, if anyone finds it do let me know.
Jennifer Jones
