I am on Epla

I now have my very own Epla shop! Epla is a Norwegian version of Etsy, which opened just under a month ago. Not wanting to fill up my already cramped apartment with the ceramics that did not sell at the market, I thought this might be a fun thing to try out. It is also nice to support the brave and obviously talented women who started it. And since I would never be able to compete with shipping prices on ceramics out of Norway on Etsy anyway, I don't feel like I am cheating on an old friend toooo badly.....

My shop name is Plan Bea. Not overly creative, but it has always been a standing joke that if I ever decided to do anything other than geology, it would be my 'Plan Bea'.

Me, a daredevil

Big things have happened here lately. After a few months of careful deliberation and planning I have now quit my job!! Not that I was desperately unhappy in my old one, on the contrary, I enjoyed most aspects of it. But it did seem to take over more and more of my time and my life, and I have been craving a change of pace for some time now. So, I have now taken the plunge and am going back to a line of work that I have done before: offshore geology. Only this time I am starting my own consultancy, to make it a bit more of a challenge to myself. Going independent was never anything I thought would be possible for me, but once the idea was planted I realized it could be both possible and fun! Now that it is a reality, I am feeling both exhilarated and a bit sick to my stomach. But mostly exited. So here goes, fingers crossed!

Christmas Market Invite

If you are in Oslo on the 28-29th of November, you are welcome to stop by and say hello! And if you don't care much for ceramics, there will be cake :)

Cristmas market frenzy

This year the pottery studio is having a stab at arranging a Christmas market in our back yard for the first time. The last couple of months has been a blur of activity, as everyone is trying to have enough christmas related stuff ready in time... at this point I think we all would be quite happy if we never saw a heart, star or an angel ever again. But it has also been great fun to have the same common goal to work towards.

I have been super busy at my day-job too, so have only managed to get a few things ready. But the important thing is to be participating, right?

Lazy Sunday

Today the weather was quite nice, and I spent the day pottering away in my workshop, and strolling around the local markets. They usually have quite a good selection of Norwegian mid-century enamel and crockery, and although usually quite pricy, lovely to look at!

I bought a berry picker (is that what it is called in English?) made from a tin can during the war, and a pillow case with beautiful hand stitching. I have now used this as a print pattern on some stoneware hearts I am making as decorations for my brother’s wedding later this month. Not sure how they will come out yet...will keep you posted.

Backyard trees

The apartment building that I live in was built in 1924, which means that it is 85 years old this year. It has a fairly large closed-in back yard, at least by inner city standards, and this is one of the real perks of living here.

When the building was new, 4 silver birches and 4 rowan trees were planted in the back yard. Over the last few years they have gotten old and frail, and we have had to cut down 6 of them, the last one this summer. This has left the back yard a bit sad and barren, and we have been looking for suitable trees to replace them with. We wanted a mix of larger and smaller ‘hard working’ trees, trees that would be interresting to look at throughout the seasons, that could cope with the Norwegian climate, that would not give too much shade or cause too many problems for hay fever sufferers… the list got longer and longer as we tried to decide. Last year we planted two beautiful ash trees, but were later told by the city that there is an ash ‘plague’ spreading in this area, so no new ash trees should be planted. This meant that we had to remove them again this year, which was sad for us and even sadder for the trees. But, a few weekends ago we got 16 itsy-bitsy apple trees and a Katsura tree (‘japansk hjertetre’ in Norwegian) planted in, and there is more good stuff to come next summer! Hopefully these first ones will survive the winter, prosper and grow fast!

The Katsura tree is a new one to me, and I’ve been checking the internet to find out more about it. The picture below is taken from Wikipedia. Oviously ours is a mere twig still, compared to this mature one.

And this is what the Kew Gardens site said:

"Its flowers are small and subtle despite being closely related to the more obviously flamboyant magnolia and tulip tree. As if to make up for this oversight the leaves of the tree are, if rather small, spectacular throughout the season. Starting out pink in the spring, the heart-shaped leaves turn to bright green in summer before various shades of yellow, orange and red take over for the autumn, often with several colours overlapping. Interestingly the autumn foliage can smell of burnt brown sugar, or candy floss, which adds to its appeal."

This tree sounds great! Can’t wait for the smell of burnt brown sugar to fill the air!

Tour de Belle Ile

Some holiday snaps from beautiful, relaxing Belle Ile. A gem of an island off the coast of Bretagne, France, where I have been bicycling around for a week now in my own low-key version of Tour de France.

Video art

My mate Rune is opening his latest exibhition of video art this Sunday, at Sound of Mu.

The blurb reads: Rune Helgesen is showing video of a tap running a subway some hard-drives an oven fan two football matches a laundrette an aquarium a scool a living room two lamps a battery charger a radio an almost broken washing machine an alarm clock a computer screen a heating pump a halogen lamp a forest and a few clouds a stereo playing jaz someone shopping at a mall an autumn day a football match on tv some rain a highway a brass band practicing for 17th of may and a few other things.


Summs it up perfectly.

Amsterdam

Just because they are so darned pretty...!

And so are these sweets, made by Papabubble They taste delicious too! Might have to ration these....

Spring!

It is finally spring in Oslo, and it feels fantastic after a long winter.The magnolias in he botanical garden are in full bloom. Lots of people picnicking, including me and a few friends.

Ear to the Catalan style

One of my favorite things when going somewhere is trying out the local grub, and so far Barcelona has provided some great food! Today I walked to El Poblenou, where I ended up in a very rustic and ‘authentic’-looking restaurant. Not another tourist in sight. Since my Spanish is shamefully poor (read: can order up to seven beers), I was positively surprised to find also an English version of the menu. Albeit with some funky translations. I opted not to go for the ‘Mussels in special sailor sauce’. Instead I went for the ‘Ear to the Catalan style’, figuring this might be a carefully selected local speciality....maybe even a medley of specialties! What I got was a boiled pig’s ear on a plate. Felt a bit let down, especially since this was a seafood restaurant. And this must then have been the only meat-dish on the menu. But, a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, and washing it down with a bucket of wine certainly helped. So, lessons learned: Always have a snoop around the local market before chancing it on a menu. And learning the local lingo is always, always a good idea.

At the local market, later in the day....

All things pretty

While researching how to use decals on pottery online, I happened upon this blog by Heather Moore from South Africa. I have taken the pictures below from her Flickr page.

The whole blog is just very, very pretty, and packed with crafty ideas that really makes you want to go ahead and make stuff yourself. In my case it inspired me to make this:

Not really a craft project, but what can I say....I was hungry :-)

Pottery

I have taken up a new hobby, something I have wanted to do for a long time: I have started doing pottery, and am renting a studio with a lot of other girls (women?) in Gruneløkka. At the moment I am pretty much trying out anything I can think of, and I recon it will take years of practice before I get any good, not to mention developing my own 'signature' style. So, I am definitely a pretty rubbish potter at this point, but it makes me positively giddy with joy!

This studio has a brilliant set-up, where by paying a monthly rent we have access to all the pottery equipment we need, such as clay, throwing wheels, ovens etc. Someone even loads the ovens for us. So all we have to do is turn up and make stuff, and then pick it up when it is fired.

Helsinki School of photography

For some reason I have come across exhibitions by Finnish photographers in a lot of places around the world in the last couple of years. I have liked them all a lot, and have come to realize that there is a ‘Helsinki School’ within photography which links a lot of them together. The photographs have all been too expensive for me to buy and own, but I found this web page that lets me look at some of them and dream on... Check out the Portfolio for each individual artist.

This one is called 'Wind I' by Riitta Päiväläinen

Prague

I saw this on a wall in Prague. The small writing reads:

'To the fountain by the spring

To the sheets to which I cling -

I am summer , I am spring, I am only

what you bring'

O sweet melancholy!

House of Literature

Today I am off to Litteraturhuset, where the Norwegian author Johan Harstad is interviewing the Icelandic author Hallgrimur Helgason who amongst other things wrote ‘101 Reykjavik’. Two writers with an often quirky and darkly funny take on the world's underdogs. Helgason has lately also been quite involved in the peoples uprising to throw the Icelandic government after the financial collapse on Iceland. So this could be both fun and interesting.

Litteraturhuset - House of Literature – is a house dedicated to literature and related activities. It was opened in 2007, and has rapidly become a popular institution. It contains amongst other things a popular café, restaurant and bar, a bookshop and six different stages. They host frequent presentations, debates, workshops etc. One floor is dedicated to children and adolescents, another to writers and authors. It also contains an author’s apartment, which is offered rent-free to foreign authors. A lot of what goes on here is in Norwegian, but certainly not all of it. It is a great place to just hang out, especially in summer when the cafè extends to the patio outside, but also to get your head recharged with new knowledge or inspiration without it costing the earth. Check it out here.

Kolonihagen

I generally do not like subscruibing to too many things, but this week I did sign up for something: A subscription to get organic food delivered to my door every week. It is organized by a small Oslo-based company called Kolonihagen. Unfortunately they do not have an English web page.

This is what I got in my first box: 1 bread, 12 potatoes, 6 eggs, 8 carrots, 1 salad, 1 broccoli, 5 red onions, 1 yellow pepper, 5 tomatoes, 5 apples, 3 oranges, 6 bananas, 2 btls of some sort of fizzy drink :-D