…someone opens a window.
Last month, instead of a door, it was a missed deadline. I just couldn’t get my act together to make a book sculpture for the “Local Treasures” exhibition. My plan was to recreate the city’s old Cape Henry Lighthouse using a book called, “A Salty Piece of Land.”
Thankfully a little ray of insight hit regarding the next exhibition, “Faraway Places.” Why not be inspired by a lighthouse in a faraway place? Thinking of lighthouses I’ve visited while romping around the globe, I settled on the ones near Keflavik, Iceland, where I lived for a year. Perfect!
I rarely buy books unless there is a very specific need, and this time it was justified. I found a novel on line by an Icelandic author. While waiting for the book to arrive—time to plan.
There are two lighthouses. The older, shorter structure is just off the shore, and a taller new light was built in the 1944. I wanted to be as accurate as possible, so I worked out a series of sketches using about 20 reference photos.
I spent an obscene amount of time working on prototypes before actually using any of the book paper. At one point I realized that no one would know if the models weren’t accurate–but I would. It was important to me to get it right.
One of the trickiest factors was to get the structures to stand up straight! The surface of the open book is not level. I had already adjusted the bases of the two lights but that wasn’t quite doing the trick. After I carved the shoreline on the left side of the book, even the small light wasn’t standing straight. (I shimmed it up by hiding scraps of book paper between the pages under each lighthouse.) Thank goodness the builders of real lighthouses are better at this than I am!
I’m very pleased with the finished piece and how it fits in to this exhibition.
Gardur Light, Old and New
Iceland is a “faraway place” both geographically and mentally. Not many people desire to visit Iceland, much less move and live there. I spent a year teaching at a school on Naval Air Station Keflavik on the southern coast. It was an amazing experience, especially exploring the interior, glaciers, rivers and waterfalls. It helps that I met my husband Don there too!
Don on the shoreline of the lighthouse, collecting seaweed for a big seafood feast we were planning to cook.
The book is called My Soul to Take, by Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir. I definitely feel that I took a bit of Iceland’s soul with me when I moved back home. Perhaps I left some of my soul there too!
