It’s incredibly peaceful here often quiet for hours especially if the clouds settle low over the town. I really love this place brimming over with culture and good will. A cruise ship “rolling the Scandi waves landed at the ferry terminal today for half a day. Passengers have enough time to walk about on trails, sit in coffee shops, peer into my studio windows and see many waterfalls, torrent down the mountainsides.

Brooke is in the upstairs studio and I’m on street level. I'm sticking with daily practice, exploring textures that speak for the massive glacier-marked mountains that slope down into the fjord. I’m working on paper with inks, acrylic paint and pens. I’m not at all sure what I’m doing but that’s what I love about a residency! This immersion into play and exploring is much like a writer I believe as they might juggle with vocabulary; not forming a story or getting it “right” on the grammar but simply allowing thoughts to roam, instigated by the town; history of place; the magnificence of geology while ignited by something new to explore.

Artwork is evolving and unfamiliar patterns are appearing.

Today though was a day off and it was spent in a familiar Icelandic tradition of geothermal bath soaks. Deep (and I mean deep ) relaxing in floating pools. Vok baths on the edge of a glacial lake outside of Egilsstađir. Heaven!