Ready to leave, now that I know that my boxes of supplies have arrived safely. I am returning to Iceland this week to teach the workshop, BOOK ICELAND at Gullkistan Center for Creativity in Laugarvatn. This will be my fourth trip to Iceland and my third visit to Gullkistan. I am excited to put my ideas in this form for others.
BOOK ICELAND workshop materials have arrived.
More about BOOK ICELAND:
It's a rare visitor who is not touched by Iceland's natural energies and diverse landscape. A wild island of the north with massive glaciers exposed to wind and ocean currents, is located on two tectonic plates with a fault line running at an oblique angle from its north to southwest. Energies of wind, fire and water below and above its surface shape the landscape, leaving unique textures and colors not seen elsewhere on this earth: glacier ice fields and lagoons, rumbling volcanoes, waterfalls, vast lava fields--moss covered and raw, contorted basalt walls, geysers, thermal pools, deep gorges and fjords.
This land of extremes has also shaped its people and language. Steeped in a history of isolation and hardship, the Vikings who first settled this island in the late ninth century, recounted their stories in folktales, poems, oral histories and song. Two centuries later, those stories were captured in writing--leaving handwritten manuscripts that are treasured and valued today.
The Icelanders' love for both their land and the book has inspired this workshop. We'll explore Iceland's varied landscape; we will look at how the natural processes have shaped it and explore ways to express those energies through artistic experimentation. We will develop content for two books (from our field studies) and learn two book structures (drum leaf & coptic binding) to contain it.