As a small girl I learned to knit and to crochet. I started making doll clothes, and while my fingers were busy my heart dreamed. Could I do the knitting my own way, could I create?
December was always a busy month in my young life. I closed the door to my room and pretended it was Mrs.Santa's workshop.
As a yong mother I kept on creating. For decades quilting was my passion, and highlights were when I could exhibit what I made, even sell items. For several years a friend of mine and I had our Christmas art show where we invited friends and family.
I still do crafts. I knit, I crochet, I quilt, I embroider, I make papercraft...... But only for myself or for gifts. Being an artist, selling my handmade products has not been my path. And that has been okay.
Still there is an artist living somewhere inside me though. I have a full time job, I am a mother and a wife, I have my garden and my blue café (well, gardening and cooking are art in many ways).........and the days have only a certain amount of hours. Even though I use to say I get so much done because it is light almost 24/7 here during the summer months :-)
The artist in me has been sleeping for years. But she has never left me. And for some time now I have known that Sleeping Beauty is not satisfied with her dreams any more. She is awakening, and she wants to live her life!
Over the past years she has revealed more and more of herself, and I see that she is not a knitter, neither is she a quilter or a paperartist. These are facets of her awakening beauty, but her real figure is images made by letters, pieces sewn together with words, quilted with writing. Still only half awake, still humble by what she realises, my Sleeping Beauty is a writer.
So why these strange photos, you ask? What has a moose mother and her child to do with Sleeping Beauty finially leaving her deep sleep?
I can explain :-). When we moved into the House in the Woods some years ago, I was especially fascinated by a huge room up on the first floor. Oh, that's a perfect room for me, I said to myself. We moved in here with four kids, and the time was not there for the room to be mine - yet. But life continues, kids move out, room changes. And finally, this autumn the room has become mine, my studio. With room enough for writing and reading (and alot more, even a desk for Terje's computer found space here). I sat here all day yesterday, writing and reflecting on my writing, and at one time during the day, when I lifted my eyes to look at trees and sky outside my window, these two mooses passed by. For me they became a confirmation that this room and this desk is "my space" for the Beauty which is not sleeping any more. I don't need to travel the world to write, though I will keep on doing that also. I have what I need here in my studio, inside my heart and outside my window. The world is here, and it is now.
