My childhood in Ostrobothnia saw the scent of freshly baked bread wafting in through the windows of grandparents’ homes. In the summers, the footsteps of grandchildren echoed across the closely shorn lawns, and the smoke from the old men’s pipe tobacco traced ever-changing spirals above the yards. The air rang with the whistle of birdsong and the chatter of tractors, and the sounds of animals carried from the barns.
The grandmothers and grandfathers have gone. The livestock has gone. Even those who later brought new residents and cars to the yards have departed. Now it is quiet. The long-grown grass lies in the yard after the winter. The wind, rain, and cold – time – has bent the cottages and barns and eaten away at the walls. The birds here still fly, making their nests in the sheltered corners of the buildings.
I walk the hushed road through the village. I veer off into the yards, leaving tracks in the snow or the sodden lawn. I peer through the windows, breathing in the scent of the old, cooled walls. I remember the old neighbor and the plump, grey-haired woman in the next house, how she clapped her hands together laughing. I recall the local people, both those who were spoken of with respect and those pitied. I wonder how the time of those people is etched into these homes they once built, in the yards where perennials still bloom, in the outbuildings and birch trees that continue growing. I think that by painting this stilled landscape, I can make the passage of time visible – and lasting.
Then the yards begin to speak. I sense the play and work, these people looking at me across time: the matriarchal figure, the vivacious daughter, the shy boy, the woman sweeping her hair from her face by the barn, the roguish young man. Fleetingly, the yards fill with the dreams, the unspoken sighs, the unseen gazes, the bustle and idleness of those who’ve passed. In other yards, the silence deepens, and the stillness speaks. The yards become filled with presence. And time stretches in a wondrous way! I feel the call to reach beyond my own childhood. Just as I can in thought and dream extend to the future, I can for a moment reach far back in time. By painting, I can stretch the edges of time for others to see as well.
Postscript: After I painted the weathered, dilapidated buildings, some of them had already succumbed to time. Now a cottage lies sunken into the ground, and the collapsed walls of a barn have been hauled away in a tractor’s trailer. The edge of time fades, disappearing here and there. New edges emerge.
Tapahtuman järjestäjä:
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Nimi
Jyväskylän Taiteilijaseura ry
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Sähköpostiosoite
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Puhelinnumero
0408243031
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