memories of her.

typing on the typewriter. all these A4s. Font: courier. funny paper smell.

blue berry muffins.

lace.

wases.

plants: Red geraniums and st. paulias.

apple juice

beautiful coffee cups

never really tea

flowery dress. was it violet, sort of blue? a white hat. the golden neckless. that i now have. with the little watch in it. I never wear it. afraid of losing it.

old paper scissors.

always lost reading glasses.

red medicine boxes.

a radio always on.

I never saw her use the vinyl player. perhaps the tape rack. was there ever tapes?

later on Vikingarna in the car with her second husband.

earlier on live accordion and a dog called Sami.

that fool dress, with the funny little hard green hat. tiny black shoes. a very old looking brooch holding the scarf together.

never make up. not even lip stick.

tiger balm in the bedside table drawer.

colored felt pens in a jug on the bedside table.

cross word puzzles. always.

books. magazines.

white lace table cloth on the dining room table. a big was on top.
simple table cloth on the kitchen table. thats where we eat.

white plates with painted flowers on them. in a nuance of fragrant light violett.

home made carpets on all floors. except in the living room, was there an oriental carpet? and plastic ones in the bathroom? or?

the evil looking blond russian dolls in their silky dresses.

the white dog with a red collar, Emil. He is in Sweden now, in my cellar.

a little was with a picture of a 1700 century couple on it. the man is playing an instrument perhaps?

an orange telephone. on the telephone table. the old huge black heavy telephone.

plastic bags filled with sea shells, boxes with pearls. Fruitdrops candy cans with treasures in them.

Van Houten cocoa powder, never o'boy.



to be continued….

the fox

what makes us happy?
what is happiness?
how do we pursue it?

is it that moment feeling wonderful after a nice dinner with friends?
is it a good feeling going to a well deserved holiday?

It is definitely there when feeling loved by someone. In those moments when you lie beside someone and feel love strongly. Or feeling it through a distance.

But is that enough?

We say happiness exists in small things. In simple slow moments. Like looking out on a field. Or on a lake. Or at the horizon.
Watching butterflies, birds, animals…children.

But this makes me sad. Because I feel we do not appreciate these things enough and to be honest this is all is something we are destroying. We are destructive in our nature. It's like we do not really care because we are to selfish.

Did I feel happiness when I saw that fox lurking on the dark street last night?
What was the fox thinking?

I realized he was becoming more like us, streetwise. He decided based on previous experience that I was cool. At some point he stopped his running to sit down and scratch himself for a while. a couple of minutes and he saw that I was watching. But what was he thinking?
I do not know.

I can only make assumptions. Assumptions based on my education, experience, background and personal thoughts.



And I am afraid that nobody is interested in my personal thoughts about the fox. Or about anything else.

Isn't it sad that I think this way?

And why did I even start thinking about happiness in the first place?



It's an existential "thinkdoodle" of course. I was thinking about leaving a trace behind me. Something about myself so that I would be remembered when I'm gone. And why again am I wasting my time on thoughts like that? Wy is it important to me, to us, to leave something behind us?

We know that most things will be destroyed. I know that I am a nobody really.
To be big crowd at least.

I wont be remembered. And to be honest that does not really bother me at all.

It's this art thing. That I am creating things…for what? for whom?

Am I doing this to entertain someone? I am obviously not doing things that people want to have close to them in their homes, things that would help them go on every day - because all my works are still here at home, nobody asked for them. Nobody bought them anyway. Would that make me happy, to have some well deserved stash in my pocket...no, it would not, just for a short moment. Is happiness only there for short moments, or is it so that we can't really recognize happiness and that is why we seek it and see only short glimpses of it, sometimes false things?



And I wonder how well do we really know ourselves? How honest are we really with ourselves? And do we even care?

Will we just be gone not knowing who we really were deep down inside?

So what makes us happy, to get back to the first question. Knowing ourselves? appreciating ourselves? Or knowing the other, the unknown, like the fox I met?

it is the same thing - a meeting with a stranger. The stranger being myself or the fox.

perhaps something happens in between that meeting.

Or is it that simple that happiness comes from making someone else happy? By i.e creating an art work that makes somebody else happy, closer to himself/herself? Or even baking a simple cake.

Is that possible? ( cakes are easy, perhaps I am wishing to make the whole fucking mankind happy...then I guess I should show them my tits or what?)


I know I talk to much. I know I ask to much. But in this moment writing this made me feel happier. I felt a honest real moment with the real Nina. I got again a bit closer to her. Hi there…nice to get know you. Happy it was not just another small talk to kill time.

And after this I can walk down to the post office with the other me. And mail another video to another video festival where another possible audience will become happy after seeing my piece.

a cow called Nina

...suddenly remembering those days back in 1995 when I was cleaning hotelrooms in Hotel Arkipelag in Mariehamn.I still know the tricks...
That summer I was 20 and met a white cow called Nina. what a summer.

Now I am 36. And not so much has changed.

I might even meet another cow called Nina. WHo knows.

I might even get myself my own cow. Cow's are very much like people. They follow leaders quite blindly. Some of them get of the path and roam wildly for a while. I remember Nina did that. That's how we met. We were on a mission to check out that the cows were ok on the meadow. There was a little forrest with dangerous ditches so we needed to see that nobody had fallen in there. So there we were walking with big sticks in our hands to protect us from wild cows when there's a loud sound of twigs breaking in the forrest.
And out comes a white cow running madly straight at us. That was Nina...

Am I like her?

Am I roaming madly in life? I don't seem to want to stay with the herd...even if I like the herd. Perhaps I don't know who is the leader of the pack? Or do I want to be the leader and start a new pack?

If I can recall correctly Nina had a buddy with her. So she was not alone.

I'm not alone either. I know loads of cows...

Bonne weekend!

in the arse of a dog - i hundreven

yeah, now its Venice. Its Basel. Its Based in Berlin.. .all sorts arts cat christening events...

No, I'm not jealous or bitter beacuse I'm not there with the jetset. This all just makes me sad. And to be honest this whole market & wanna be so fucking something else constantly (than a creative artist) has been pissing me of for years.

There is constant proof of how artist are being used, dumped, pissed on and to be frank objectifyed. And this all just keeps going on because we, artists, just want to make a buck and show our stuff. We HAVE to play the ugly game - otherwise we'll play it in a barn somewhere in Utsijoki* and nobody will care.

So what to do.

I dont even know where to start.

I read a very good text on a blog last night. It managed to capture the same things I have been annoyed of in just a few words. I will copy it here, it's so brilliant.

the artist's statement:"An Artist’s Statement is a batch of required thinking which purports to be about the inspired doing of something, but which replaces it. The art-schooled art world is mad for intellectual hooks. These leapfrog from an idea, sail clear over the sweat and bother of actual creation, and land in forensic analysis, which some dismal pictures or objects have been devised to illustrate. A hook may get you into the art game. It will also digest you. You will then be excreted out, at best as fertilizer for next year’s crop of Artists’ Statements. More likely, you will have been just another silly fart, dispersed on the breeze."

the clichés in art criticism today:" It’s a reflex to characterize, and even to congratulate, new art in terms of what it is ‘responding to’, ‘being interested in themes of’, ‘reflecting on’, ‘being concerned with’ – and I would add, ‘interrogating’, ‘challenging’, ‘subverting’ and so on: mental monkey tricks. "

artists and their practice:"Then there’s that horrible word – I wince every time I read it, and I read it a lot lately – ‘practice’. Artists don’t make works any longer. They maintain practices. Like dentists, only less honourably. Or like musicians trying to get to Carnegie Hall. When do you stop practicing something and do it?"

A reprinted lecture he delivered at SVA, the article also includes a full version of the great "modernist warhorse of a poem" Wallace Steven's "The Idea of Order at Key West."



yes, I will try to go on writing about these things that piss me of, but first I have to fix my web page so that I will be elected for residencies, festivals, exhibitions etc. Ironic isn't it....But I must go on...What else can I do? Then hopefully I can fight this bullshit from the inside. Crush the fancy fucking specs of the people who dont care about art and important values but are in it just because of the fancy champagne & money & probably something they call cultural richness = elitist snobism to me...

I want to end this blabbering with some nice optimistic words but feel drained.

what about a good old classic: FIGHT THE POWER!!!!!!!




*my grand mother would call these remote places being "behind the back of God, Jumalan selän takana", or in "the arse of a dog, i hundreven" .