After so many years of anticipation...

My mother in a photobooth, around 1963-64.

...i've at last laid my hands on a copy of the 1964 swedish comedy "Svenska Bilder" (Swedish Portraits) in which my beautiful mother Katarina, then 23, had a minor part as a housemaid.
It has never been released on either vhs or dvd, only some public screenings and on television. So it was so exciting to finally see her in it, to see her walk and talk -even if all she said was "Yes, yes, madam is waiting" and "Thank you".
She never became an actress and this was the only thing she was in as far as i know, -although she took acting classes as well as dancing and singing lessons. She moved in those circles and at times worked as prompter at a theater.
With her striking looks and charm she probably would have made an excellent actress but, much like me, i guess she was too shy and insecure.
She went on to become a high school teacher and taught history, religion, swedish and drama.

Just those few seconds of seeing her made me incredibly happy, and the whole film is an extraordinarily pretty and witty little creation, i can't see why it was left in obscurity for so long. Here are some screen caps:


with Georg Rydeberg and Hans Alfredsson

LOSS.

My father, painted by his good friend, the late Stig Claesson.

Four weeks ago my dear father died, aged 86.
He got pneumonia, and as he had COPD after a lifetime of fervent smoking, and stubborny refusing to quit, his lungs could no longer cope. He moved to a nursing home about a year ago, as he had gone weaker and weaker over the last years.

All my life i've been aware that i would lose him while i was young, -it's not like when my mother suddenly died, aged 64, more than five years ago, -that was a shock i haven't quite recovered from today, if i ever even will... -But it's still sad, as i had naturally hoped for him to get better, though it seemed more and more unlikely. In the past five years i have watched him... like land eroded by the sea, more and more bits of who he was falling away and his clear periods getting fewer and farther between. Because of his diabetes and stubborn refusal to do any kind of excercise offered him, he had also lost use of his legs.

Over the years there have been so many scares and false alarms. He had fallen numerous times, there were so many nights waiting for hours in the emergency room, thinking, and fearing that this might be it.

So the night before he died i was with him for a couple of hours. He was in a morphine haze and unaware of me being there. He was just lying there twitching slightly and breathing strenuously. Shortly after ten i tried to say goodbye to him; i took his hands, -his hands that he would normally have clasped firmly around mine, but now they were all limp, and i should have recognized the signs, but still i went home, strangely convinced that he'd be alright. So i got home and went to bed, and at about six in the morning a nurse called and told me that he had passed away. I went there immediately, and then i just stood there, all numb, looking at him. His hands were still warm, but there could be no doubt.
He was no longer there.

One of my father's self-portraits, probably 1980s

I regret that i might not have visited him as often as i could have since he moved to the home, only a few times per week at most. -sometimes he would call me at four in the morning, thinking it was afternoon, and asking me where the hell i was.
I went there as often as i had could of course, but can't help but feeling like i just dumped him there. That i abandoned him.

My biggest comfort is that I did spend so much time with him in the years between my mother's death and before he got too weak to do anything at all. I tried to get him out of the house, go to see exhibitions and go to museums, movies, restaurants and for long walks. And it's also comforting to think of what a long and eventful life he had after all.

So now i am an orphan. -though at times i've felt like i was his parent, i often feel like i have the mental capacity of an eight-year old. I've been held back by all of this, hardly realised any plans, if i ever even had any... i haven't had the energy to take up studies or do anything at all. In a way i am now free to start living, but i don't know where to begin... -and sometimes, i must admit, i feel uncertain whether i even want to, and just falling asleep forever seems so incredibly tempting, but as i have a fear of blades, heights and pain in general, and have no doctor to give me any kind of pills i guess i'm going to have to go on living.
Hopefully someday i'll even learn to enjoy it again.

Me, aged five, photographed by my father.

One of his favorites with Jussi Björling.

Collage.

Last weekend a friend arranged a little collage-workshop at her office. The theme was nature and it's different aspects; the devastating, the tamed, the tropical, the bountiful etc... I got to do the occult/magical nature.
I had almost forgotten how much fun collaging was!

(click to enlarge)

A weekend, or a fortnight, in the country.

I am about to undertake a rather huge project i have been thinking about for a long time.
A beautiful diningroom in a beautiful Château or Hôtel particulier; with an oblong table and some of my, mainly 17th and 18th century, favorite personages around it.

It is completely superficial and unimaginative, just for my own pleasure and hopefully your's... people like Marie-Antoinette, the Duchess of Devonshire and her sister... (NO Bess! In my story she dies early on from smallpox and G gets over it all in no time!) Duchesse de Polignac, Madame de Pompadour, de Sévigné, Voltaire, Emilie du Châtelet, Sophie Arnould, Gustaf III of Sweden, Sarah Siddons and Diana Vreeland are the ones who have been invited so far. I suppose i should have some composers/musicians as well...even though most of the guests excelled in at least one instrument, perhaps they could take turns...Marie-Antoinette at the harp, Arnould singing a fiew airs, Camargo delighting us with a fiew turns about the room and so on...the Queen of France would of course help in carving and handing out the various dishes around the table - as she did at Trianon that summer of 1784 when Gustaf III visited...My late mother will naturally have to be there, and mainly dead people - they always tend to be more interesting, just like past is more interesting than present...and not to mention the future, wich i dread to even think about.
Maybe even a series of pictures; A weekend or a fortnight spent in the country with all these distinguished guests...


It will be all about details - the rooms filled with beautiful furniture and artefacts, porcelaine, silver, silly little figurines taken from all my books on 18th century art and fashion as well as from my huge library of images on my laptop, taken from the collections of various museums.
I have made a first draft - a sketch of the diningroom in question, and i really look forward to begin!

I haven't really drawn for years, i've been far to stressed and worried...i'm not cut out for this life. I just scribble and never make any finished drawings, even though i really have all the time in the world - i'm off sick; have been for years and lord knows for how much longer, i just can't seem to get back on my feet.