light white icing

a scrap still life with icing
the skull


Yes, it is here, the winter. For a while we shall chop firewood and warm up the ovens. And have cosy evenings with hot wine by the fire. It doesn't much matter even if the electricity is interrupted because of a fast wind or excessive snow.
But it is hard to the car, and I have to admit that I'm not the sporting momwonder that I used to be. But just day by day we shall plough our way through the winter.

Nice weekend, anyway. with boys and their friends.

darkness comes

backyardscene
spot little mii
black tram

earlier every day, especially when it is cloudy, like today. We have had a little dog to look after for the weekend - quite heartbreaking: I've been without a dog for one and a half years and it is so nice to have someone to walk with and someone to come and sniff at my trousers when I just sit still here. But on the other hand Tisi, my old dog, lived to be 18 years old and that is quite a time to take care of someone. I'm not so young anymore and there are other complications.... but like this it is really wonderful: just fun and no responsibility. Tomorrow he will go home.

It is the autumnholiday so the boys will be home for the week. I suppose we will go to see grandmother Maija some day. Otherwise it is just to take in the gardenfurniture and to rake the fallen leaves. I like to rake: you get heaps of leaves that rustle and are colousful. And in my yard under the leaves there is a thick darkgreen moss covering everything like in some sort of japanese garden. It is beautiful, very special.

travelling

Spent some warm autumndays in Helsinki. Bought a few books and some clothes, met a friend or two, took long walks and a lot of pictures...

alone at home

The boys are in a disco at the village. I will go and fetch them home at midnight. The laptop downstairs is compressing the film, and will continue for the next 26 hours. Quite a heap of material. And then to DVD.
Roads are a regular mess because of the rain. Otherwise it is good: waterlewell is so low.
I have been raking: a lot of leaves have fallen from the trees, although some remain. It is pleasant work.

rain, rain

somehow my mind resembles these pictures...

It is autumn: leaves are yellow and red and brown, and the wind is tearing them down. The air is thick and dim, soft rain kind of sticks to your skin like a wet kiss. And darkness comes earlier every evening. I like autumn. It is peaceful, no hurry, you can stay at home and be cosy with a book and a fire burning.
The film lacks a few minutes of music and some stillpictures - it is almost finished, a week maybe...
It is like being pregnant, the last weeks, the last days, and finally you part.

flyfishing...

Last sunday my brother from Helsinki with two 12 yearolds came to fish at Kapeenkoski. Or they came on saturday and I joined them on sunday. The weather was lovely and the place fascinating, but no fish was seen... it was of course dissappointing to boys, but we fried some sausages insted.

Paw-shop

closed on saturday and today we cleared the space. Summershop it was and that's it. I haven't yet unpacked the car.

We did some recordings to patch up the original soundtrack - haven't checked them yet, because there were some dark clouds and I'm scared of thunder - it breaks computers etc with electrical pulses. But there is a day tomorrow too.

no rain today...

It would cheer me up - rain. Soaking wet world, water pouring from heaven for months, at least two, and the pump would not shout so long in the evenings, when the consumption is highest.

Only one scene to go - but it needs a monologue - and I've not written the final words. But it is taking shape. Rather a gentle movie it will be, nice - I'm a bit ashtonished, but it is ok. They have bruises in their souls, those two, but they can still...love?

And it is the last week of August....

plane shingles

that's what they did, a couple of friends of mine. And I had my camera ' tukkasotka' with me so they will plane shingles forever... Sounds quite fatal. So I did some forging - been a long time since I was at the smithy: it has been just too hot. It was hot today, too.

time flies

just amazingly. I've dedicated my time to the film and it is so slow and timeconsuming work - I'm still cutting, now also the soundtrack. That was tricky, almost lost my nerve but now I'll manage. Still quite a lot of recording to be done: missing dialogue etc. But slow you go and good youll be...
The school has started so there is some driving around on these miserable roads.
Last night we had a bonfire at the yard, and some beer and sausages - prosaic, but quite enchanting with the darkness and the stars. There also were some northern lights in the sky like fluttering light green curtains.
Still no rain, or just so little that it doesn't matter. The pump shouts long in the evenings, when we take showers: shortage of water. Praying for the rains... wouldn't it be lovely if it rained for two months! No thunder or such, but just heavy, silent rain falling endlessly... some thirty years ago there was such a summer - I remember how I painted the walls and doors and ceiling at our summercottage and it felt like living in an aquarium. Distinct memory.
Last week we took some pictures of clothes - it did rain then!

harvest

and seeds of all kinds begin to overwhelm the nature. I have not had time to see these things in a long time. And the school began today...welcome back to the ordinary world!

lovely

to have a quiet and gutsy feeling of deep satisfaction: it is there, I just have to take of the unnecessary. As you see I've looked through the roughly cut scenes....

alone at home

so the day seems to be long and quiet.

We have filmed almost all - exept the flying of the kite, but that will be easy. And I've started to cut the scenes, to create the rythm of the whole dramatic process: a lot of work there. 'Kill your darlings' said my teacher Risto Jarva - I don't know. But little by little...

Still hot and dry weather. Yesterday at Jyväskylä to see mom and to do some shopping. I tried to film some architecture but most of the try was too restless - no cameramovements, no zoom, no no. Somehow it is very difficult to stay still. Here some pictures from last winter - how would you show it as a cinema?

hot exhibition

at äänekoski - meaning hot in centigrades, don't know otherwise. Some five of us involved and all kind of works from soap to paintings and from candies to pearls. It is just for this week when the Keitelejazz has its concerts. Spent there the last two days hanging the pictures and lusting after the beautiful long pearls, colour of mixed old rose and milkcoffee and made by Mervi Porrassalmi.

Last week we filmed for a whole day, thursday, at Kivisalmi some fifty km from here. We did some tracking shooting from a car driving round and roundand round until I felt quite sick. But it was worth the trouble: nice pictures...
And then the actors refused to understand my meaning - they just laughed and made fun of everything until they got tired. Even that was worthwhile: the dialogue runs smoothly and compactly.
Later we shot the drowning of the girl. It was windy and the water was cold, so pictures are gorgeous but the poor girl almost frose. She still shivered some two hours later.
Anyway, just a little more and then the workflow with Final cut. I have done the rough cutting all the time, but can't create the rythm before I have all the material. Seems somehow priggish, but that's just it.

windy day

and cool. I felt like going to a bikeride and then I remembered that the backtyre was in pieces. pity. Well, I should repair it, change the whole tyre. Ugh.

Otherwise I made some watercolors for the next week...

time flies

the skeleton
starring:
the cameraman
the director
the studio
and weeks pass like mellow water, not bothering but bearing on... We have been filming some and I've been skimming through the stuff several times, just cutting of the rough edges, bits and pieces. The summer around us has been warm and full of flowers, odours and hayfields. And we had a dog for a couple of days... my heart cries (and my bloodpressure goes down as it used to be), but I'm not going to have a dog, no! Tisilii, my old dog lived to be 18 years, - it is a long time to be present and responsible.
Some pictures to go with...

perseverance of the heathwave

is exhausting. I do not like heath: it is suffocating and harassing. And the thunder frightens me because it can burn the house (and all of my works, of course, and beeing a selfish and narcistic person that would be devastating), my one and only home.

The conserts are over and the market gone. Tomorrow we shall move the artexhibition to the Pawn-shop and I shall get some frames from Hankasalmi - the framedealer visitid the exhibition today.

Yesterday I had 'open doors' at the smithy. It was sweatty and i swam for the first time this summer - and not only once... And surprise surprise: my eldiest son Tuomas turned up there in the evening with his new old Mercedes. We came home together after midnight, and he left again today before noon. Such are our children, but it is good to even visit for a short while. He said he'll be back...

'The Enchantress' has been liked and praised, and here is a picture of her.

heat and exhibitions

Some hot days it has been. Yesterday I was at Laaja-art to see Improvisages, and to film them. Some really funny pictures of Ari's pictures - and the music came to tape surprisingly well. And I got pictures of Eeva-Liisa's horses as well. Captured the material in the evening and no problems with that either.

And today at ten o'clock we were building the exhibition at Konnevesi: the shoppinglists and the dragonflies went there.

I made still some more toffee - now it is finnished, the making, only selling remains. Then I had a cold shower, a glas of red wine and a cool down. - When I buildt this house, I wanted two things especially: a big window in the bathroom and a window at the kitchen where the washbasins are. It is lovely in the summer when the eveningsun shines to the bathroom...

things done and remembered

Some days ago I made the first three hundred toffees and today some four hundred more. Just a thousand to go. They are for the summerconcerts at the beach Hayrylanranta next week. For some summers I've been making them. Don't know about next year, though - but when would one know?

And today I had a visitor, who wanted to see some pictures from the great balloonflight a year ago. A warmn and calm evening it was - a bit too calm, maybe. And some three hundred pictures I took. Here are three, one to lake Keitele, the other my house and the third taken by Samuli, when I phoned him to do so: here I am in the yellow balloon!