Having folded the newspapers this morning and put behind us the scandals of Tour de France, the local skirmishes on who’s to blame on why the recent old ships’ gathering in the neighbouring port became an economical disaster and the farmers dire predictions on the imminent harvest, our eyes automatically found rest on the scenario provided by the aquarium on the veranda were we sit – as often before on this hotel. 

A marine biologist ensures that the 15 metres long aquarium features the fauna of the waters of the strait just in front of the hotel. As seasons change he dives out there and collects new seaweed, catch fish, starfish and other submarine critters alive so that the aquarium can stay updated. With his knowledge of the underwater world of the strait he arranges the seaweeds and distributes the fish in either of the two sections of the aquarium – so that the smaller fish do not disappear overnight. 

We are not in tropical waters, so the appearance of the aquarium is dominated by muted greens and browns, occasionally the dark brown-grey-violet of a starfish and accents provided by light reflecting in the metallic skin of the fish. 

The seaweeds anchor the scenario and sway slowly in the current of the seawater flowing through the aquarium. Into this slow movement blends the individuality of the fish, as they in their unpredictable ways move graciously, then stop, then turn, then accelerate, then stop, etc.  

A living piece of artwork! Kind of an installation… 

Whereas the strait itself in front of the hotel could well have belonged to an art exhibition we visited earlier this week, the theme of which was something like “Not everything is visible” it appeared to us that the aquarium was exactly the opposite of that exhibition. 

But – being the opposite, by revealing what is behind the surface, the aquarium is a strong reminder to the viewer that a surface, an appearance, is likely to hide something behind it. By doing so the aquarium could, despite of or by being the opposite, have supported the exhibition very well. 

An interesting thought – that could lead to reflections on how to provide, in a piece of artwork, links from the surface to what is hidden behind – or links from a detail to what may be the overall appearance of the whole it is part of.

The uppermost of the recent days’ keywords has for us been “interesting”. We are preparing our September exhibition in Ste. Marie aux Mines, and this is what we want it to be for the visitors – interesting! This is important for us.

So you can understand that the process of selecting works for the exhibition has been featured by considerations as to chronology vs. grouping according to sources of inspiration, techniques for implementation or styles of expression. 

How to apply weighting factors to these parameters – considering that the word “interesting” is subject to individual interpretation? When sending the list of works to the organizers yesterday we felt that we had found a satisfactory answer to this question. Satisfactory seen from our dimension, that is – and this is how far we can go before letting go. 

There exists a similarity between a single piece of artwork that leaves our studio and a collection of works for an exhibition that we have curated – being it our own or works of other artists.  

The similarity is that once we have done our job, then we have to let go – let go of the single piece or the entire collection, and let it continue its life with the viewers, who individually will have an opinion whether the word “interesting” does apply – or not.

We are sure they will. So, we let go. We put the it behind us and started concentrating on the design of our new business card. Design is important for us. So we are busy again – and still on vacation.

Yesterday we received the exhibition floor lay-out for our upcoming exhibition in connection with the 13^th European Meeting on Patchwork in the period 13-16 September 2007. We will exhibit in “L’espace des Tisserands” in town of Sainte Marie aux Mines in Alsace, France.

Of course, we have been reflecting over how we would curate this exhibition since we got the invitation. We shared some of our thoughts in this respect in an earlier blog entry: New! versus Interesting . But it is only now, when we have the final floor lay-out of the exhibition space that will be dedicated to the “Inge Mardal & Steen Hougs” exhibition that we can concretize our thoughts and fully focus on its composition.

Approximately 40 metres of exhibition walls will be at our disposal. They will form kind of a closure with an island in its centre, which together will provide the physical frame for the exhibition. The entrance to our exhibition space will be facing the centre of the exhibition hall. It will be relatively wide and allow for us to make our exhibition inviting already at a first glance.

We are really looking forward to taking up the challenge of using this space to the best of our abilities with a view to establish an exhibition that will be inviting from the first glance, which provides for a good flow and shows a coherent set of works, that will leave the visitor with the feeling of having had an interesting experience to think further about.

This is what we will do in the coming weeks. Can you imagine a better way to spend your holidays?

The weather has been rather dull during the past week. Mostly overcast. No exiting light/shadow constellations or intriguing reflections – just dull. Even my preferred sites, some of which would be bonanzas to others, appeared dull.

Photographically I’ve been in the Doldrums. How to get out of there? There is not much of a chance that Cyrus, the unsinkable sea serpent, will come and puff me through. He lives in the literature, I in real life. 

“If the guiding principle is that Light is All, what do I do if there is no interesting light conditions and everything is grey?” I asked Inge. She answered that this point was just being discussed on a photographers’ list she is following – and I was not alone! The solution they had come to so far provided two openings to the dilemma.

• One was to refocus the attention by asking: “What looks good in this light?”
• The other was to put a historical perspective to it by asking: “What’s here now that won’t be here in 20 years?” 

To the first point I realised that I on my trodden path have become accustomed to the scenery and probably also stagnated by focussing on specific subjects, for which I know that certain light conditions work well. Light might still be everything, but last week my usual objects were not working well, photographically. I had not put enough effort into the search for objects that did! 

I had not realised it, but the second opening to get me out of my present photographical Doldrums had been in front of me for quite some time. How could that be? Well, Inge is in the middle of a gigantic campaign to rescue and restore old photographs – our own and those inherited. This laudable initiative of hers unveils inevitably photographs long forgotten or never developed further than the negative film. Whereas this provides for interesting surprises it also confronts us with the fact that many everyday scenes in our childhood, and later in our adult life never got photographed.  

The historical perspective opened wide for me. I decided to do something about it this morning and fumbled around with the tripod and camera and realized that a new challenge had arrived on my creative doorstep. That of photographing our Sundays, with a view to recalling the days in Chantilly 20 years ago – when I’m 77. And tomorrow comes Monday, then Tuesday…

It was not only because I had received an invitation to see a new collection of jewellery that I found myself in the 6th Arrondissement in Paris on Friday afternoon – and it was not because that invitation included a glass of champagne. Certainly not, but this detail in the invitation came to play a role in my introduction to that collection.

No, I actually had to check out some gear at the outdoor shop where I equipped myself for the walking with Roland on the West Highland Way in May, and it was only two metro-stops from the boutique. I thought that the walk along Blvd. Saint Germain might yield some photo-ops, so it was altogether not a bad combination.

There was no one in the shop – no one apart from the two shop assistants. 4:30 PM is perhaps also somewhat early for the usual clientele to be around, I thought. On the other hand it gave me the opportunity to study the new collection quietly – which I did in kind of a dialogue with the senior assistant, who willingly took the pieces out of drawers, display boxes and window setups – rings, earrings, bracelets and pendants.

Sort of halfway through the collection I noticed an elderly couple entering the shop, arm in arm. They walked directly to the counter. After the bonjour-bonjour they stood there looking at the other assistant – she looked at them – and then there was a pause. 

The pause at the counter was broken by the elderly lady coughing slightly before she said something like: “The carton mentioned a glass of champagne!”

There was an exchange of glances between the shop assistants, and a minute later the younger assistant showed up with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. I noticed it immediately, but it was not until the senior assistant had exchanged the smaller pendant with the larger, that the mismatch between the number of glasses and the number of customers crossed her mind.

After another exchange of glances, and another minute later, pearls in a glass of champagne contributed to the ambiance where I stood and examined a spherical pendant in 18 carat yellow gold that had been hollowed out and then paved inside with small diamonds.

Without having really deigned to see the collection the elderly couple left the boutique and I could devote my full concentration to determine why this piece of jewellery from a design point of view seemed to work so much better than the rest of the collection. The hollowed out spherical provided a golden cave the surface of which played superbly with the partial pavement of diamonds as they exchanged and reflected light.

The yellow gold yielded a warmth, that added to the richness of the appearance of the piece – forming a little Aladdin’s cave, suspended in a long golden chain with an inclination of about 30 degrees, so that it will not be revealed immediately to the viewer, but only when the bearer turns a little. I loved this detail, and felt that the designer had dared something that I would have been hesitant to do – were I the designer.

Hollowing out a melon yesterday reminded me of the similarity of perceiving good design by man and good design by nature.