Mist and Ice

Photography

I know very little about Iceland. Far away Northern land, empty and mysterious. Sparse population  speaking uniquely difficult language, imbedded in storytelling, mist and ice. 

I always felt some vague kinship with all Northern lands, living myself in one. Sense of vastness and loneliness, lands of unfathomable landscapes where contemplation of our minute presence against Northern skies flaring with auroras of the universe, evokes feelings of being belittled and belonging at the same time.

One of our photographers traveled through Iceland recently. We were privileged to experience a glimpse of its moods emerging from mists of hot springs, outlandish mountains and volcanos, icebergs and vast skies. Surprisingly colorful, yet introvert.

We immersed, without hesitation,  into this curious land unveiled to us through her lens, enveloped in the sensations of Iceland landscapes. Well, despite our yearnings for sun and south, we are, or have become true Northerners.

I got a gift – an artbook of an Islandic artist – no better way to relate to raw yet nuanced feel of his land. His name is Pall Gudmundsson. He paints rough, ruffled inhabitants of fishing villages; he molds the stone into reliefs of faces emerging from vast landscapes colored by lichen, from ice- and volcanic lava…

He is dressed in roughly knitted sweaters and tuques, rubber boots (no need for NY fashionable); his studio and gallery is a wooden cabin and whole of Iceland, his art emanates from the connection to its landscapes and its people, resigned to, and rejoicing nevertheless, in a lonely life. Contemplation and stories, stone shapes and sounds, imagination borne from the mist and ice and long northern nights.

OK, these are my musings only. Let us turn to the true sight of this curious land by someone who actually experienced it. Whole heartedly, mist and ice…