No.19 Weathercocks, Wooden Towns, and Lake Radio

On high Summer, low key adventures in the south of Finland

Hello!

It’s been a week since I returned home from Finland. This weekend, I’m feeling a bit unmoored, at loose ends. This is common after a long anticipated trip has come and gone, yet I never remember it until it’s upon me; it doesn’t kick in right away.

The image above shows a view of the concertina book that I prepared in ways I learned from Karen Stamper’s travel sketchbook class (you’ll remember from my last post). It’s still a work in progress, but I managed a fair amount of work in it during the trip. I’m chuffed about how the Helsinki Cathedral looks in simple cut paper, and the infiltration of Marimekko-inspired flowers was a spontaneous decision. I think the book would benefit from more of that kind of spontaneity; less thinking.

In fact I think I’ll approach this week’s newsletter in that spirit.

Though I had exactly none amid my restless nights of sleep on the trip, I’ve been dreaming a lot since my return; things jumbling together into impossible, believable narratives. It feels like I may be processing things for awhile. Not things directly related to Finland, but things that occurred to me or were thrown into relief during the variegated days of the trip; much of it in relation to my life as an artist. 

I don’t think of myself as a part-time artist, yet the reality of my days insists otherwise. My job as a creative director / designer is more demanding than any I’ve had previously— not only of time but of mental and emotional bandwidth. It’s both a pro and a con of having a job that I care about; that’s important to me. A good problem to have— if it is a problem. 

Here: it feels like a problem when my brain is tired at the end of a week, and the beach or a book (or both!) call to me more loudly than do the things in my studio. While there are always ebbs and flows in the creative cycle (as Mason Curry wrote recently about), it was a pleasure to spend more time with my nose in sketchbooks than I have in a long time.

Things I didn’t expect about Finland:

S-Market’s fleet of adorable grocery delivery robots. They hung out next to the Fizza “pizza printer”, just off-screen to the right

• The popularity and proliferation of pizza, karaoke, and delicious IPAs (or “eepas” in the local parlance)

• That Finnish coffee (even the grocery store coffee that we made each morning) would be so good that I’d be very disappointed in my (previously delicious-to-me) coffee that I make at home

• Speed cameras flashing a smiley face when you drive past at or under the limit

• That there would be almost no pigeons in the cities. Gulls formed the local population of feathered nuisance— an aggressive and loud one, which made New York pigeons seem refined and demure by contrast

• Adorable robots that deliver groceries via sidewalks all around the town, even to the suburban outskirts

• The depth of quietude. Aside from the gulls and karaoke joints, Finland really is a very quiet place. Even in Helsinki. Even in grocery stores. Even when it doesn’t get dark til after midnight.

Photo 1 shows the Fizza shed, in which you can get a fresh-basked pizza in 3 minutes; Photo 2 shows the box, which claims, rightly, that "Anytime is Pizza Time"

But Let’s Talk About Tallin

A Vermeer! And a Breughel! It was the annual Medieval Days weekend in Tallin.

Our trip across the Gulf of Finland to Tallin, Estonia was our favorite individual day of the trip. I mean no insult to Finland or its cities and towns in saying this! but a perfectly preserved medieval Old Town like Tallin is very much up both K’s and my alleys. Add in the happy accident that we were visiting during its Medieval Days weekend, and, you know, it was pretty unbeatable. What stunning buildings and winding cobbled alleyways, and fabulous colors everywhere.

We went into a church serving also as a gallery of many elaborately carved and gilded coats of arms of local guilds, from when Tallin was a member of the Hanseatic League*. And there did we see a golden weathercock whose aggressive countenance raised images of pasta-burgling gulls back in Helsinki! I made its portrait, which alone made it worth bringing my gold metallic watercolor pan on the trip.

The golden weathercock from a rooftop in Tallin, and a a miniature iron caravel with copper sails

…And Back to Finland

After the Helsinki / Tallin portion of our trip, we picked up our wee rental car at the airport and headed west to Part Two of our trip, our Naantali house. It was to serve as our base of operations from which we’d explore some of the wooden towns of Finland: restored towns / parts of towns that exemplify the architecture and street plans of Medieval Finland.

It was during one of these driving excursions that we discovered Jarviradio, aka Lake Radio. Delight! During that first session, they were playing what sounded like traditional instrumental folk music. Next day they were broadcasting Finnish renditions of popular songs from between the wars; early big band, etc— really fun. We also found Ramona Radio on our drive to Old Rauma, and found that it was broadcasting from one of the wooden buildings in town! It seemed to be a public radio ration, with each set playing to the tastes of the DJ. We heard a lot of 80s tunes on our drive.

In the continued spirit of this spontaneous patchwork missive, here are a few detail shots from four charming locales in Finalnd; Helsinki, Turku, Old Rauma, and Naantali.

Details from Finland: 1. Moomin Shop window display in Helsinki, 2. Nautical signal flags in Turku, 3. Carpentry details of a wooden house in Old Rauma, 4. Old photo of people dressed in masquerade from Naantali Museum

Note on the inclusion of the Moomin Shop window: I had to include something relating to Tove Jansson— her summers in Finland were the initial inspiration for our trip; we’ve both long been fans of her artwork and her writing.

Have any of you been to any Nordic countries? Or to Estonia? If so, I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!

I’d been planning to share my two sketchbooks from the trip in this one, but I’m still riding a floaty, post-trip mindset, so: a meandering of remembrances for now, punctuated by some Tallin gate lions that I fell in love with. More art next time!

Thanks to all of you who read and follow. If you enjoyed this, tap on the little heart icon, won’t you? More soon.

xx Liz

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*When I sent a photo to my brother of the interior, his dry reply: “Ah, my old nemesis, the Hanseatic League.”