A quick slide into the end of the first month (Weeks 3 and 4)

As we opened the studio to the public in the past week, I concluded my first month at Nes. It's been quite surreal in terms of how time has passed here.

Sauðárkrókur

On the day of the open studio event at the end of Week 4, I went on a morning trip to Sauðárkrókur with fellow artist, Rainer Fest, who wanted to thank me for helping him document his sculptural installation at Skagaströnd. Rainer was the only artist with a car, having brought it over on the ferry. The trip to Sauðárkrókur takes about 40 minutes across the mountain, east of Skagaströnd.

There are a few things to do there, mostly in the summer when all the museums and attractions operate under 'summer hours'. The highlight for Rainer was the fish leather factory. It was certainly an interesting trip to see some beautiful leathers of all colours made from wolf fish, salmon, perch and eel. They also sold Icelandic lambskins (full wool and shorn), as well as seal and horse pelts. The visit to the factory was cut short by a busload of American tourists - it's always time to leave when they turn up.

After stocking up at the supermarket and the grog shop, it was time to find a good coffee. The local museum has a lovely cafe but unfortunately, it was pod coffee. Still, it was better than anything I'd had in weeks.

We returned in time for some last-minute preparations for Opið Hús.

Opið Hús

The culmination of a month in residence at Nes is Opið Hús (open studio). For some it’s the end of their time here, for others it’s the end of a phase before starting a new month with new faces amongst the group.

For me, it was bringing to an end of exploration, play, experimentation and refinement of my workflow. I spent the first weeks getting acquainted with the people, the landscape and the weather. Week 2 was about going a bit further afield, starting to play a bit with what I found there, having long conversations about politics, environmentalism, art, books and life over breakfast, early dinners, end of week drinks and a few dramas that come with living in a share house.

By mid-month, the weather turned on me with days of rain and wind. This was when I started playing with sound mixes, working out what I could do with just one computer in play with my video editing (at home I use two or three to keep things moving), and eventually deciding to take a waterproof camera out and play in the rain. It’s like Mother Nature knew we were desperate for some sunshine and calm skies as we drew to the end of the month. I got a chance to fly my drone in great big arcs across the moor to the south of the town, mimicking the flight patterns of the ravens I’d seen coasting on the wind currents there, skimming and swooping above the backs of the mares and foals that graze across the boggy tussocks and along the shore line.

So, as the final week approached and the days in the studio became longer, I found myself planning to present a series of experimental works, some related to my Corvus project, others just experiments. I also ended up spending several hours with the drone and my GH4 camera on the Höfði (the Cape) trying to document Rainer Fest's installation. He was very keen to have drone footage of the work, however between the light, the weather and the subtlety of the work, it proved to be too difficult to do well. With a full day of editing and some photos I’d also taken for him, I did manage to put together just over a minute of video with layered sound effects.

Having decided the week prior to play with some hard copy black and white photos, ordering 15 of them online from Reykjavik, I ended up presenting those at the open studio, with a short experimental sound narrative, a VR montage of Australia and Iceland, and a side by side video showing an apocalyptic dust storm from home with the endless rain over Skagaströnd from the edge of the harbour. That’s what you can do when you spend an entire month making art, seven days a week.

Akureyri

With the need to clear my head and get out of town to mark the end of the first month, I'd planned a trip to Akureyri - the second largest town in Iceland or capital of the North, as it's sometimes known. Not wanting to do anything with a large group of people, I'd asked my fellow artist and friend, Debbi, who is also staying on in October if she'd like to come with me.

With a B&B and hire car booked for Akureyri, we set off by bus on the last Friday of September for a weekend three hours east of Skagaströnd. Having tried to plan a break that packed in everything possible to do, it simplified the closer we came to the weekend. In the end, we set off early Saturday morning for Lake Mývatn via a stop at the incredible Goðafoss (waterfalls) - a bit over an hour from Akureyri. From there, we stopped beside the lake to walk amongst the strange rock formations and listen to the quiet lap of the shallow waters on the lake's edge before heading to Mývatn Nature Baths for a look and a coffee. The entry and costume hire (that neither of us was impressed at the thought of) was a bit too steep for this trip. Next stop in our quick morning excursion was the recommended Hverir geothermal area with its bubbling hot mud and rotten egg steam pouring out of cairns on a landscape that looked like Mars. The smell of sulphur was overpowering. After eating lunch beside the bluest lake of warm water filled by a gushing source of 100-degree geothermal water, we returned to Akureyri via the old ring road on the mountain to avoid the toll on the tunnel that we'd been hit with on the way out to Mývatn. The landscape changes on every turn, with incredible vistas making it hard to concentrate on driving...a skill I've now started to get the hang of.

Debbi caught the bus back to Skagaströnd late on Saturday to continue working on her painting, and I spent the afternoon in a bookshop/cafe with some book purchases and a good strong coffee from an espresso machine - something I hadn't had in Skagaströnd for 4 weeks. My Airbnb hosts, Audrey and Andy (UK ex-pats), were super hosts in every way - Audrey drove us to the hire car office to pick up the car on Friday; on Saturday night, the two of them took me out to find the best spot on the mountain for the Northern Lights, at a site across the fjord from town. The cloud got in the way and I only had my phone to work with, but the hot chocolate and lemon drizzle cake Audrey brought for the trip made up for two hours in the cold and lack of colour. After a late breakfast on Sunday, Audrey took me to two supermarkets to get the supplies I hadn't been able to buy locally. The rest of the day was spent wandering around, speeding through the Akureyri Art Museum, then returning for another coffee and lunch at the bookshop before catching the buses back to Blönduós and on to Skagaströnd late in the afternoon.

Local yarns

One of the things I love doing most when I travel, even at home, is having conversations with the locals. I've been fortunate to have several over recent weeks, but not as many as I'd like.

So far, there's been Sigrún, who has lived a lifetime in the area, growing up on a sheep farm, and still riding her horses. She also has lots of raven stories and has promised to share them with me for recording purposes, in Icelandic.

Magnús, who I spoke to for some time at the Opið Hús, has a wealth of information from his time in local governance (he's a former Mayor of Skagaströnd and chair of the Nes board) and industry, and knowledge about the birds, growing trees in Iceland, the control of ravens as pests and so much more. He was also quite incredulous at the idea of a country or town running out of water and of the dust storms I've been able to show on video.

My latest victim was the shuttle bus driver who does the trip from Skagaströnd to Blönduós and back several times a day, every day. While his English isn't great, we managed a 20-minute conversation about farming sheep and horses, and what the winter is like for farming.

My goal for next month is to add to my nest of local knowledge.