A Sense of Place: Musings about the New Work

Two months ago I had the opportunity to attend a workshop at Grafiikanpaja Aava where, under the tutelage of Juha Laakso and Raija Korppila, I learned the ImageOn photo etching technique. The workshop, titled, Print the Midnight Sun, was spearheaded by Shelley Thorstensen of Printmaker's Open Forum. Shelley taught Pronto Plate Lithography.

Lapaluoto, a town about 3 Km from the city of Raahe, Finland, is on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. In the summer months, the sun never sets. 

I, and a group of dynamic printmakers, spent the week-long workshop photographing, making prints, and reveling in the beauty of an expansive and serene landscape. 

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The photos here are just a few of the ones I took in and around Lapaluoto. The colors of the setting sun were absolutely exquisite.

These photos and many others are the inspiration behind the new work that is currently being finished for the fall shows. I turned some of these into photo screen prints and took some of the plates that I made in Juha and Raija's shop and continued to print from them. This new work uses the colors I observed in nature to create pictorial space and depth.

Being wholly present. That's a lesson I've learned and experienced through the process of making this series. In Finland, I was surrounded by crisp, clean air and inspiring landscape and camaraderie. I experienced stillness and the passing of time differently, and with that, a sense of mindfulness that is sometimes hard to achieve in my daily, running-around lifestyle. 

I've tried to imbue each of the new works in this series with that same sense of mindfulness. As I look at them and work on them, I realize that they are composed according to a sense of the geography in the way I experienced it. They tell the story of a small and generous sea community in a rural area of Finland that is timeless.

all images in this post © 2014 Gillian Pokalo