Playing in Iceland

Last summer, Titi Zaadnoordijk spent two months in Iceland. In July she traveled around to explore the country and collect material. In August she had a residency spot at the Icelandic Textile Center in Blönduós.

Case of the heart

I have been a visual artist, poet and performer for over 35 years. The techniques I work in most are drawing and lino. I also make artist books and objects.

When I was 39 years old I became a mother, also a matter of the heart. Raising children takes a lot of time, especially since I was doing it alone. When my two daughters were about 10, one day I remembered how lucky I was in the beginning of my career, with time to play in creating. I realized this, because I was playing again.

In 2019, with my daughters almost out of the house, I came up with the plan to go on one more summer vacation with the three of us. Partly because I found out that you can also go by car and boat, Iceland was chosen. My daughters had been there once before and I knew they would like to go again. 

Residency

Then I thought, that if I was going to make such a big trip anyway, it would be very nice to stay longer, to start working in Iceland as well. I was really looking forward to working for a while, undisturbed by daily worries.

Getting my bearings online, I came across residencies at the Icelandic Textile Center. You could apply at any time and based on your research question you would be given a decision immediately. No rat race, fine. The thing is, I really like lace and buttons. I get excited about fabrics and tape. Costume is a subject in my work. In addition, I sometimes embroider in my drawings, crochet a large school of tiny copper fish, embroider underwear with an imprint of bodies, and sew sweater men as an ode to the skipper's sweater. So I signed up and I was allowed to come in the month of August. 

Iceland vacation country

July was travel month and my daughters and I traveled with my car. After two days on the boat from Hirtshals, Denmark, we arrived in Seysdisfjordur in the far east of Iceland. We had almost four weeks to explore Iceland. The nature was overwhelming, so vast, the rocks, solidified lava fields and eternal snow. We walked on a glacier and swam among the ice. Saw boiling mud pools, lots of waterfalls and small and large geysers. Smelled sulphur fumes. We also spotted puffins and made a trekking with backpacks and a tent through the mountains. 

Girls' School

My work month was about to begin, I arrived in Blönduós on August 1. The Icelandic Textile Center is located in a former girls' school. Because of the weekend no one from the organization was there, also there were no colleagues yet. So I was alone in the building all day and poked around everywhere. There were still remnants from the time of the girls' school such as the stoves for school cooking in the basement and in the hallways large wooden frames with photos of the girls grouped per year, the last one from 1978. 

It was immediately clear that I would be working in the large studio, a nice space under a wooden roof overlooking the river and the fjord. I started there first with tidying up, arranging the cupboards and wiping the blackboards clean. I unpacked my materials brought from Holland, advantage of traveling with my own car, among others paper, colored pencils, brushes, gouges and sewing stuff. Also the material collected in Iceland got a place, such as stones and feathers but also an old curtain and a tablecloth from an abandoned house, pieces of lace and an old book from second hand stores and pictures of photos and leaflets from museums. By evening the next colleague arrived and during the week the rest of the seven residency colleagues. 

A nice space under a wooden roof overlooking the river and the fjord

Mail from Iceland

The first week I was mainly busy with the orders for my Post-Iceland campaign. As soon as I knew I was going to work in Iceland I started to advertise for it: for 12,50 people could order mail from me, from Iceland. Despite the fact that I had already done the addresses and envelopes in the Netherlands, I was still disappointed with how much time it took me to make more than 100 pieces of art in circulation (four different versions). 

At work

Now that my Post-out-Iceland had been sent, it was finally time for the real thing. I began by visiting the adjacent Textile Museum to research the traditional clothing of Iceland. I made small pencil studies to list the different costumes. A fun discovery was that the Icelandic woman's hair is not tucked away tightly, as in the Netherlands, but is allowed to blow freely under her black cap. One small photograph in particular of a woman with flapping braids inspired me to make large drawings with wide mouths and gaily flapping hair. 

I made small pencil studies to list the different gestures

Most of the participants in the artist-in-residency came to weave, with yarns dyed on-site or not, so they worked in other rooms, in the weaving loft, in the dye lab, and in the digital lab. As a result, I was fortunate to have the large studio to myself most of the time, and there were lots of tables there, so my work could stay even if someone else needed a table for a while. The two large (blackboard) walls were permanently at my disposal. I had stretched wires in front of them so that I could use pegs to hang my drawings for quiet viewing while I worked at the table. 

Textile Center Digital lab

I was having a perfect time in my temporary studio and was working hard, especially on paper, drawing, painting and embroidering. In addition, I wanted to use some of the specific opportunities in the Textile Center. So I set to work to design a motif for the digital sewing machine in the digital lab, the newly established high-tech arm of the textile center. And with great pleasure, with the help of the workshop assistant, I transformed a fish I had drawn into a digital fish, enabling me to have that same fish embroidered in gold on a worn-out undershirt, Heart of a Fisherman. And since I was busy, I also had that same machine embroider fish to make an apron for my mother. 

Over forty people ended up visiting, with some nice encounters

Closing Exhibition

The last weekend of August we organized an exhibition in the dye studio with a few works per person. In addition, I had cleaned up and set up the large studio so I could show the rest of my new work and continue working in the meantime. Over forty people ended up visiting, with some nice encounters. 

Back in the Netherlands

Meanwhile, my schedule is suddenly full again with exhibitions and artist book fairs. So I'm framing, writing texts, updating website and so on. I also have my vegetable garden pretty much back in order, the man-sized weeds are gone and the pumpkins have been harvested. Although I found it quite difficult at times to stay in a dorm-like setting during my residency, I am still happy and content; it offered me more than I could have imagined to be able to work without distractions and in a new and different environment. I look back on a month of hard and satisfying work; my residency became a month of play.

www.titi.nl 

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