How did I get so lucky?

This week in Sweden has been great, ever since I moved into my place I feel at home, relaxed, happy, motivated!
I met two amazing girls on Wednesday, Karin Öst and I had a thrift store shopping extravaganza! I met her on myspace, I heart the internet! She is the sweetest girl ever with the best style I have seen in Sweden, she is a clothing designer who makes amazing clothes www.lilyofthevalley.se inspired by the '50's styles she sports and made with vintage fabrics! We went to 5 shops around town, I was so happy to find cheap prices and spend time with such a wonderful girl I bought buttons,a school bag, knitting needles and yarn, an iron, a cute bird needlepoint, and a hot dress for my imaginary band everything was so cheap!
We are going to try to meet often , she is going to show me how to use her serger and bake me cupcakes!!! I am the luckiest girl!
After Karin and I parted I met with the awe inspiring Johanna Billing , a director who was in Jönköping to install a video exhibition for the Film Festival that is taking place here. http://www.makeithappen.org/johannabilling.html
I had found her via myspace last year when I was doing Swedish music research, she has a mini record label that makes vinyls and CDs for talented musician friends, so I was amazed when she replied to my e-mail about meeting while she was in town. We met at the Konstmuseum (art museum) where she was installing her show and we went searching for a bar that wasn't too stuffy...hard to find around here so we settled at our third scouting location, she bought me a beer and enlightened me!
We talked about music and how it inspires our lives, most of her videos started from having a particular song in her head, they are about transitions people and cities go through, cyclical life experiences (which is something I always look at) ...I couldn't believe I was sitting there with such a talented artist...I feel like that so much in my life I am so fortunate to have so many amazingly artistic friends that brighten my existence! I was worried I wouldn't have that in Sweden, but I have been unworried!
My talk with Johanna left me excited about the possibilities I have in life, with the videos and the music and art I want to make.
THEN ...on Thursday I went to see her opening and was completely taken aback....I had to hold back tears, it was so beautiful and meaningful...my eyes, ears, heart and soul were treated to pure bliss. She was showing 4 videos, two blown up large on wooden platforms in a big empty room and two others on televisions in other hiding spots in the magnificent museum and there was a table of dvds and mini dvd players showing an art project that she started in 2002 that entailed 20 Swedish musicians singing covers of You Don't Love Me Yet by Roky Erickson, the project was then carried on in like 16 other countries....
Her videos make so much sense to me, they don't have a set beginning or end , they loop and you can get into them wherever you start watching from, she does a lot of her videos without a word spoken just background sound and the camera does the narration.
I could go on for days about her , and she said she was glad to meet me! What did I do to become so lucky, she gave me two vinyl records of the soundtracks.
I am so grateful for meeting her and am forever indebted to her for sharing her time, knowledge and kindness with me, I am so looking forward to visiting her in Stockholm. Her boyfriend is an amazing musician Blood Music who is releasing a new EP in November and his best friend is my favorite new Swedish musician Racket&Ball!

Oh My happy days....I am in a dark computer room at the moment so I will end here and continue soon....
Ciao Natalie

Hem, ljuva hem

08/26/2007

Tonight I will be spending my first night in my new apartment! It's amazing how your outlook can change when your expectations don't muddle your view. When we first went to see the little room apartment last week the overall feeling was of apprehension, it was so small the kitchen and bathroom leave just enough elbow room to turn around on the stop. The stove/oven looked like a toy, a rusty old toy. We tried to appear cool as we walked from my top floor room to the basement where I will be showering, oh dear. I knew Sigrid, my host for the past week and a half, was worried about me living in another town a 25 minute bus ride from school in a place she would never think twice about living in , but that quaint little room set off and imaginative spark in me and I knew I would soon calling it home. We went back yesterday to move my new little bed in (used for $50) and the place looked so so magically different , it looked so happy to see us again instead of like a lone little orphan waiting to be loved. It was golden hour in the beautiful town of Huskvarna, the yellow stucco house lies between foresty hills with an apple tree property, tomato plants grown by my landlord's 13 year old son (this holds huge personal symbolism for me) and a well-trained German shepherd named Cisco, my own cats' name is Frisco ...the landlord enjoyed that! The girls I have been staying with are so kind and generous , they are supplying my with a lot of home accessories, including a comforter and amazing decorations from India, and they are even lending me their Huskvarna sewing machine. That is the most solid example of my living fate, Huskvarna is where the sewing machine was invented! No better place for a seamstress! My inner artist is beaming with the knowledge that it will be put to good use in this little getaway, my walls will be decorated with my loved ones art, letters, and photos that I brought to Sweden and those I will be getting in the mail. My address is Ståhlgatan 10 56144 HUSKVARNA Sweden I am so happy !!