HOME(S)

Everything is so clean and tidy at home now! I've been organising and cleaning (late at night, after work) for several days! 

It hasn't been this little stuff around for years.

But that is of course, because everything is now in bags and boxes in the farm house livingroom. And the place seriously looks like crap.

So after days of cleaning in the countryside I am actually dreaming about getting to organise and clean some more! But that would require the opportunity to some days off, so alas, lets see when the universe grants me a few. That, plus some renovation, and things will eventually be tip-top! (Uh.)

The reason to all of this is of course that you can now buy our lovely city home.

All though I've renovated it myself it has been on rent all along from my grandmother, who has now decided to sell it. It's sad but was of course inevitable at some point. Although I hadn't thought I'd move out to the countryside permanently before my kids were grown up so that will take some time to adapt, even though I've been living out in the peryphery most of the time by now already...

AN AUTUMN AFTERNOON

I was working from home today and took a long lunch break to go out on a little adventurous walk with Dag.

He had all his gear with him, and warned me not to step on the fallen leaves, as those would trap you and suck you right down to the hot lava core of earth.
(Good to know!)

It got a bit colder here in between and nature shifted colours so quickly - but now wonder; it's almost October by now!

Autumn textures.

Autumn leaves.

Autumn trees.

 We sat down on a rock for a little picnic.
The cats joined in; they often follow us around when out on walks!

 Everything tastes better when outdoors.


The sandwhich was so big for Dag he had to close his eyes in order to eat it.

And then we continued our little afternoon adventure in search of magic trees, watching out for dangerous rock-bombs dropping from the sky, evil cows and all the other things the vivid imagination of a four year old can come up with.

APPLES, THE BLACK BERET AND THE PONCHO

It's that time of the year! The beret is out and the poncho is on and you can totally wrap yourself in it and there are apples everywhere:
It's autumn!

THROWBACKS, OLDIES

There has been this old-photos challenge going on on Facebook lately. Not that I am sure why everything has to be a challenge actually. The only challenge for me would be to actually make the effort to post something (when there are lots of better things to do), or then to find the time to do so, which I guess in this case is the case, as it meant trying to dig out some old photos). As I was young before digital cameras came most old photos of me are in albums at my parents house and in one box in my basement somewhere, and the amounts are of course nowhere near the selfie parades of today's world. I pretty much only remember having this photo of me from around or before this millennium. But alas, I did find some more. And I did have a little laugh and also a nostalgic smile looking at some of these. As my blog will soon turn nine years (fanfares!) and as I will get yet another year older around the same time prtt prtt PRTTT (=trumpet sound) and have often posted something old about me because of that, but nowadays usually post everything with at least a six month delay, I will do this a bit in advance. Oldies on parade, here you go!

It's 1982 and I turn one year old and have chubby cheeks and look an awful lot like my son. Or, he sure did look an awful lot like me when he was a bébé.

My sister and I sit on a rock some years later. 

And then we pretended we were on the beach in Miami where my dad had gone for business and bought us these sundresses. My youngest sister apparently wears the pink one still as a nightie. She's rather tiny. There are not so many photos of me with my youngest sister. One where we are rocking her in a swing when she's a baby and we are wearing these really strange Playboy sweatpants & shirt combo that my grandmother had bought when she was on holiday in Ibiza. "There's a cute rabbit on them..".

So here's one instead by the cabin lake shore where we are pretending to be street musicians. In 1990 or so.

Jump some five-six years forward and I'm fifteen and in a drama group and featured in this leaflet. I dyed my hair and all my clothes black at that time. My friend dug this one up some time ago and it gave me a laugh indeed. 

And then I turned sixteen and seventeen and was a hippie but these ones you have seen at some point already. I also notice that it was possible to get caffe lattes by then.

Mmmyup.

I still have that dress, a yellow 1960's sundress that used to belong to my grandmother's sister. Not that if probably fits me. But it's in a chest in the bedroom along with some other clothes that I still hold on to.

And now we are in the digital age! Here's me as an design student in 2002 or so when we had a photography course and got to take photos with a digital camera.


Not sure how to end this one here so I'll do it with the latest photo there is of me, which, suitably for our age is a selfie from earlier today when I found this field with sunflowers that one could pick and that was a nice thing for my Monday.

(For the recored,, being older is a lot better than you'd picture it to be when you are say, 15 or 21. Phew.)

RED WINE, PENCILS AND HOURS OF GOOD MUSIC / DR.SKETCHY WENT SWINGING SIXTIES

Last Saturday we hosted the latest Dr.Sketchy Anti-Art School night at our studio, this time with a 1960's theme.

Tinker Bell and I are the hosts for Dr.Sketchy's Helsinki nights.
Picture by Aiju.


We wanted to give the night some extra psychedelic vibes so we fixed a projection with some 1969 Joshua Light show that started looping in the background when the evening turned darker, letting the music turn from sixties pop to psychedelia.







Tinker Bell drawing behind the curtains.


Dr.Sketchy has been on a hiatus in Helsinki, the first one after the break being the Marie Antoinette themed night last June. We plan to keep another evening during autumn still, so follow the Facebook page for updates, or check our studio's page. You will obviously here about any future nights here as well.

A couple of drawings from the evening by Janne Korsumäki.

And a few by Kerttu Jaatinen. (We used our red-and-white striped screen in the beginning of the night and I was happy to see it being used in the sketches as well).

After the night was over we still had the projections , some red wine and The Doors (of which the two later definitely bringing memories from my year studying painting back in 2001...) which called for some regular after work chill. Or grooving, which ever way you see it.

You can see an instagram video of one of the longer drawing sessions here, and at our studio's instagram account @studioshangrila (which you should of course follow in any case!)

CORDUROY

 Twenty two years and one month ago, pretty exactly, I started seventh grade wearing this same vest.
And a black body (that was actually not a body but my mom's black gymnastics leotard) and a pair of batik-patterned loose trousers. I remember being very proud of that outfit.
(I stepped in to a trendier shop the other day and suddenly felt very old saw my early teenage years hang on the racks with pants just like that. And those ribbed tops with bold stripes and strings that crosses/ties in the front. Aaaaaaa!)

But yes, the vest I am still wearing ! It is actually my mother's old from the 1970's.
Although if I've eaten I am having a hard time closing it.

Or then I just really need to suck in my pilates powerhouse. Good practice.
The suspender skirt is self made and the bag vintage.

SHOWPONY SCHEDULES

Ah, Mondays, Tuesdays, beginning of the week. Mondays used to be may day off to adapt from the weekend rhythm to the weekly one, but this year Dag goes to his play-club on Monday mornings too, which means Mondays has become as shitty as everyone else’s, waking-up wise at least.

When you are away performing it’s often odd to adapt your weekend work schedule to your week-schedule. Although I am used to an irregular routine  - the last four years of my harbour work, when I was working as the supervisor, we did five days of evening shift from 15hrs to 1 am, then three days off and then seven days of morning shift from 05:30 to 14:30 (and then we had six days off). I remember reading that mixing shifts like that is not good for your sleep (or for you) as you never really adapt to any regular rhythm, but I can’t really state that my routines would have improved that much nowadays either...

Performing life when away often looks something like this, only the small details vary.

DAY 1

06:00am Leave to airport far too early, especially taking into consideration evening teaching (in this example, you can fill in : performing sometimes too) the night before and late night packing (as always, no matter how well you think you’ve prepared it this time).

Consume crazily expensive coffee and smoothies at airport. 

10:00am Arrive to destination, drag your just-a-few-grammes-below-maximum-weight-suitcase(s) along in public transportation to where you are staying.

(Here we are arriving in St.Pauli in Hamburg the other week. The rest of the details and pics will come from that trip. -)

Wait for about an hour for the man with the keys to show up. Enjoy some coffee and a random baguette (the rest of the trip will be healthier!) while you wait.

12:00pm Then sleep. Sleep sleep sleep

18:00 Get up, do some stretching and go grab something as healthy as possible around the corner. Buy some almonds for backstage snacks.


(a little good-late-afternoon-morning peek-a-boo from the next window)

20:00 Put make up on

21:00 Head over to the venue.

23:00-02:00 Perform. Sip on that one; just one, backstage GT during the evening.

03:00 snack on some almonds, project:wash-your-face-and-roll-your-hair-for-the-next-day and then to bed.

DAY 2

13:00 get up. Do pilates. Colleague does yoga. Have some lemon water, almonds and bio yoghurt. Whoop whoop!

14:00 out for a walk, some fruits and soy latte.

(We saw somebody who'd just gotten married.)

16:00 Soup and summer rolls, yum!

17:00 Back home to do some office work - and have a liiiittle bit of prosecco while at it.
(Here working on the Ruby Knuckles Sextet website, by @ruskarieban)

19:00 Late afternoon/early evening power nap

20:00 make up time!

21:30  Heading over to the venue. No GT today, this evening will be healthier

(Backstage. The usual.)

23:00 -02:00 showtime ok maybe that one backstage GT after all

03:00 SHOTS! (oops) 

04:00 MORE SHOTS (oh shit)

05:00 apparently more shots, or something.

DAY 3

12:00 Lemon water. almonds. Damn it, why don’t we have any chips!

13:00 painful movement from place A to B. About a litre of mint tea and a grilled sandwich that could have had so much more cheese on it.

02:30 realising you are way too tired, even though you just had half a litre of cola, to spent time in one of the most awesome places there is (well nerd-wise at least; MiWuLa) and that you are just going to have to come back here the next time SANS shots the night before instead.

03:00 drag yourself up the stairs

SLEEP

06:00 force yourself out again to eat and at this point anything goes

(But we were lucky that this was really good though. Vegan comfort food at Saints & Sinners. Have to go back the next time and eat up the rest of the menu.)

20:00 A quick yoga nidra to try to even up the lack of sleep from last night

20:30 On with the face again

21:30 stack up on chips on the way to the venue. Arrive. No GT’s

(Arrived. Face glued on. Ready. I can do this!)

22:00 ok one GT.

23:00-02:00 Showtime!

03:00 chips. packing

04:00 SLEEP

DAY 4

(peanut butter and vegan cheeseeeemmmm)

09: wake up, grab soy latte, drag 20-something kilos of costumes and make up to the airport, unpack (well MAYBE, if you’re good to yourself). Go to sleep and then wake up and it’s MONDAY, DAMN!