So Art is in Everyday Life

I've been fascinated by photographer Sally Mann for several years now. Her way of living, her work, her creativity is all very inspiring. Then I stumbled upon this documentary, through Fotografiska in Stockholm. Listen to how she explains how she sees art in her everyday environment and how she involves her family. That´s indeed an approach to life.

The door behind where it all started...

...or at least part of it. Behind this door is the house where my grandfather Frans was born in 1909 in Dalecarlia. They were nine siblings, he was youngest and his mother died when he was 16. They were not to well off, but the old wall paintings in one of the rooms tell us that there was creative joy. Frans was the first in his family who got to study, he worked hard and he created a wonderful life. He married Viola, from the same village, and became a musical director, conductor and teacher. They had three children, one of them my mother. When Frans got old, and couldn´t hear to well, he started to paint mainly landscapes. I remember him from my childhood as warm but full of a spectrum of deep feelings, a man who sometimes was caught by sadness.
We can learn a lot about ourselves by just looking a generation or two away. My children love his old house, now called the Bakery because people in the village still bake in the old oven there.

Is creativity divine or a ghost?

I love TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) - a conference, site and a meeting place for creativity, knowledge and great ideas in California. Not to long ago author Elisabeth Gilbert - who wrote the mega hit Eat, Love, Pray - spoke about how to nurture creativity. I watch this for the free thinking, the laughs and because it gives me relief when I struggle with my own writing. Looking forward to read her follow up Commited, that I got for Christmas.