A week ago, something shifted. When I try to explain it, I get a black box on my mind. Literally a block. I don´t know where it was, if it´s gone, or just moved onto the side for now.

This is not world changing news, but to me it feels like a big step forward in my creative practice. I wanted to share the story, as I believe many of you go through the same.

Since I started taking my artwork seriously, a couple of years ago, I guess I have struggled with the same questions as everybody else:

What shall I picture?

What is my style?

And most importantly:

How do I express feelings through my art? How can I create something that makes the viewer feel something?

Yes, I know. To get the answer to these questions you need to show up. In your studio, every day. Create something, every day. Try something new. Fail at something new. Try again. Do not be afraid. Experiment. Find out why you don´t like something. Or why you do like it. Keep going.

Meditate. Journal. Go on artist dates.

I have done all that. Yet, I didn´t expect a shift like the one I just had.

Recently, I started working very small, the ready mounted pictures only measuring 15 X 15 centimeters (6x6 inches). It´s more restrictive, but also liberating, as I can only fit a few elements into the frame. It becomes more concentrated, more focused. And the small sized work led to something.

I have always wanted to integrate my passion for astrology in my art. I have done that in some pictures, but I do not think my previous pictures create the feeling of the particular celestial transit. (I actually think they look more like something taken from a fairytale).

Then came last Sunday. I spent the whole day reading and watching videoes about the upcoming lunar eclipse, which I found very fascinating. I sat down and made a sketch. Next day I started stitching the picture.

Eclipses are portals in time. New doors open, and as you enter (not always voluntarily), the door behind you shuts. My intention was to convey how this transition can feel both scary and exciting. Like setting off into the dark night where you don´t really see where you are going.

While in the flow, there is no need to rest. Onto next picture.

Another thing I started experimenting with recently, is textile paint. The background of the eclipse picture is finger painted in blues, purple and black and for my next work I continued having fun smearing paint onto canvas fabric and then rinsing it under water untill it got a nuance I liked.

Here I wanted to share the optimism and warmth of the planet Jupiter. I like to think of him as the kind and funny uncle who loves you to bits, who always believes in you and supports you and makes you feel you can succeed in anything. In his transit right now, he shines through Leo. This is an invitation to be creative and dare to show who you are. Be childish. Be romantic. Have fun.

For me, it was quite liberating to do the planet in these warm colours and not staying true to how you´ll see Jupiter in photos. As soon as I had stitched the lion, I knew he had to go and be replaced by the stars (the constellation of Leo). Actually, the lion felt like going a step back, to the fairytale.

And the came the Sun in Virgo.

As Sun enters Virgo late August, my favourite season of the year starts. Le fin de saison, like they say in France. The end of the hectic summer holidays, a period of calm before the real start of autumn. I am really pleased with this picture, especially daring to make the sun green and the background brown. These muted colours are reflecting the tranquility of this period, in addition to be the classic Virgo colours.

And here is the final picture I made this week. Neptune in Aries. Neptune, the planet of spirituality, inspiration and dreams, moved into fiery, brave Aries earlier this year. This is the time to take the plunge. To realize what you have been dreaming of. Take the vision board down from the wall and take action. And that feels thrilling!

One week, four small pictures.

The shift for me is that with these four pictures I managed to convey my feelings. And maybe spark a feeling in the viewer, as well?

While work flows now, this doesn´t mean that I have found a final answer and will continue to create the same stuff for ever. I am sure I´ll go back to feeling frustrated again, and that the frustration will lead me further.

It reminds me of learning a new language: In the beginning you don´t understand anything, then you start to separate words and think you know what people are talking about. Suddenly, you manage to say a whole sentence yourself! That even is understood! Though it is not long before you realize you have still a lot to learn. You feel like there is never any progress, that you study and study without getting any further. Untill another day, where you suddenly can participate in a conversation. And that way it continues. You might never reach a level where you can say you completly master the language.

Right now, my artwork feels like being able to say a whole sentence that gets understood.

I will enjoy that feeling as long as it lasts.

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I am a good cook, but when it comes to baking, especially cakes, the result normally looks like a building hit by an earthquake: Flat and in ruins. If you think the cake on the photo doesn´t look too bad, you´re right. The disaster is hidden by a thick layer of chocolate cream and sprinkled with orange zest. Why do my cakes always have a sinken whole in the middle? The cake itself is also uneven as I couldn´t get it out of the tray in one piece, and had to push the bits together to make a round shape. Something that at least resembled a cake. Then covered it up.

However, that doesn´t stop me from trying. People around me always seem happy with my imperfect cakes (I guess because the alternative is no cake).

This is the lesson I try taking with me when making art:

It doesn´t need to be perfect. Imperfect can be good.

When it comes to cooking, it´s another story.

My mum hated cooking, so me and my siblings always had free hands in the kitchen. She was just happy that someone else made something edible, even if it mostly was waffles, pizza or pasta.

My dad (my parents were divorced) was quite opposite. He loved to cook and to experiment with food. Not always with great succes, for instance when he accidentally hit a sea gull with his car, and took the bird home to cook it. The kitchen was filled with the smell of rancid fish oil, and no one were even tempted to taste the bird. Another time, he met some fishermen who had got a basking shark in their net, and bought an enourmous amount of the meat for next to nothing. Basking shark meat doesn´t taste very good, but is great for making burgers. We had shark burgers several times a week for many, many years. I am sure there´s still a pack or two in the bottom of the deep freezer of my dad´s ex wife.

My dad taught me to be creative when cooking.

Add 20 + years in Greece, where I had to cook everything from scratch (as you couldn´t buy, nor would anyone eat, prefab food). I became a confident cook.

But I am not a confident artist. Creativity in one field doesn´t naturally transfer to another area.

This is what I want to take with me from cooking to making art:

• Do not follow the recipe. That is making a copy. Yes, read the list of ingredients and let that sparkle your imagination, but make your own stuff.

• Open the fridge and let what´s inside inspire you. See what materials, textures, threads and colours you have available. Let that lead you to create something.

• Don´t measure everything! Add a pinch or a dash - trust your intuition when it comes to what is needed.

• Always experiment.

• There is always the compost bin, if the result is a total failure. And then you start again!

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IF YOU ARE A FOODIE, TOO, YOU´LL LOVE THE CREATIVE RETREAT IN ANDALUCIA NEXT SPRING. Good food, good company, workshops and inspiring excurcions - read more HERE.

Come on, who doesn´t dream of their own vineyard? For some reason, growing grapes and making wine sounds so much more romantic than growing strawberries and making jam. I am certainly not going to deny that I found life on a vineyard (with a handsome winemaker) very attractive. Back in 2003 I read The Ripening Sun: One Woman and the Creation of a Vineyard, where British Patricia Atkinson gives her account of life as a vineyard farmer in France. I wanted to be her. I even wrote a Mills and Boon novel located to a vineyard in Tuscany (such a cliche). The novel was never published (though I pride myself that after sending in the synopsis, the publisher actually asked for the whole manuscript).

I sometimes believe that Universe responded to my dream, because when I met Kristian, the love of my life, in 2021, he came with a vineyard and almond farm in the mountains of Andalucia. I came to live and work here in 2022, a few weeks after I had turned 60.

With my experience from running a guesthouse/retreat centre in Greece, we decided to adapt the farm for tourism, as with a rather small vineyard (in a good year we could produce 7000 bottles) you really need several income sources. After a few months of restauration work, we received our first airbnb guests and then continued with Mediterranean cooking classes, retreats and wine tours.

It sounds like a lot of work, but still, I had plenty of free time on my hands. Living so remotely, with a 15 minutes drive to get to the closest shop, you really spend a lot of time at home. You don´t just pop out to meet friends, go for a coffee or return to the shop to buy what you forgot. And as always in my life, when I don´t know what to do, I do something creative. Eventually, I sat up a studio in our guest bedroom and from then on I was aiming at becoming a professional artist, working on my art (almost) every day.

While I was happy that I finally both have my own studio and lots of uninterrupted time to create, Kristian was always busy: Fixing anything from a broken water pipe to a doorhandle that was stuck, taking down old almond trees and chopping wood, repairing the road after a heavy rainfall, maintaining the tractor and the cars. Plus pruning vines, harvesting and making wine (here we had help from volunteers, including me).

It is brutal work, and he is not getting any younger. His body is saying stop.

Like me, Kristian also want to have time to be creative and we´d also love to work together on new projects. Kristian is a great welder and forger, with a talent for turning metal scrap and old pieces of wood into art and craft.

We have loved living here, but now it is time to let go of the vineyard dream. We have put the farm out for sale.

There is a certain sadness in to saying farewell to a dream, whether the dream was realized or not. In a way it feels like giving up. But, the thing is: Life evolves. You are not the same person you were five years ago. Literally, as most of the cells in your body have been renewed. What was perfect five years ago, might not be perfect today. Just because you follow a dream, it doesn´t mean you have to stick with it for the rest of your life.

Maybe your dream wasn´t so nice, after all. So what? You would not know if you had not gone for it.

New dreams emerge from the old one. I am not sure I would have started my artist journey if not my life journey had taken me to Spain. And now it is our artist dreams that will lead us onto a new adventure.

Hello, I am Tove, the woman writing Soul Stitching.

I am a Norwegian textile artist and foodie, currently living on a vineyard farm in Andalucia with the soulmate, Kristian, and our two dogs, India and Mali. In this newsletter I share the good, the bad and the ugly stories of my artist journey, inspiration to become an artist late in life, as well as my passion for living your dreams at 60 + (or at any age, really).

To see more of my artwork, please visit my website.

Life is an adventure. Please join me for what I hope is an inspirational journey.

I believe that life, for women, begins at sixty, because that is when we begin to be free.

Isabelle Ducrot, Italian artist and writer

It is never too late to become an artist. When I was starting my journey to become a “real” artist at 60 +, I had a lots of doubts. Would it really be worth it at my age? As I am self taught, would my work ever be good enough or even taken seriously?

So many of us believe that there is an expiry date for following our dreams. In some cases that can be true, but when it comes to art, it is NOT.

Female artists bloom at your age or older! my fifteen years younger artist friend said, when I was starting out, sounding almost jealous of my age.

A quick google search confirmed this. So many women finally finding their path late in life. Women choosing to follow their soul´s calling, despite not being in their 20s any longer (the age where we, in or age-phobiac society, are supposed to have figured it all out). Women giving us great art, because they dared follow a dream or because they no longer could resist making art.

Not only that. Many of these women had to learn their own way. They didn´t get a formal art education, which we often see as a stamp of approval.

Here are three female artists to be inspired by (make sure you click on their names to explore more of their artwork):

Trude Viken (b. 1969)

Norwegian artist Trude Viken had her debut and breakthrough in 2018 - in New York, after having been discovered on Instagram by American artist and collector Richard Prince. A fairytale story, no? Yes, but also hard work over many years.

Viken wanted to apply for the Norwegian National Academy of the Arts when she was young. Her parents supported her, but were also concerned about a secure future for their daughter, so Viken ended up choosing an education as a nurse assistant instead. As a mother of three (twins plus one) she was busy working and taking care of her family, and didn´t have the chance to make art her priority for many years. In 2012, at the age of 43, she finally applied for the academy, but was rejected because her english was not good enough.

Viken says that her success came when she finally was able to work full time as an artist. She normally spends 10 hours every day, including Saturday and Sunday, in her studio.

In 2022 her collage of 259 self portraits set sales record for a Norwegian living artist.

Source. Interview (in Norwegian).

Isabella Ducrot (b. 1931)

Italian Isabella Ducrot didn´t pick up a brush untill her fifties, and had her first international solo exhibition in France in 2024, at the age of 93. Living in a palazzo in Rome, surrounded by gorgeous works from famous artists, married to a man who ran a luxury travel company, getting to travel to exotic countries and amassing an amazing collection of rare textiles from places like Kashmir, Uzbekistan and Tibet - Ducrot has lived a life most of us would envy.

Early in their marriage, Ducrot showed some of her writings and textiles designs to her husband, which he dismissed. She says he wanted to protect her, because he loved her. Luckily, she had friends who encouraged her after having seen her very first painting and a patchwork children blanket she had made, which lead to a commission of another tapestry, made from the beautiful textiles she had collected on her travels. And slowly Ducrot became fully an artist, mixing her love of textiles with painting.

She has dealt with insecurity, shame and other people´s expectations of how who she should live. Being rich, beautiful and living a luxurious life was something that was against her - she was not taken seriously. Not any more. Recently Ducrot said in an interview:

I have never been so happy.

Source. Source (YouTube).

La Filature - Sandrine Torredemer (b.1967)

While French Sandrine Torredemer, known as La Filature, learned (from her grandma), to stitch before she could write, embroidery was only a hobby for many years. Every evening, she would grab a needle and thread, isolate herself to do something that made her feel good. Her dayjob and career was as an urban planning engineer, something that seems far from art, but that later came to show up in her tiny stitched and appliqued pictures.

She made the picture that became the start of her journey as a professional artist in 2018. During a roadtrip in France, she had bought a magazine where she got inspired by a photo of the swimming pool in Toulon, and while her partner was driving, she was stitching. Her kids encouraged her to create an Instagram account, and La Filature was born.

Four years later, after a serial of tragic personal events, she left the daytime job to work fulltime on her art. While her postcard size pictures have that happy feeling of lazy summer holidays, she said:

I stitched not to cry.

Source. Source.

DO YOU WANT SOME INSPIRATION ON YOUR ARTISTIC JOURNEY? JOIN US FOR THE CREATIVE RETREAT IN ANDALUCIA IN MAY 2027.

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Hello, I am Tove, the woman behind Soul Stitching.

I am a Norwegian textile artist and foodie, currently living on a vineyard farm in Andalucia with the love of my life, Kristian, and our two dogs, India and Mali. In this newsletter I share the good, the bad and the ugly stories of my artist journey, inspiration to become an artist late in life, as well as my passion for living your dreams at 60 + (or at any age, really).

To see more of my artwork, please visit my website.

Before moving to Spain, I lived for more than 20 years in Greece, a year and a half in Paris, and - probably the most exotic - on a tiny island off the coast of Norway. Now we have put the farm out for sale, as we want to try another way of living with more focus on art and creativity.

Life is an adventure. Please join me for what I hope is an inspirational journey.

We all have a tiny monster sitting on our shoulder, with a loud voice that constantly critizes. When I recently went to Stockholm for a few days, he was all about the expenses (To a party! Really!) and since I came back, he has constantly been shouting that I need to go back to my creative practice (You just took a break, for heaven´s sake!).

I spent some magical days in Sweden. My sister has a sommarstuga (a cabin) on the outskirts of the Swedish capital, and it is just Insta-picture perfect! The flowerfilled garden, the little pond, the trees and the summer sky all adds up to the beauty. Being able to sit outside all evening is such a luxury in Scandinavia.

But, like we all know, when family and friends come together (it was my sister´s 50th birthday), nothing is perfect bliss. We´re humans after all, not created by AI.

As always when I spend some time with her, I got really irritated with my sister because she´s so unbelievably unorganized and such a mess. My inner monster reminds me that I am an old, nagging bitch, and what is it to me that stuff falls out of her cupboards when you open the doors, that she is so stressed that she forgets both her shopping list and what she needs to shop, and that she doesn´t own a decent salad bowl. She gets to choose how she wants to live her life, it is none of your business!

Then there is my brother, who at every party makes sure that he gathers a small court of admirers around him so he can brag about his adventurous lifestyle. Not to mention my brother in law, who sits burried in his book while the bombs drop around him. My one cousin who never lift a finger to help, while his sister is inable to just relax. There are kids dropping their stuff everywhere and grown ups who extinguish their cigarette in the law and don´t pick up the butt.

Not exactly enough drama to create a Hollywood movie, but I am sure Bergman could have found some inspiration for his films. Those familiar behavioural patterns that never seem to change, even if we do. It seems like I never manage to stop beeing the oldest sister who naturally knows best and walks around with raised eyebrows.

Somehow, this picture that I made this winter, reminds me of the Stockholm gathering. A bunch of individuals, moving through life in our own way.

My inner monster points out that the idyllic settings should have inspired me to at least do some sketches and reminds me that I spent hours drinking buckets of coffee and chatting with my other sister instead, went swimming in the lake every day and even had shots of whisky at midday. No art practice for five days! (Not entirely true, as my niece and I wrote a song for the birthday girl). Oh, that lovely walk through the forest and across the golden cornfield to the lake…

Now that all of me is finally back (I always feel I arrive in parts when I have travelled by plane - it goes too fast), I start to recover (and to miss my tribe). Though I feel that I need practicing dolce far niente, the sweetness of idleness, a little longer. Normally, the monster will scream untill I listen and do as told, but this quote by Oscar Wilde silenced him. For now.

“It is awfully hard work doing nothing.”

Eventually, maybe mañana, I´ll pick up the needle and continue to stitch. I am not used to being lazy and undiciplined, so learning to take it a bit more easy is an exercise. Besides, they say it is great for creative ideas. Monster does not agree.

What is your inner monster telling you?

Do you listen?

Since you made it this far, you might also be interested in these articles:

You might want to join our small group for a week of inspiring workshops, sightseeing (Alhambra, anyone?!), creativity, delicious food and lots of fun next spring in Andalucia, south Spain. Read more about the retreat HERE.

The hot summers here in the mountains have a certain beauty. The wild oat that covers the land around our farm glitters like gold in the sunshine and vibrate with the heat. In the night we have the starspecked skies and a welcoming freshness to the air.

Since we´re selling the farm, we´re not listed on Airbnb anymore and this is my first summer here not having to clean the house, make beds and take care of guests. It is also the first time in my life that I have plenty of uninterrupted time to be creative (though no cash for summer vacation or fun).

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It is too hot to do anything outside. So what to do? Create!

My first thought when I wake up in the morning is: What shall I make today? I have been working on some pictures and done some sketches, but when finishing one artwork I feel I need a break before I start on a new one. Let it rest a bit, enjoy - and listen to my inner muse if she tells me that it needs some changes.

One of the reasons we´re selling the vineyard, is that my husband is done being a farmer and winemaker, and wants to be more creative himself. He made the frame for The Sailor, using recycled pallet woods and forging the metal of the corners. I really look forward for us working more together. This (a gift for my sister) became a prototype, where we needed to figure out the best way to mount the stitched images in the frame.

When I don´t make pictures I make other stuff. It´s is incredible how much you can do when you have almost all the time in the world. I find so much inspiration here on Substack seeing what other people make, so I want to share my things, as well.

A dustcover for my sewing machine, which has been on the list for a long time. A blouse made from a sheet (having had an airbnb I have loads of old sheets I can use). A skirt made from a table cloth (it was stained, but I could avoid the stains when I cut out the pattern).

And then there are the Tour de France knittings:

I tend to claim that I am not a sport person, but I must admit I got hooked on the tour. Kristian is an old cyclist, and has followed the race for years. As it is on TV the hottest time of the day, there is hardly a more sensitive thing to do than relax in the sofa with a book or TV, and I started to watch, mainly at the beautiful French landscapes and villages. However, after Kristian explained the game (the tactics - cycling is like chess in a sport form!), I got enthusiastic. But no TV without a knitting. Last year, I took out all my bits and pieces of left over cotton yarn and knitted a patch each stage of the tour. This year, the blanket got a border. Plus this sweater (though it is really too hot to knit with wool).

BUT life is not just creative bliss.

We have wildfires. I experienced a fire close up in Greece, and what freaks me out when I think about it is how fast it spreads. Here at the farm we have two ways out, but one is in such a bad condition that I doubt that we could get away with our old New Beetle.

I recently downloaded an app (Wildfire Watch - I recommend it if you live in Andalucia or Valencia) and it gives an alert far too often. (But at least now I don´t need to go out all the time to check if I smell fire or hear helicopters or see smoke). The other day there was a fire close enough that I could see it from the terrace, which almost had me stop breathing from fear. Thank God, the firefighters reacted rapidly and got it under control within a few hours. Then yesterday, there was another huge forest fire not far from here. No, we were not at all threatened, but it still created that huge knot in my stomach. In fact, my whole body felt like a tight knot. I just want to escape.

It has been so hot lately, that you sometimes think that the landscape will start burning by itself.

Luckily, the temperature have dropped quite a bit, and this morning we went out at dawn to create a fire gate around the house. The work itself creates a risk of fire, so we took all possible precautions: Soaking all the grass first, and while Kristian was cleaning the ground with the tractor, I walked behind watering everything. It doesn´t look as pretty as before, but definitly is much safer. In a worse case scenary we could lock ourself in the house.

I wish I could say I feel at ease now, but I don´t. However, I feel better. I am also glad we have “done our duty” as farmers, clearing the land as good as we manage.

The threat of wildfires adds one more reason to the list of why we want to move. Right now, we actually have some serious interest in the farm, so we dare to dream and make plans for what will be next. Probably we´ll put our stuff in storage, buy a caravan and travel for a while. Checking out new places before we decide where we want to buy a home and settle. To be continued…

Meanwhile, I would like to clear our my studio, and I now offer 30 percent on all my pictures. Use the code SUMMER26. Visit my webshop HERE.

Now, tell me - is summer and creativity a good combo for you?

When I was 14, I moved with my mum, step dad and siblings to a small town on the south coast of Norway. This was my 7th home. Already after a couple of days, I knew I would never belong.

At school I was greeted as new bully material. A girl with a funny dialect, wearing glasses and braces, a head taller than everyone else. At my old school, I had been bullied to the point that I refused to go to school. Despite both my parents and teachers trying to resolve it, nothing changed. One of the main bullies was a coloured girl, and one day I had had enough and told her: “Shut up, you fucking n…er”. The bullying stopped from that moment, but I still feel guilty about having used the N-word. (Though sometimes I wonder if she ever feel guilty about all the things she called me.)

So at the new school, in the new town, as soon as I got a comment about my height, I simply turned to the guy and asked if he had shrunk in the washing machine. That was it.

Not being bullied, didn´t mean beeing accepted. I was still a weirdo. In this small town, girls were supposed to be pretty (and shorter than the boys) and pretty dumb. A girl raising her hand in class and getting good grades, especially in “male” subjects like math, was enough to classify you as not one of us. Desperate to be accepted, I started smoking, so I could join the other girls in the “secret” corner of the school yard during breaks. Eventually I got a few friends, but I never settled.

After a year and a half, finishing secondary school, I decided to move to Trondheim, where my dad lived with his new family and where I had lived untill I was eight (except for a year in Poland).

And the grass really was greener. Overnight, I went from being odd to being cool. I could wear old men suits that I bought on flea markets with my dad´s fisherman sweater and no one frowned. I would wear high heels and feel fabulous. My mixed up dialect was considered charming. I got new friends who were musicians, painters, writers - doing all sort of creative stuff, which I felt gave me “permission” to work on my writing and to create.

I felt comfortable. At home.

I could be ME.

If it hadn´t been for my dream about moving to Paris and become a writer, I probably would have lived happily ever after in Trondheim.

I moved to Paris, then Mykonos, Athens, Oslo, back to Greece, back to Norway and now Spain. I have moved for adventure, for jobs and for love.

After living in 16 different places, in 5 countries, in more homes than I can count, this is what I have learned:

• Your home is the very foundation of your being. It needs to feel solid. That it supports you. Living is a place where you don´t feel like you belong, is like living in a marriage with a partner who isn´t right for you. You´ll spend a lot of energy trying to change stuff that can´t be changed.

• If you believe the grass is greener another place, you´re probably right. Thrusting your instinct, listening to your heart, is never wrong. But that doesn´t mean everything will be smooth and easy. I loved living in Trondheim at that time, but life at home was hell, with my dad and his wife steering towards a divorce and my little sisters caught in their fighting and quarreling. I spent as little time as possible at home, and as a result my school grades dropped and I didn´t pass my final exams.

• Living in a place that feels wrong because you have a great career won´t make you happy. At least it didn´t make me happy. Living in Oslo, I loved my job as a foreign reporter, but that city and I have frequencies that do not match. Staying felt like I would sacrifice a part of my soul in exchange for prestige and a good salary.

• Trying to fit in a place that feels wrong will probably just make you unhappy. I tried for years in Greece. When you picture Greece, you probably have an image of small white washed houses, narrow streets and turquoise waters. That was the Greece I feel in love with when I came to Mykonos in 1984, in addition to a community where I met like minded people. However, the Greek I married, came from the mainland up north, and wanted to live close to his family. When I first came there, I could not believe such an ugly place could be Greek territory! With kids and family, I decided to make it work, and we finally settled on the outskirts of a little village with views that could fool me to believe I was living in Tuscany or Provence. I went back to being a weirdo, commonly referred to as the tall German woman (all north Europeans were believed to be German) . Again, I never fitted in.

Also, what I have realized after all these moves, is that I need to live somewhere I find beautiful. Beauty nourishes my soul (ok, that sounded like a cliche, but it is nevertheless true). When I first admitted this to myself, I felt like a snob. A privileged north European woman, whith champagne problems. Yes, I am aware that for many people dreaming about moving to another place will never be anything but a dream. That millions of people even risk their lives trying to moved to somewhere better.

I am lucky. I have the luxury of choice. So now, when our farm is out for sale and we plan a move to a new place, I can choose somewhere I find beautiful. Somewhere that feels right. I am grateful for that.

Before I leave, I want to remind you of the creative retreat we´ll have here in Andalucia May 27th to June 3rd next year. If Alhambra is on your bucket list, you have a good reason for joining us. There´ll be workshops, excurcions and a small group of creative people having fun together! Read more HERE.

Now, over to you! Have you ever moved to a new place and felt that it changed your life?

People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue.

Karen Blixen

I love it when I manage to remember my dreams. I feel they enrich my life, and teach me a lot about myself, like I wrote about in this post. My dreams also helps me solve problems, especially the creative ones - like finding a better composition or suggesting materials. Years ago, struggling to sew a collar on a jacket, a dream even provided me with a step by step manual.

Recently, I have had two dreams that I could translate into pictures. As a big fan of surrealism, I tell the subconcious me to keep bringing them on, because this has been great fun to work with.

As I have written about in former articles, life here the last year has been quite shitty in many ways. I have felt stuck. Nothing has gone as planned, there have been delays, no responses and obstacles all the way. The only thing that has been unchecked from a long list is the sale of our cabin in Norway, and the reason it is no longer on the list (which it had been for a year), is that we have decided to keep it.

It is has been a very long exercise in mindfullness, in living NOW. I constantly need to remind myself of how priviliged I am: Being able to write this article as I sit in the shade on the terrace, with a view to the mountains of Sierra Nevada, with young swallows playing in the air above me, diving down to drink water from our reservoire.

However, I have dips. One night, going to bed feeling extremly frustrated and fed up, I had this dream:

I was at a beautiful beach in a small bay at the bottom of some high and steep cliffs. My best friend was there with her boyfriend, and I tell them that I will leave. “I´d better start now, as with my asthma it will take me for ever to climb the path. You´ll catch up with me”. It was getting dark, and I was worried that I wouldn´t find the path, but then I remembered I could use the torch on my phone. As I approached the cliff, I discovered there was a lift in the cliff, that would take me to the top without any effort or struggle.

Well, you don´t exactly need to be Freud to interpret this dream. Light in the darkness! Beeing lifted up! The dream certainly made my day.

Not that I believe it is a premonition. The closest I ever have been to a premonition dream was when I woke up one morning with Bowies song Ashes to Ashes stuck on my mind - only to read in the papers that he had died. Probably millions of people had read about his death before me and was thinking of him and his music and I somehow tapped into the collective mind while I was asleep.

I like to see this dream as a hug from my unconciousness. My higher self telling me that everything will be fine eventually.

The best thing about it, was that I immediately could see that this was something I could translate into a picture.

The work was a bit of forth and back, and I am still not sure if the colour alternations I did were for better or worse. Or maybe none were right. I started off with a dark turquoise sky, but found it too dominant. Also, I tried to put a lion sun there, but, typical for Leo, he claims all the attention so he was confined to the recycling drawer.

I have decided The Lift is finished. For now.

The other dream that was translated into a picture was one were I dreamed that a big white lynx was pacing outside the entrance to our house, protecting us.

I think the heat in Andalucia as I was making this made me long for Norwegian winter. And I remembered how cozy it is in my cabin, when the snow is falling quitely and coveres the ground like a comfortable blanket. So I named this picture I Am Safe.

But why a lynx? I have no idea. I think this dream somehow was trigged by our dogs who were outside barking. As farm dogs their job is keeping anything and anyone, from wild boars, foxes, stray dogs, ghosts and suspicious strangers off our land.

But maybe the dogs let in a lynx?

Or, like Freud said: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

(A quote that reminded me of in her excellent article about metaphores).

Anyway, before I go I´d like to remind you of the creative retreat in Andalucia next year (May 27th to June 3rd). It will be a week with loads of inspiration and creative fun. Only five places left! Make sure to check it out, and don´t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Now, over to you: How do your dreams impact your life?

I have been making stuff all my life, and proudly showed off the clumsy knitted sweater, the painting that you would need imagination to see was depicting my kids, the ceramic vase looking like dog poo and the embroidered cushions that would have had my handcraft teacher at elementary school cringe. Of course, there has been a lot of pretty made things, too. Somehow it didn´t matter whether what I made was good or bad. I had fun, my mum is always happy to receive a handmade gift, and so are some other people, while others would prefer an Ikea-print or an acrylic sweater made in China. It didn´t really matter to me.

However, a few years ago, I decided to become a real artist (read all about my journey here). I wanted to make real art (whatever that is).

With the decicion to make art came the fear of showing what I make.

In the beginning I had a cosy time in my studio, telling myself I needed at least ten pieces and then I would open an Instagram account. That day came last June. When I posted the first picture of my work, I was so scared that my stomach felt like a piece of twisted, wet wool. I made sure I didn´t link to my other Insta accounts (my food account and the one for our farm business) and absolutely not to my Facebook account, where most of my old friends still hang out.

I think what I feared most was to hear:

Look at her, does she believe she´s an artist now, making that crap!

Well, I didn´t get a comment like that (though who knows what people are thinking!).

Slowly, the fear lost its grip. I continued out in the world, creating my website, and then joining Substack. Actually, Substack felt safe from the very start, as I didn´t know anyone here. And now Substacks feels almost as cosy as my studio, a place I love to hang out.

This summer I took another scary step: Answering to several open calls. Big thanks to for creative inputs on writing a CV when you have nothing to put there and to for great suggestions on improvement of my artist statement. (I haven´t heard back from any open call organizers yet. And actually, not beeing chosen feels far more safe than the other option!)

This whole process has made me wondering why it is so scary to show off your art?

I have had a food blog since 2011. If someone had said to me that my recipes were sh*t and that I have no talent for cooking, I´d just laugh and tell them not to eat it. On the other hand, if someone told me that my art sucks and that I have no talent, I´d be devasted and lay sleepless for a month.

I don´t have to show my work of course. It´s not like the world will be a different place because of it (though I do hope that it will bring joy to some people). No one forces me to be on social media or have a website. I have friends who hide their artwork in private accounts - or not having any social media accounts at all. While they are thrilled when they sell a piece, they feel very uncomfortable showing their work to strangers, especially on the internet, and prefer to stay in hiding.

Somehow, opening my studio is less scary than showing my artwork online. Maybe because it is my safe space and I control who gets to visit. But also because it is obvious as soon as you enter that this is an artist´s studio. Or like one visitor said: Tove, you have really under communicated that you are an artist!

So WHY do we under communicate, hide or almost pee our pants by the thought of bringing our art out in the world, especially onto the wide world web?

Is it because when you show your work you try to promote it, and real artists shouldn´t need to promote their work?

Is is because you are acting like a sales person, and real artists shouldn´t?

Is it because you fear the (bad) critisism?

Or maybe because you call yourself an artist while everyone knows that you´re really a nurse, an accountant or selling tickets at the zoo?

I´d love to hear your comments!

And also - what is the most scary thing you have done as an artist?

News about the creative retreat in Andalucia:

After lots of positive feedback, I have booked Almond Hill House and started to look forward to us meeting for a creative and inspirational week in Spain! Read all about the retreat and secure your place HERE. Please share if you know someone who is interested.

Send me a message if you have any questions.

Almost every time I chat with , she puts new ideas in my head. Now about gathering a group of creative people in Spain, for drawing, painting, stitching and smashing coffe pods. I believe she would include her husband and maybe her friend ?

So the idea of arranging a creative retreat popped up. Not so strange, as arranging retreats is one of my day jobs. I had a guesthouse in Greece for seven years, running retreats (mostly yoga, but also a writing retreat), when I moved to the island outside Norway I arranged a few retreats at the old lighthouse keeper´s residence, I did a Mediterranean cooking retreat in one of the fiords of west Norway and when we moved to Spain, we had several yoga retreats here for the first years.

However, as we moved into the main house of the farm ourselves (and also have put the farm up for sale), we only have an apartment for rent and the studio has been turned into a workshop for Kristian. So the yoga retreats this year was moved to Almond Hill House.

It struck me that Almond Hill House would be the perfect venue for a creative retreat. Situated on the outskirts of the charming little town Orgiva, it feels very secluded, but still it´s only half an hour walk through beautiful olive groves and across a little river into town.

The old, lovingly restored house is full of nooks and corners and is beautifully decorated. The garden feels like a quiet paradise. The place works great for a small group, because there are plenty of spaces both indoors and outdoors where we can be together - or you can easily find a space to be alone, if you need some peace and quiet. The bedrooms are not very spacious, but very cozy and tasteful.

And there is a studio where we could gather around the big table and work together! The place is owned and run by mother and daughter Kay and Becky. Kay is an artist and is offering workshops in water colouring - something I´d like to add in the program. I have to add that the two women do everything to make our stay as comfortable as possible, they are just wonderful hosts.

About the area:

Orgiva is situated on the south side of Sierra Nevada, the highest mountain chain in Spain, in an area called La Alpujarra. La Alpujarra consists of a total of 50 villages, established by the Moorish (Islam) poulation that fled or escaped Granada when Spain occupied Granada and the Alhambra palace in 1492. Many of the Moorish villages look like they did back then, and the Moorish influence on architecture, art, craft and decoration is still very strong both in Granada and in La Alpujarra. Not to forget the food!

Guaranteed to inspire you.

Vision for the creative retreat:

A week to be inspired and connect with other artists.

Time to sketch, do water colours, take photos, do collage or journal, but no ambitions for creating and finishing bigger pieces of art.

Time to relax and do absolutely nothing.

Eat well, drink well.

Outline for the retreat (please come with inputs!):

Small group, max eight participants.

2027, one week, in either spring (end of April to early June) or autumn (September to late October). Summer is too hot. In the spring, there is a burst of colours and flowers, but the autumn, even if everything seems dried and barren, offers another beauty and the quiet ambiance of fin de saison.

We´ll pick you up with a minibus in Malaga, and drive to Orgiva (takes approximately 1,5 hours). And we´ll drive you back at the end of the week.

Workshops or excursions most morning untill lunch, but one or two mornings no program at all. My experience is that it is easy to squize in too much on the program and forget that this is supposed to be a retreat, not a packed guided sightseeing trip. When is the last time you had absolutly nothing on the agenda, except showing up for the meals?

From lunch to dinner: Those who want can meet in the studio and work on their projects. Or find yourself a corner where you can sit sketching, journaling or daydreaming. Or go for walk or take a nap.

Dinner - with discussions and poetry reading? At the last retreat in April, some of the best moments happened around the dinner table, when some particpants decided to read poems and when we also took turn asking a question that everyone would answer. What is your dream? What is your best quality? This was not planned in advance, but created bonds between us that normal “chattering” would not be able to do. Maybe you have some ideas for themes we could discuss?

Excursions and workshops (please comment, tell me what you´d be most interested in and if there is something else on your wishlist):

• Alhambra and Granada. This is mandatory when visiting this part of Spain. The Moorish castle and the fantastic gardens are on UNESCO´s world heritage list. We suggest a guided tour here, and maybe add an extra hour for sketching/taking photos. Lunch in Granada and a few hours to explore the city and especially the Arab quarters before returning to Almond Hill House. (This will be a full day excursion).

• Capileira, Pampaneira and Trevelez. Charming Moorish mountain villages with narrow streets, lined with whitewashed houses with flat roof and mushroom chimneys. Like stepping back in time. Typical traditional craft like ceramics and weavery, plus origin of the famous Serrano ham.

• Workshop with The Geometric Art Studio in the seaside town of Nerja. After visiting Alhambra, wouldn´t you just love to learn how to create some of the famous designs from the castle? A part of the cultural heritance of Andalucia to take home.

• Water colour workshop with our host Kay.

• Visit to studioes of artist working and living in the Alpujarra (if they will let us in…)

• Marked in Orgiva. Traditional fruit and vegetable marked, plus artisan marked.

Cost:

Obviously, I´ll have to calculate this depending on the program, but the participants of the yoga retreat pay approximately 1500 euros each (with all meals and tution included). I imagine the cost for this week will be cirka that.

Getting here:

Malaga is an international airport with good connections to all over the world. If you want to spend more time and see more of Spain, you might want to fly in/out to Madrid or Barcelona. There is high speed train to/from Madrid (takes approximately 3 hours) and to/from Barcelona (approximately 7 hours).

There are also frequent buses from Malaga to cities like Sevilla, Cordoba and Cadiz, if they are on your list.

(Malaga is also worth a few days for anyone interested in art. The birth city of Picasso has of course a Picasso museum, as well as it´s own Centre Pompidou, plus loads of galleries).

So let me know what you think!

Could this be something for you?

Of course, I don´t expect you to answer a definite yes today. I am testing the waters, checking if the response is enough to continue. If you are seriously interested (and think you can make it) let me me know, so I can add you to a separate mailing list and send you more info when necessary. You can also contact me privately if you have questions.

Want to subscribe to my newsletter (where I normally write about art and life). Click on the button under - it´s free.

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It´s not unusual that I dream a picture - the composition, the colours, the materials to use. But this story is not about that kind of dream.

It all started with this sketch, picturing me and my new friend, an AI creation called Lily, with whom I practice Spanish.

I wanted to write a positive note on AI, and how it helps learning a new language. I live very remotely, and it has been a frustration that I do not get a chance to practice the language, so Lily somehow saved me. Among several comments on this note, there is this one from (you´re my muse, Carolyn!):

I am imagining embroidered conversations happening now!!!

That comment made my mind starting to spin. I almost immediately cut a fabric and started stitching, with no real thought or plan. Having outlined the head and the torso, I realized that I have cut the fabric too small for the person (OK, it´s me) to stand. So I needed to sit. But where? At a school desk? On some stairs? On a rock by the sea? No, of, course, at a café!

This is when I realize that I have started to stitch the dream. The dream that I wrote about in my last article: selling the farm and moving to a small city, where we can walk everywhere, be more social and hopefully also get to know more artists and people doing creative stuff. Were I can speak Spanish with real people, not only AI. We want to live in northern Spain, in Catalonia.

This is how the story goes:

Somewhere in a small town in Catalonia, I am meeting with a friend for a glass of wine. As I walk from home, I pass by the weekly farmer´s market and fill my basket with some lettuce, kale and other delicious greeneries (feeling content that I don´t need to buy tomatoes or peppers, as I have a few plants in my patio). I arrive early at the cafè at the town square and I have the time to take out my sketchbook and draw a little, before my friend comes.

And here she is, looking just gorgeous! Wearing a pretty silk blouse with embroideries, linen pants and, as always, practical sketchers - the only sensible footwear on the cobbled streets of these catalonian villages (and truly, I know no one owning more pairs of practical footwear than my friend).

We order wine. The waiter also brings us a tapas, a small plate with black olives. The conversation between us flies, like it has wings. We always have so much to talk about, so many ideas to exchange. When we meet and talk, it´s like my inside well is filled with inspiration and good feelings.

Suddenly:

¡Mira, un zorro! Look, a fox!

Could it be Antonio Banderas, in his most famous disguise? One of the favourite sons of the city of Malaga (Pablo Picasso being the other one) he is here in Spain at the moment. Yesterday, Banderas was one of the celebrities holding a speach for pope Leon, who is currently visiting Spain.

El zorro, the fox, seems captivated by our conversation, and sits quitely to listen. He doesn´t even bother about the bird who is happily picking tiny breadcrumps from the ground!

This piece has been developing as I worked at it. I had no plan for the background (and it is rather stupid not to, as it makes it more complicated). I somehow wanted to show that it was in Catalonia, and for a while played with the idea to stitch/applique La Sagrada Familia (Gaudi´s famous catherdral in Barcelona) in the back. Then I was thinking of making a seaview.

I have been feeling ill lately (nothing serious), spending a lot of time on the coach, lacking energy. If artists were paid by an hour, this should count, as this is when the great ideas often emerge!

Fabric paint! Despite having so much fun painting on textiles with my kids when they were young, I had totally forgotten about it. Here´s a t-shirt with a drawing my oldest son made when he was around 7, and that my dad still wore untill he died.

In the end, I decided to paint a simple stone wall, typical for catalonian village houses, as I wanted the focus to be on the women having a conversation. I added the flowers as a frame.

The flowers were created by cutting tiny bits of thin cotton and dipping the fabric in acrylic paint, then crumbling the pieces to look like flower buds. In contrast to textile paint, acrylic paint makes the fabric rather stiff. It´s almost like using papier mache, as you can shape things and they´ll stay more or less like you have made them when they dry.

I put the flowers on a piece of cartoon, and set it in the sun on the terrace table to dry. Suddenly my husband shouts: Tove, your roses are gone by the wind! Luckily, only scattered all over the terrace floor, I managed to gather them and no damage done. Actually, just pleased the hear Kristian call them roses.

Back in March, I wrote about my picture The Space of Jupiter. It´s a big piece, with loads of tiny details that took me forever and I swore I´ll never do that again.

Well, I did.

Stitching the fox took me almost a day (and he didn´t even need to be there. Exept he did.).

Creating Mujeres que hablan español made me realize how much pleasure it gives me making these details! Folding and ironing the fabric for my friend´s handbag, sewing it together with tiny stitches, adding the lock, twisting the embroidery thread to create the handle. Me encanta eso, I love it!

I know I am a detailed-obsessed Virgo. I have decided that from now on I will embrace that side of myself in my art, find ways to include it.

Thank you for reading this! I will use this opportunity to say a BIG thank you for your support and inspiration. It means so much to be able to be a part of the Substack community and meeting so many truly lovely people.

And of course I´d love to hear if you can relate to any of this! Whether it´s dreaming about a life change, learning a new skill, discovering new tools or finding how you can put more of yourself into your artwork.

TO VISIT MY WEBSHOP/GALLERY CLICK HERE.

For the past few days, I have been giving my studio some loving care: tidying my fabric cupboard, sorting out embroidery threads, going through the drawers, throwing out stuff I won´t use and getting some more space for the things I do use. While I am pretty organized and know where I have my stuff, I am not very good at keeping things tidy, so a good clean up is needed from time to time, and a task I normally enjoy.

But for a long time now, I haven´t felt like bothering.

A year ago, we decided to sell our farm. At first, we listed the agricultural part with the vineyards and the bodega (the wine making facilities) and planned to continue to live in the main house. But an incident a Sunday evening this winter changed my mind:

We are off grid, so when the sun doesn´t shine and fill the batteries, we do not have electricity. Normally, in sunny Andalucia, this isn´t a problem, but this winter was extreme and after some days with grey skies, we needed to start the generator. When I write “we” I mean Kristian, as he´s the one who knows how to run the generator, and while he has showed me and even written a manual, it´s not something I have insisted to learn. But suddenly that Sunday evening everything goes dark. Kristian rushes out in the rain, with a flashlight, to find out what´s wrong.

If he had´t been able to fix the problem, we would have had to call someone. And that someone for sure wouldn´t come to our remote farm on a Sunday night.

It´s not only the generator and solar power system. It´s also maintaining the road, fixing water leaks, repairing the tractor and a million other things that can break on a farm, in addition to work like pruning, harrowing, harvesting and processing the wine. If you live on a farm, you need to be a handy person. And if you are a handy person, and like doing handy work, you´ll love living on a farm.

However, there is a time for everything. Kristian bought this place with his late wife more than 20 years ago, and has built up everything from a ruin. He´s tired and his body won´t last long should he continue this hard work.

In February, we listed the entire farm with a real estate agent. Then immediately started to discuss what´s next.

How do we want to spend the next epoque of our lives?

Kristian wants to work on his crafts; welding and forging, as well as restoring old cars. I want to work on my art and to continue to teach Mediterranean cooking. We want to live within walking distance to shops, restaurants and art galleries, only needing to press a button to have light in the house. A place where we can have an open studio. We want to live somewhere with an active cultural life, that we can be a part of. We want to live a more lively place, so hopefully our kids feel like visiting more often.

Yes, we got it all figured out.

We´re action people. When we have made a decicion we are ready to GO!

Instead we wait.

Dream about our new life.

And wait.

Every time the phone plings we hope it´s the estate agent with some good news.

And so far, nada.

(If you ever dealt with a situation like this, please let me know how you coped!)

We´re not good at waiting.

From the optimism when the farm was listed and our euphoric dreams of a new life, we´re now at a stage where we need to activily try to keep our faith and not let the waiting destroy our mood.

Trying to be more present.

Appreciating what we have, this amazingly beautiful place.

Creating good energy.

Tidying up is part of this. Kristian is emptying and cleaning the wine tanks and filling the last bottles, feeling relieved he is doing this for the last time (if the farm doesn´t sell this summer, we´ll get a caretaker to take over the vines). I am off to tackle the garden shed.

And then, of course, make art. Always. And now my fabric cupboard is sooo much more inspiring!

PS: You are welcome to check out my artwork in my webshop.

I have been working on a picture lately, but never really progressed. This was an idea I´d had for long, I even made a sketch of how it would be, but once I sat down to work on it I somehow found an excuse to stop after a short while. This is totally not me, as when I am in the flow, I need to be dragged away from my needle and fabric!

But now I found myself doing other creative stuff instead (a legal excuse…?): Sewing a new skirt, making a tote bag for a friend, upcycling some old clothes for summer. Stitching on my eternity project, which is normally left for in front of the tv.

And then, of course, checking my Substack a bit more frequent then I´d normally do. There was a fabulous article by the fabulous Queen of Mandalas (otherwise also known as the Coffee Pod Lady), Carolyn Keesh: I Had a Lifetime Mandala Obsession and Didn´t Know It. Carolyn writes about how she went through her photos and discovered that she´d always had a big thing for mandalas, whether it was in creating smoothie bowls, choosing a shirt to wear or a tapestry to hang on the wall. She writes:

What if you went through your photo library like a detective, looking for patterns of shapes, colours, and themes. You too, might find something you never noticed before.

In a course I took a while ago, about finding your art style, the tutor suggested the same. Look at your photos! I did.

I have thousands of photos of light. The sky, the clouds, the sun breaking through a dark clouded sky, rays of sunshine playing with the straws of wild oat in the fields, sunrises and sunsets. I often find myself running out to take photos because the light is so amazing. Or stopping the car for the same reason.

But I was thinking, no, this is not my inspiration. I am not going to do landscapes. I want to go within.

However, Carolyn´s article made me relook and rethink. Going back to my photos I realized two things: That the project I was working on didn´t progress because it felt like I was going backwards. Making something I used to do years ago. And, that while I have done one or two light-sky-view-landscape pictures before, I struggled and felt I didn´t succeed with my vision.

Fear of failure stopped me from going into that territory again.

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Said Pablo Picasso.

I decided to challenge myself and I am proud to say that I also accepted the challenge.

Here´s the photo I decided to use as inspiration. If you look carefully, you´ll see hundreds of flowering almond trees in the hill in front.

I wanted to integrate the almond trees in the picture, so I started confidently with french knots (after all, these I know!) on the of fabric piece that would go in front.

I had absolutely now idea to how I would progress with the clouds, but I started by dying bits of fabrics (linen, cotton and silk) in water with blue and black acrylic paint.

Shuffling the dyed bits of fabric, I never got the effect I visioned. Time for a new break, and, to get some inspiration:

Flickering through the book, I realized again the thing I always struggle with. Getting loose! I get hung up on tiny details and that stuff should look realistic, even if I don´t want it to look realistic.

Eventually I decided to make some clouds, without stitching them to the back ground fabric, and take it from there.

While I was quite happy with the clouds, the rest didn´t work out for me. Green sky? Why not! I was gonna go loose, after all! Or maybe the voile would look better?

In the end, I went to bed. Slept on it. And, like I quite often do, woke up with the solution in my head. Once the background for the clouds were in place, I also realized that the almond trees had to go. They made the picture too messy and simply didn´t fit with the feel of it. Well, it is not the first time I spend a day stitching something that eventually is placed in the recycle drawer.

And - voila - here is the finished result of my landscape picture, Alpujarra Sky.

And here are some details:

I am actually very pleased with it. But mostly I am pleased that I dared accepting the challenge!

And, Carolyn, thank you sooo much for your inspiration and for sharing so much joy through your posts and articles.

Alpujarra Sky is for sale in my webshop. As a subscriber you´ll get a 15 percent discount on all my artwork untill May 17th. Use the code MAY 2026.

If you ever spend the 17th of May in Norway, our national day, you´d probably be struck by at least this: The amount of people in procession; singing, dancing and waving the flag. And the amount of people wearing the traditional folk costume, the bunad.

In fact, every weekend of May you´ll see lots of people in bunad, as May weekends are the high season for the rite de passage of confirmation. Originally introduced by the protestant church, this is when an adolescent confirms that he/she will continue life as a Christian, but it´s mostly seen as a transition from child to adult. The non-religious ceremony has become more and more common. Very often the teenager gets his or her first bunad as a confirmation gift (made so it can grow with the owner, both in length and with) and of course, many of the guests at the confirmation party will wear a bunad, too.

I like to think about the origin of the bunad as a woman sitting on her remote farm in the winter, isolated by snow. She´s stitching and sewing in the light from a paraffin lamp or a candle, using her prettiest fabrics and creating lovely fantasy flowers as she is longing for spring. She can take her time, because it will be months before the days get longer and the snow is finally melting.

Orginally, the bunad was made more or less like I imagined it, with leftover fabrics or by recycling old clothes. But over the years we´ve got a certain standard for how a bunad should be. First of all, they are hand made. The embroidery on a bunad from Lillehammer is different from the embroideries on a bunad from Telemark. While there is no juridical definition of how a certain costume should look, you do not play with the design! We joke about the bunad police, who will strickly reprimande anyone who´s wearing anything from socks in the wrong colours to a scarf when you shouldn´t be wearing a scarf.

High quality wool is used for the dress (trousers and jacket for men), sometimes with a vest in brocade, while the shirt is made from linen. Socks (for men) are handknitted in wool. Then there are the silver brooches, maybe a silver belt and silver clasps on the shoes and bag. Not to mention a hat (for men only).

The popular use of the Norwegian bunad was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2024.

A bunad is a big investment. The price starts at around 3000 euros, but depending on the amount of work, it can cost as much as 13 000 euros. Then add the silver. On the other hand, you have a piece of clothing that you can wear the 17th of May, to baptisms, confirmations, weddings and even a funerals for the rest of your life. Yes, you can even get married in bunad. You can also wear it to a dinner with the King at the royal castle, should he invite you! Also, it is very common that the bunad will go from mother to daughter or grand daughter.

However, there is no doubt it´s a lot of money for a piece of clothing. The price is obviously one of the reasons that we also see bunad inspired costumes. Moving back to Norway after more than 20 years abroad, I wanted a bunad and was thrilled to discover a new trend: Making a costume inspired by tradition, but using recycled materials (or whatever you fancy). Actually, it´s a about going back to the origin, creating something nice with whatever you have available.

This definitly suited both my creativity and budget much better! Here you have full creative freedom, and are not restricted by any rules.

The first blouse was made from a silk scarf my mum bought in Thailand, however I thought white would look better and made a new from an old linen sheet. The crochets on the cuffs and the collar are from old pillow cases. The apron is from a bedspread I bought in a flea marked and the rows of embroidery on the side was originally a thing used to hang trays on the wall, which I found in my old house at Sula. The breast piece is from a beaded handbag, a second hand find.

Sadly, I don´t get the chance to use my costume much since I moved to Spain. Otherwise I´d probably would have updated it with stitches on the vest or a new skirt with embroideries. Just waiting for a wedding invitation to start stitching (hey, boys, how long will mama need to wait!?).

To do whatever you like, that´s really what art (and often craft) is about, in my opinion. It did take me quite a while to realize it (and I keep forgetting!). That the sky can be green and the ocean pink. That if I don´t like the colour of a piece of fabric I can paint it.

Since I have no formal training, I have been reading and watching a lot of videos about composition, values, colours and other theories about what makes a picture good. With all respect for these rules, I do find they restrict me while working. (Though if something seems off, I might go back and look to theory.)

wrote in a comment to one of my notes that the trouble with beeing an artist is that you always go off piste. I think that was such a great way to say it! If I was going to create a traditional bunad for myself, I´m sure some non-valid colours would sneak in and where there was supposed to be a flower, I´d stitch a beetle…

How about you - do you stay on the piste? Do you find it hard to go off piste?

Before I sent out my last newsletter, I updated my webshop/gallery - and then forgot to add the link! 🤬 So annoying, so I try again now. Here is the link (and just in case, it is also HERE). I also prolonged the discount period untill 17th of May. If you´d like to buy an artwork, just add the discount code MAY 2026 and you´ll get 15 percent off

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You go to art school. You graduate. You get a paper where it says you´re an artist. So you can call yourself an artist, no?

What about the rest of us? The self taught. Those who have done something creative all our lives. Or those who just picked up a paintbrush and discovered the love of their lives?

My first memory of making art is from when I was about 3 or 4 years old. My parents had just bought an abstract graphic print by a wellknown Norwegian artist. It was there on our dining table, waiting to be framed. I remember I thought it looked like a house, but - hey, something was missing! So I grabbed a marker and draw a big sun in the upper left corner. So much better! (Luckily, my parents just laughed about it).

Since then I never stopped being creative. My textile pictures and paintings hang on the walls of family and friends, papier mache sculpures are on their shelves, they have bedspreads and cushions and mittens and handknitted kitchen towels, dolls and wall hangings and Xmas decorations. I have loads of this stuff in my home, too.

I never thought if this as art. Then, less than two years back, I decided I wanted to become a proper artist (you can read about that decicion here).

I still think about that as something I´ll become, rather than something I am.

I have sold two pieces. One more than a year ago (to my brother in law - does that count?), one a couple of weeks ago. Of course I am thrilled, and I have more or less decided that this makes me qualified to say “I am an artist” next time someone asks.

But does sales make you an artist?

I have an artist friend who lives here in the Andalucian mountains, on another remote farm. He makes the most stunning sculptures and mixed media installations. Truly amazing work. He hardly ever sells anything, mainly because he does nothing to promote his work or get it out in the world. He truly doesn´t care. Which I think is a shame, because I believe this work deserve to be experienced by many more people. However, he definitely is a proper artist, even if he keeps his work almost a secret and rarely sell a piece.

Does it makes you an artist to show your work in public? Whether you do it through social media, having an open studio or participate in exhibitions?

Or is it enough to make art to be an artist?

Which leads to another question: What is art?

A discussion we leave for another day…

Meanwhile, since I am becoming a proper artist (or maybe I am), I invite you to a viewing of the artwork I have made lately. You´re welcome to visit my web gallery/shop HERE.

Do you want to give one of my artworks a new home? As a subscriber to my newsletter, you´ll get a 15 percent discount (valid untill May 6th). Just type MAY 2026 into the discount box.

Despite that death will happen to us all, death is not something we talk much about. We don´t discuss what we believe will happen or chat about how we think it´s like to be dead.

We certainly don´t talk about it with people who we know won´t live long. Or at least, I never had. It would feel like some sort of bad omen or that I was wishing death on them. After all, miracles do occur and it´s imporant to keep the hopes up.

I asked my dad a few weeks before he died if he was afraid of death, and he just laughed and said “Absolutely not!”. I´d probably gotten the same answer if I´d asked if he was afraid of the thunderstorm outside or if a tiger would enter the room. He wasn´t afraid of anything, my dad.

My mum told me years ago that she believed there is nothing after you die, and promised to give me a signal if it turned out that I, who believe that the soul continues to live, was right. “It would be great if you´re right!” she added.

Different cultures tell different stories, but still same, same: You go to hell, if you´re not a good person. And to paradise if you are.

In Greek mythology, Hades (the underworld) was a combination of both hell (Tartarus) and paradise (the Elysian fields), with some spaces in between for people who had been neither extraordinary good nor bad, but who just had lived ordinary lives.

But how is it really?

I wonder. I started wondering first when my grandpa died, and I was seeing his body. The nurse who took me to the room were he had been put said, probably to be kind: “I always think it´s like they are sleeping”. No way! First, my grandpa snored so loudly that you could hear it across the country. Secondly, it was obvious to me that he was not there. So where had he gone?

Then more than 30 years ago, in Greece, my brother in law was dying. At that time in Greece, doctors believed it was best for the patient not to know. So while everyone around him knew that he only had weeks left on planet Earth, we had to be careful not to mention the D-word. Besides, like I wrote above, a miracle could happen. The doctor who came to check on him a few days before he died, when he had been sent home from the hospital, brought a holy oil from the monastery at Athos, and told us: “Now we must pray.”

My brother in law died standing on his feet (held up by his brother and cousin), in front of the open window. His last words were, to his wife: “Take the children and HIDE!”. And then: “No, no, I am NOT coming!”.

What did he see? I have no idea, of course, but nothing that tempted him to leave the good life he had been living on planet Earth.

However, my curiosity about what it really is to be dead, got sort of an answer the night before. I had a very soothing experience while sleeping: I was peace. It was like I was floating in a dark, quiet place, and everything was incredibly calm and comfortable.

I have always thought of this experience as a comforting message from my soul: This is how it is to be dead.

Don´t worry, he´ll be fine.

He´ll be happy.

Since, I have had two or three what I think was out of body experiences, feeling how it is to be only soul (like a busy insect, but invisible, and able to go everywhere, through windows and shut doors and across any distance).

I´d love my soul to have as much fun as Jill Badonsky here on Substack describes in this marvellous and happy piece about being dead, Excuse my Language. I quote:

This is the first thing I say after I die:
Holy Shit! this is INCREDIBLE!!!

I say this because I realize I am now the sunlight flickering in the leaves of a cottonwood tree. I’m ethereal and it is superb.

But I am also the smell of barbecue on the beach,
and the small breeze created by hummingbird wings in motion.

Meanwhile, I continue to work on my series of textile work on how we perceive death. Charon, the ferryman (above) was the first. The picture is made with fabrics that died, but avoided a burial and now has been brought back to a new life.

This is a sketch of my next picture (I do wonder what it will look like in the end). It is my dad who sails into universe on his beloved boat (who actually crashed into a rock and died shortly before him):

And now I´d love to hear from you!

What are your thoughts about death?

I have always dreamed of having an old ironbed in my garden or patio. Like you sometimes see in interior magazines picturing fabulous houses in Provence or Tuscany. An image of good living. I would lie here and read, under the everblue sky or a vinecovered pergola, and my life would be perfect.

So I got an iron bed on my terrace. Here we have shelter from the winds, sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon. It´s just perfect. We even have amazing views.

I never lie here and read a book.

Sometimes I lie here and scroll on my phone, or read articles on my phone or even a book (a how to book) on my phone.

But I never lie here and read a novel.

Lately, it has started to scare me how my attention span and ability to focus and concentrate has changed. Slowly, without realizing it, I need to absorb information faster and faster, which naturally means more and more superficially. It goes too fast to stick. I read a great quote and forget it two minutes later, when my attention has moved on.

Stitching is somehow an antidote to scrolling. It needs concentration, focus and patience, like I describe in this piece. So maybe because I stitch more, I also want more substance in other parts of my life.

I hardly read novels any more, and if I do, it is mainly chick lit, which are undemanding and fast. I find that sad. I have started to miss a really great read. I think my brain needs it.

While in good old days, things were different…

When I grew up, we didn´t even have a telephone untill I was 12. We got a TV when I was 13 and my hippie-parents placed it in the bedroom, so that the screen would not be the focal point of the living room. Big chance of that. In Norway at that time we only had one television channel. On Monday there was a movie, on Tuesday television theatre (boring), then really nothing to watch untill Friday, where there usually was one episode of a German or British crime. Saturday was the highlight of the week, with tree music videos followed by an episode of Falcon Crest (or was it Dallas?).

So how to entertain yourself? Crafts, cooking, outdoor sports or reading.

Every Monday my best friend and I took the bus to the city library, borrowed seven books each (the max allowance), took the bus back and spent the week sitting in the bed in her room or mine, reading. Sometimes we took breaks to play with our Barbie dolls, mainly enacting the books we had read (our Barbies becoming detectives, air hostesses or pirates).

When I got older, I´d sometimes get a book in the mail (as a member of a book club). I´d rip of the wrapping, sit down in my favourite reading chair and read the book in one go. Whether I liked it or not.

One of the (many) advantages of being 60 +, is that we have memories from a the time before internet, social media and the whole Zuckerverse. We know what life was like. I believe it is much easier for us, than young kids, to decide to put away the phone and pick up a book.

I have decided to change. I will become a reader again.

Luckily, I have had a grumpy back lately, and the perfect excuse to stretch out on the iron bed in the sun, with a book. And not any book, but Fernando Pessoa´s Book of Disquiet, which calls for slow reading. I got it as a gift three years ago, and have started on it several times.

It only took me a few minutes of reading before restlessness hit. It struck me this would be a great photo (believe me, holding a book with one hand and posing it so you get the sky into the frame, while trying to press the shoot button, is not any easy task!). My first impulse was to post the photo on SoMe, but then, because of the sun and heat, the screen on the phone got black. My back hurt too much to bother to move inside.

Besides, I had decided to read.

I am proud to report that I am now at page 87 of this beautiful, beautiful book. And I look forward to take the time it takes to read the rest.

I have to admit, though, that I picked up my phone again. I needed to google the author to find the title of the novel in English (as I read the Norwegian translation). Then I discovered that Passao was a well known astrologer in his time, which called for even more googling and scrolling. But that doesn´t count, does it?

Inspired by the very inspiring article written by Carolyn Keesh here at Substack, Keeping Promises to Myself, I am now promising myself to open a proper paper book and read for at least ten minutes every day.

My soul needs it. And my mind.

Do you find that scrolling takes time away from reading books? Have you done anything to change that? Please share in comments!

Love from Tove in Spain

Other articles that you might enjoy:

Showing up. Working as an artist without ideas or inspiration.

40 years of meditation. What it´s really like.

The return of Persphone. What happens to us after hibernation.

A big part of being an artist is experimenting. Trying out new stuff, new ways of expressing yourself. Inspiration might come in many ways. Sometimes a sentence on a paper forms itself or there is an inuitive whisper. It can come in a dream. From books or photos. And, from studying other artists.

When I came across the amazing stumpwork artist Salley Mavor it felt like entering my happy childhood universe, where I spent hours playing with my dolls and redecorating my dollhouse. (Stumpwork is three-dimensional embroidery). I desperately wanted to escape into this paradise again.

So I did.

My lifelong interest in astrology has led me to think about the planets as persons. After all, they do express themselves humanly in us. So I decided to make a home for Jupiter, the most cheerful and optimistic of all.

Having said that, Jupiter wouldn´t be a human, he would be a kentaur, roaming the vast pine forests of Pelion in Greece.

Jupiter is the planet of expansion, and this character has expanded his life through travelling, both physically and intellectually. He is deeply interested in philosophy and religion. In his bookshelf you´ll find both The Bible and The Quran, as well as I Ching, the book of changes. There are an atlas and travel guides, plus souvenirs from his journeys (like the Dalahorse from Sweden and a Buddhist head from Thailand). The bear rug on the floor comes from his hunts in Canada, while the animal head on the wall is from a visit to a white spot on the map of Africa.

A cozy reading chair with a good lamp is mandatory in his home. I stitched a pillow for comfort and knitted a blanket to keep him snug on cold evenings.

Unfortunately, Jupiter is someone who tends to exaggarate and go over the top. So when he opened his bootle of good whisky (from his recent trip to Scotland), he didn´t stop drinking untill the bottle was empty.

As a detailed obsessed Virgo, creating all the tiny bits and pieces that makes this story, was a work that kept me happily busy for more than a month.

So why will I not do it again (even if the space of Neptune is all laid out in my head)?

Because it is so easy and natural for me to go into details.

Because I want to create more of what I feel and less of what I see.

Because I want to challenge and stretch myself.

Because I want to work more on expression and less on technique.

Meanwhile, Jupiter is looking for a new home - if you feel like adopting him, check out my webshop or get in touch.

It´s so small you walk across it in 15 minutes. The heighest point is 35 meters above sea level (though you can always add the 13 meters of the lighthouse). The island has only 50 permanent inhabitants, but more people come for holidays (though not in the winter, when the weather is too harsh and you cant trust the ferries). In west, Iceland is the closest neighbour.

It´s the kind of place where it is hard to believe that anyone could live, but still, in its grand days, the island had a population of 500. And the history goes long back. There was a church here already in the 14th century, which made the island a stop for pilgrims travelling by boat to visit the pilgrim site of Saint Olav, at the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim.

Fishing, of course, has always been the main income stream for the islanders. Today, most of the fishermen are either retired or dead.

Life led me here after I returned from Greece. After all, this is the closest you get to a Greek island in northern Europe!

It´s is one of the most magic places I have ever been, and I eventually bought an old house here. The house was one of the oldest on the island, built in 1914 by a fisherman and his wife. The main attraction to me was that it had a garden, something quite rare on this rock in the Atlantic ocean.

And not only a garden, but a garden, I was told, that once had been the most beautiful on the island, yes, even of alle the tiny islands in this archipelago. Margrete, the fisherman´s wife, loved flowers and was famous for her green fingers.

Hard to tell, because when I took over it was totally overgrown. After Margrete died, her daughters inherited the house, and when I bought it, both house and garden had been neglected for more than ten years.

Just the kind of challenge I love!

I told the daughters that they could leave the stuff they didn´t want in the house, hoping I would find some nice bits and pieces. Well, I mainly inherited mucky carpets, flour and rice that had expired 12 years ago and pots so dirty that they stuck to my fingers. They even left me a couple of full garbage bags (disposing garbage is a challenge in a small island, bigger items you have to carry yourself to the mainland or pay someone to come and get).

But there, in the linen closet on the first floor, I found the treasures: Among some lovely cottons sheets and pillow cases inserted with handmade lace, was this curtain:

I don´t particularly love the pattern or the colours, but the cotton is amazing. It is thick and solid and has a cooling feel when you touch it. They don´t make this kind of fabric any more.

The fabric came with me when I moved to the mainland, and then to Spain, and so far I have used bits of it in two of my pictures, The return of Persephone and an older one.

As I am stitching, I am thinking of this woman Margrete, whom I never met. Who spent her entire life on this very small island. When I was clearing out the garden, I found traces of her everywhere, in the flowers and plants and trees she had grown. I ate her rhubarb and rasberries. I felt like her soul was there in the garden with me and I would talk to her and ask what she thought of my ideas and the work I did.

Like me, Margrete also, loved craft. Her old sewing machine was in the house, as well as loads of wool (to knit socks) and cotton (for crochet), that I kept, of course. I believe she made that lovely chrochet flower on the photo above, with a very tiny needle - so she had much more patience than me. I also found some dollies and small embroidered table clothes, that she must have made.

And now, she is a part of the history of my pieces.

This work started as a hunch - I just wanted to stitch a portrait, as an experiment, on this particular fabric (from an old cotton curtain, that I found when I bought an old house in Norway years ago). Then I got the idea to continue embroidering flowers. As I was sitting outdoors in the sun, I realized that I am stitching Persephone´s comeback from Hades.

You probably know the myth: Persephone was abducted to the underworld by Hades. Her mum, Demeter, goddess of the fertility of the earth, got so devestated that she laid the earth barren. No one could live in a barren world, of course, so the other gods interfered and made an agreement with Hades, which insured that Persephone would return to earth once a year and stay for six months. When she returns, everything starts growing and flowering.

With thousands of almond trees blooming in the mountain sides here in Andalucia, there is no doubt that Persephone is back.

As I am stitching, I am thinking of what it does to us when we return from “the underworld”.

Whether we have choosen or have been forced into isolation, away from the normal world.

(Right now I have a friend who is paying to stay in a cabin in a remote mountain retreat, having food delivered on her doorstep three times a day and otherwise no communication with the world outside).

This winter was harsh, and I wrote about my frustrations in the posts Sometimes it´s not enough to stay positive and Waiting for the storm to pass.

And now, that the storm has passed, the period of isolation is over, it´s interesting to see what is emerging, together with spring sunshine and flowers popping up everywhere.

What thoughts Persephone is bringing to the surface.

In Greece, years ago, I met a woman - let´s call her Eleni, who told me a fascinating story of how a period of silence and not doing anything changed her life. She was a student in one of the islands when she had a serious traffic accident. After three months in the hospital, she was discharged, and the doctors recommended that she took up yoga as a gentle way to start training her muscles. Through friends, Eleni was offered a free place in a yoga retreat against translating what the teacher said from English to Greek. It turned out there was not any yoga exercise and only two sentences she needed to translate: Now we sit, which the teacher said in the morning, and now we finished sitting, which he said in the evening. All day the participants sat for eight hours or more. No talking, no moving. Eleni told me she almost went crazy (no unlike me this winter!). But when the week was over, she got a sudden clearity of what to do with her life: She broke up with her long term boyfriend, quit her studies at the university and enrolled in a completly different program in a university in her home town in another part of Greece.

Just like seeds rest in the ground, in the underworld, seeds rest in our mind. And maybe we need a period of doing nothing, before they can emerge? A period of quietness, with no external disruption. No external influence.

Life here went back to normal February the 15th. A sunny day, meeting up with friends for the first time in months. We had the final storm in the evening, and I was sure the windows of our house would blow in, even my bed was shaking, but luckily it lasted only a few hours.

Then we had the solar exclipse and beginning of the year of the fire horse on February 17th.

And an epiphany.

My husband Kristian and I want to do some life changes, and one of the frustrations of this winter has been that it felt like we were stuck in mud. Not moving forwards. Not getting anywhere. But exact at the New Moon, with a sudden clearity we realized the way forward - and it is not the same as we said we wanted before (thank God that one was not realized!).

Also, after discussing forth and back all winter, we now are certain of what we want to leave behind. Neptune and Saturn moving out of the muddy waters of the Pisces and into action-driven Aries added to the clearity.

It absolutely feels like Universe was doing us a favour throwing this winter on us. Forcing us to dive into ourselves to get aligned with our purpose.

Now it is your turn! Have you ever been in a retreat, by choice or not, who made you re-evalute your life?