A perfect day! It is our Icelandic Indipendence Day, the sun is shining and Mt Hekla looks astonishing through the window of the classroom where we are dispaying the beauty, you all have been making. The whole town is full of artists and guests.
We have decided to keep it open for people to send in more pieces. We will continue to collect pieces for the Friendship Tapesry while we have it on display and travel with it. So, if you have not sent yet, there still is a chance! Two pieces came in yesterday and I added them to the Friendship Tapestry today.


Another beautyful sunny day, at Laugarvatn! While writing this, I am sitting outside the Hotel Edda, just finished a very good breakfast and Lárus and I are having our second cup of coffie outside. The view is spectacular! I see the small lake Laugarvatn, surrounded by green fields and meadows. Blue mountains frame the area with Mt. Hekla topping the sceen with her majestic look. The birds are singing from a nearby tree and the birds of the meadow make a background choir.
It is a glorious day!
At eleven o´clock we will open the display-room again. And the Art Festival continues. Last night after we closed our part of the festival we had a faboulus seafood dinner at the restaurant Lindin. And the other artists that are taking part in the Art Festival Gullkistan were there together having fun and enjoying this event. What a great idea to have a festival like this in a small town, where the whole area is a part of the game. And the "weather-gods" are showing off their greatest art: with the greatest weather imaginable in this northern hemisphere!

Here are some pictures taken yesterday:

this is me just before the people came in. Can you see how proud I am of our work?

When you enter the room, you see the Friendship Tapestry at the opposite wall, it takes the whole wall ! To the left is a wall with information about the tapestry and how many are participating and from what countries. There is also information from the website "About us", about Susan, Nancy and me. Then there is a space on the wall for people to write their own words about friendship (I will later add those words to the website) and a guestbook. On the wall is also the stitched picture of the birch tree that is used for background on our website. My friend Susan in California calls it "Friendship Tapes-tree!" There are also sheets for people to take with them on how to be a participant of the Friendship Tapestry.


On the right side of the tapestry is a wall of windows, with the magnificent view of Mt. Hekla and the area. I thought of closing the curtains, it might be too much competition to see this view from this window! But people look at the Friendship Tapestry first and then out of the window. ;-)

On the opposite side of the tapestry wall is a wall with three collages of envelopes from you and some letters and postcards. It looks nice and shows beautiful stamps from the five continents and your lovely words and beautiful postcards you have sent. On the table are the three binders we made with printouts from the website of each piece with the words that go with them.  In the front you see the livingroom we set up as a kind of stage setting for a friendly visit.

And now it is time to open the display room again and meet new friends!

It finally started raining after many days of sunshine. I have to admit it was good to feel the fresh rain in the air and the trees and flowers looked happy. It didn´t change the fact that people came to see the Friendship Tapestry, no matter what the weather was like. Here are some pictures from the weekend:
The sun is shining again and last night was the summersolstice. Beautyful! It never got dark, the sunset after midnight turned into sunrise a little later. It is such a magical time.
The Art Festival Gullkistan is open all week but it has not been really busy these working days. Always some people, but not too much. Those that came loved it though! We are expecting a lot more next weekend.

Laugarvatn is full of artwork. All the schoolhouses, the restaurant and the Gallery, the lake, the woods and lawns, aluminium fish hanging from trees in the middle of town, and the steambath even! has artwork. It is so interesting to walk around the town and always see something surprising. There is art all the way down into the lake!
Have you ever seen artwork inside a sauna?!  Well, it is not inside in the steam. The steambath itself is built on top of a hotspring! So, it is rather hot... But in the yard where the hottub is and people relaxing in the water, there are some oil paintings and more. It is rather funny to see art on the walls above the people and a video where people keep their shoes!  This little beautyful town is full of surprises!





It rained like the "gods" were cleaning the sky today! I thought nobody would come to see the festival in this weather, but to my surprise, lots of people came. Both Icelanders and tourists. It is so much fun to show the tapestry and talk about it with people that are really interested and ask a lot of questions. There are so many stories to tell and so many varieties of needlework to study.

A group of "rain-tired" travellers from Canada, England and Ireland stopped by.
They had heard of this International Friendship Tapestry and wanted to see it. It was so much fun to show them around and talk about the pieces. Some are even going to participate and send a piece!

I am sitting in a hotel room here at Hotel Edda. It is really nice, I had a good dinner at the hotel restaurant and took the coffie with me to the room, so I could drink it while writing the diary. It´s cosy, I could get used to this...
But more tomorrow!

Many people came to see the Friendship Tapestry on that sunday


and it was so much fun to talk and meet new friends



Laugarvatn - the town, the lake, the mountain





Women from a senior needlework group in Hafnarfjörður, came for a visit. It was really nice to meet them all. Some of them have a piece in the tapestry, others are going to send in a piece!


 


It is still raining ! But we have had so many visitors none the less. So everything is going very well and we have met many new friends here.

We decided to leave a Friendship Tapes-tree, as a thank you to the people and the town Laugarvatn.  Of course it rained like a waterfall and the wind was blowing like it was hurrying across country as fast as it could, but that did not take the happy smiles of our faces.


Here is Halldór Páll Halldórsson, the pricipal of Laugarvatn highscool and Klara Sveinsdóttir the hotel manager of Hotel Edda ML, Laugarvatn. They are holding the document that goes with the tree.
The text on the document is like this:

The Friendship Tapes-tree

Dear friends,

This little beautiful birch tree had no friend. It is not considered well formed, according to modern standards for trees. Trees are not supposed to show that they have lived through bad times in their lives. When this tree was small and just beginning to grow, it had a mishap, which resulted in a bent trunk, that is not considered good. Luckily this tree was cultivated by the good people at the nursery Kjarr, where it was allowed to live and grow. It has grown well and stretched its branches up towards the light. It is both lovely and powerful.

In this tree, bright tree-fairies live and a warm-hearted tree being, that listens attentively when spoken to. This tree will accept warmly those birds that one day will want to make nests in it, and be a good friend to anyone that wants it for a friend.

By giving this birch tree to The Laugarvatn highschool and Hotel Edda to take care of, we, the Friendship Tapestry, want to remind everyone that we all need to be friends; all of us who live on this planet no matter what specie we belong to. We are all brothers and sisters; humans, animals, plants and nature beings, we are all children of Mother Earth.

On behalf of the Friendship Tapestry, thank you


Despite rain and wind, there were many visitors on the last day of the Art Festival Gullkistan. The two women that organized the Art Festival with around 170 artists are Alda Sigurðardóttir and Kristveig Halldórsdóttir.
Here they are, the friends Alda and Kristveig with the view of rock Gullkistan on top of the Miðdalsfjall mountain behind them. They deserve a huge applause for the work they have done on this Art Festival and for hosting a seminar about the old house in the town that they want to turn into an International Art Center. A group including those two is planning for this to be possible. Let´s hope we can make it happen.
Thank you for Gullkistan Art Festival at Laugarvatn, Iceland!
Go girls!!!