ORRI - DAYBOOKS

9. Feb

Me and Flóki took a stroll up the mountain a bit, to a dried up creek that runs through grey vegetation which I suspect will transform itself to dense green forest during the rainy season, couple of months from now. Flóki brought a book to practice his reading in Icelandic and, once we find a nice spot in the shade to sit down, plows through what I can only hope is a terrible translation of Donald Duck, although I have serious suspicions about the quality of the original text. He is so calm, observing the surroundings without speaking much but once in a while uttering „wow, this is beautiful,“ “what animals are these that swim in the puddles?“ and „look how cosy this is.“

13. feb

Flóki: Where is Kári?

Þorri: He is thinking. Don´t interrupt him.

20. feb

Made the mistake yesterday of taking my shirt of for half an hour (or was it an hour?) during „art class“ with Þorri. I might as well have taken a nap in a microwave. Despite multiple coatings of aloe and marinating my back in Mexican yogurt I have hardly been able to move today.

22. feb

Have, as of yet, not been as inspired as I had hoped for. Maybe it takes longer for the urban and academic noise that I´ve been living with for these past years to quiet down? Or maybe I´m too old to be inspired by new things and able to channel them into creative energy?

23. feb

Took a walk along crooked dirt roads across the valley that splits this town into sections, past three-story villas and few square metre shacks of rusty iron, leftover wood and bamboo. These two architectural styles shamelessly coexist here side by side, a gardener is watering the roses of the upper class while on the other side of the fence children – mostly indigenous - pee in the open sewer that runs between these two homes. I wonder if the visibility of this savage inequality is unhealthier than in the cities I know, where the economic status of the inhabitants is neatly divided between neighbourhoods so that we can exist almost solely within our own class. Or, if by the existence of absurd wealth and brutal poverty coexisting so bluntly possibly breeds a different kind of numbness and/or acceptance?

24. feb

One of the things I was going to do during our time here is to finish the editing of photographs for my next book and draft several sequencing ideas. Although I knew I needed some time off this work in order to distance myself from the logic with which I approached it in my MFA program I now feel the need to get back to it.

26. february

Shooting list:

the dogs

the garbage

the homemade garbage cans tied to poles and fences around town

paths

villas and shacks

fences and gates around the villas and shacks

tangled branches of the dry forest

the children

storefronts/bodegas…

3. march

Things got interesting this morning. I was going to mix photo chemicals and start processing the rolls of film that have piled up on my desk this past month and was looking for the measuring beaker. I finally located it behind a chair in our bedroom, wrapped in a black sock for protection when packing it in our suitcase in Toronto. When I pulled the sock off the beaker something fell from it and onto the chair below; a handsome Black Widow spider. Keeping my eye firmly on the beast I called Kári, our nature-loving, science-curious son, who brought a glass and promptly caged the animal. After observing it with a mix of admiration, fear and humility the widow met its fate; my Puma sneaker, the deadliest weapon in our arsenal, having already slaughtered a scorpion few days ago. While I revelled in gratitude over having barely escaped an instantaneous death by paralysis Kári read up on the fearful venomous animal and shared some enlightening facts; the spider rarely bites, even when threatened and if they do bite they rarely cause serious reactions in humans, let alone death, even if left untreated.

It was hard not to associate my reaction to this animal to other mythologized threats. When we told our friends and family that we were going to spend four months in Mexico some voiced their concern with comments on the dangers that would await us in this violent country of drug gangs and lawlessness. Would it be safe to bring our children here? I wonder what, of the following scenarios, is the most likely; running into trouble with a drug gang in Mexico, being hit by a streetcar in Toronto, or beaten to a pulp on the town in Reykjavík?

4. march

Poor Flóki is running a high fever and is sleeping upstairs, Þórdís reading beside him. Me and Flóki had planned to go into town and check out the graphic arts workshop that I passed on my walk there last week, bring sketchbooks and things to draw/paint with and have an „art day.“ Instead, me and Þorri went into the city and are now sitting at the Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca looking at graffiti books and books on protest art. Have promised to buy him a spraycan before we head back.

At the end of the day Þorri insists on taking a taxi collectivo; beat-up Nissan cars that drive specific routes with as many as 7 passengers – plus driver - squeezed inside the 5-person vehicle. His reasons; “because it´s so warm and cosy.” Þorri is so much calmer when you´re alone with him, talks less and contemplates. On the way he remarks, out of the blue; “some things you can only do well if you don´t think about them.” A bit baffled I inquire about what he means and he explains that when he consciously thinks about drawing, focusing on doing it well, his drawings never come out good. But when he doesn´t think about it his drawings are “crazy cool.” In the stuffed car on the way home we take turns naming things in life which his theory applies to; photographing, running down the stairs, breathing…