'denne okände fått', I have been searching in the wrong places - Carina Granlund

So wonderful to get a New Year's greeting from Carina Granlund, Petsmo. From the land of the caribou and clodhopper shoes to this island of rain and wellies. 

Everyday Carina and I go into our studios and face the blank page, or look at something we started and look for a place to continue.  We all have our rituals.  Perhaps Carina wears shoes like the ones she's stamped on the envelope.  I wear crocs mostly because just getting here inevitably ends in wet feet.  Crocs dry out quickly and can be washed. 

Although potentially heretical to say, DKult Doodle therapy is a way to get started, sometimes.  Certainly mail art is a way to dig into materials and let things happen.  Carina is our DKult seamstress, with hand-stitching skills that all kulters should learn to emmulate. I am returned to the day of sewing cards.  Do they still do that in nursery school? Not that I am saying there is anything nursery-like in Carina's way.  I often receive work from my mail artist friends and think, 'huh why didn't I think of that?'  Perhaps it's all down to that muse...

The above is one of Carina's chair series, made in Germany in Sept 2015.  I love the acquiescent look on the monkey's face. It feels like he is observing a mobile of shoes circling above. 

Inside the envelope is this other container which has a plaintive woman and a natural, relaxed man… when I am sitting infront of the blank page I try to be the man but without fail I lose my way and lose sight of the fun. 

This little envelope contains what Carina calls 'a distorted boekie'. I think she calls it that because lining up the pages must have been a nightmare and she probably sees nothing but flaws.  It look fabulous to me but the real joy is the story inside. 

Where is my muse?
I have been searching in the wrong places.

Maybe she is hiding in the night?

I am the muse!??

The characters and the images are sublimely Carina, simple and just right!

I let my eyes wander over the words of the book pages that Carina had used to make the pages of the book, beautiful off-white faded pages, and settle on,  'denne okände fått,' which according to my handy translater means, 'recently this unknown'.   Aren't language, stories and Carina amazing!