Christina Herrströms blog

To trust the unknowable ( About Gustav and Ulla Kraitz)

I think about the idea that all we do should result in measurable profit. It is a rational approach that spreads across all areas of life, Also relationships. Before we enter something we speculate on if it is worth our energy. I believe that, in the long run, struggles itu us, from within.

Gustav and Ulla Kraitz, An artist couple I met at their gallery in Skåne has something else to tell. Gustav was born 1926 In Hungary. When he was 23 and went to the Academy of Arts in Budapest was occupied by the Soviet Union. 600.000 Hungarians were taken as prisoners of war, was brought to prison camps for forced labor, Among them Gustav. For five years he was forced and 3000 other men shovel coal, up to seven tons a day. Only five percent survived.

1956 he managed to flee to Sweden and soon he met the young artist Ulla. The meeting gave rise to a common idea of ​​the art that carried them through life and the world. The seed was sown at the East Asian Museum where both were fascinated by a small ceramic fish from 900 the China of the speech. The glaze contained an enigmatic beauty, as if it shimmered by a light deep from within. They wanted to achieve the same. How was a mystery. There wasn't exactly any manual. Years of patient experimentation and repeated failures taught them how the huge oven would be built, How clay, fuel, weather and wind could interact, and not least the decisive fire of fire in achieving the vision. One thing was early for sure. The fire requires an tireless shuffling of, among other things, coal. Gustav returned with his body, mind and power to the same action he was forced to in the prison camp during death threats.

But now to master the burning that can evoke the unique glaze that enchants the works, makes the shapes Ulla create touches us higher, deeper. Jag tänkte, Imagine returning to precisely the act that the oppressor forced him in the most brutal way, Imagine overcoming what the memory of the body must carry, because he was driven by the vision of achieving the beauty of the glaze that for a thousand years has been forgotten. Imagine not backing already at the moment it was clear what the burning requires. Imagine swinging over the memory of the pain, defy the deeply etched humiliation for the hope of happily creating the beauty of the unique glaze.

Strangely enough, The sparkling strength is in us humans.

Today Gustav and Ulla's ceramic works of art are loved all over the world, It is an ongoing tribute to the art, livet, the resistance, literally manifested in the Raoul Wallenberg monument outside the UN in New York. And an individual's, An artist's victory over human evil.

I didn't know anything about this, but was tenderly affected by the visible simplicity of the forms, As everyone is about life. In them there is something infinitely expressive.

I am thinking that this would not have been done if Gustav and Ulla Kraitz had speculated on the benefit of their driving force and idea, If it was the effort worth following their strong vision. I think of creation, resistance and the defiant tribute of life, But above all, I think of the power of trusting the unknown.

I've got an uncle

I've got an uncle. I am very happy for. Jag är 63 years and have received an uncle. It's no small thing, to me it means a lot, That he exists makes me happy.

Actually he is not my uncle, Without my dad's wedding. I have not met him earlier in life, What I know, Not until any year ago. As soon as I saw him I became very delighted, for I recognized him – as mine so to speak, as coming out of the same family. I recognized his moving flying intellect, his language and his subtle humor. Although our families never had to do with each other.

Without him knowing about it, did i adopt him immediately as my uncle. He is much kinder than my real uncles were. In some parts of my family, especially among men, Has there been a superior, arrogant tone, against anyone who is not as intelligent and knowledgeable as they themselves, according to themselves. They were fun anyway, a whole high white -haired self -proclaimed genius, To some extent well -motivated.

My new uncle is very handsome I think and he can tell you so many stories about his part of the family, The part of the family that moved from Skåne to Stockholm. It is fascinating with all the lives and meetings and ideas and adventures and everyday life and dreams that have been woven through the ages. Så Different It has become because someone was brave and left to the big city, Instead of staying at the Scanian place of origin. One is no better than the other, But their children and grandchildren got very different lives, in such different environments.

And my uncle can remember his grandfather who was the one who gave up. Now he has received eight cartons of photos and letters from past times. That is the one that is happy to be thrown away, Because one has no relationship with the people in the pictures. But he can tell. And I will listen.

My dad could also tell you about those who came before. But I didn't listen to him. It is probably typically. However, I thought it was nice with the American indigenous people who kept their ancestors alive in stories about them. Also quite typical.

When I sit in my new uncle's kitchen and weave together threads, I sometimes wonder what should be left after us that lives now, and especially after those who are young now? There will be no cartons full of photos and thick lunts with letters.

It may be empty.

But still, our future relatives will also wonder where they have come from, If there are traces in them from us, in their choice of life, in their minds, features.

But for many of us floating the latest 15 the years of life in the digital clouds. Nothing can be taken on. Everything takes place, But I probably want everything down, Down to earth, I want all pictures of paper and time and advice to arrange albums, Write the names, The years, Note the occasions that have been points… and not least the everyday life where life is actually expressed as the most. But will it be off? 

It would be not just an action for me, It would be an action for my children, grandchildren and perhaps even their children. I think it is important for a person to know that one has roots far beyond oneself, Beyond his now, I think there are moments in a person's life then the knowledge if it makes her less alone.

The inevitable stillness

The old man was left alone in the dining room long after breakfast. His wheelchair stood in the middle of the floor between the tables, with my back toward me, Turn against the windows. He was not moving. Neither do I.

My world was the youth's. I went to high school and worked in elderly care on weekends. The old one seized me. All they had lived, and as they carried within themselves. It was tumultuous to understand that they had been young with clear eyes and streaming energy in viable bodies, They may have even loved hot, som jag? Burned by longing and visions, secure their strength without understanding that they would be old – even though they were nothing but just that. Nu. Tiden, As they had ruled in, As the queens and kings of the present, would move on, always be new but they would fall out of it. Slowly. The intention was that we young would come. We would boast at the now's arena and for us the time was for us would not abandon us.

The man sitting in the empty dining room on the floor between the tables in his wheelchair, made my heart ache.

The thin arms rested on the armrests and from his shoulders shot the narrow neck forward and carried up his head. In his lean neck there was a deep gorge below the edge of the skull. Darkness in that gorge filled me with great sadness over life. This picture etched itself stuck in me. Every time I turned to it, I felt hopelessness.

Three decades later made cell toxins made me weak and I spent a lot of time completely still and silent. One day when I stared at my walls for a couple of hours I remembered the sad picture, But suddenly understood something important.

The physical powerlessness I was forced into gave me an inner room to stay in, and soon the brain began to amuse me by letting me move free in all my times, in everything I carried, Each, with everyone I like and love and who

preferably along the road, in the particular moments woven to just my life for good and evil. I was given time to melt, tax, Adding RO – and receive. If I had seen myself lie there, bald, quiet and quiet and stare at my walls for hours. Had I cried desperately about everything I seemed to have lost.

But thirty years after the old man sat in his wheelchair I realized that the despair I knew about life was a lack of knowledge of the greatness of life. In the all -all -phases of life.

(He may have smiled in his silence, of genuine joy

((In the unexpected internal freedom- )) carefree about the darkness in its lean neck.) (But such knowledge comes with life.) 

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Those who came before…

Thoughts for the day Mars 2021

My dad told me so much about our family. He genealogy already as a child and talked to those who were old at 1930 talet. He carried with him who came before us, their names and fate. Their fate is parts of how my life is built, they give resonance to my life. A sound that from a gong gong, A vibrating long echo consisting of many layers of tones.

When Dad met a new man, he mapped their pedigree and often came to the conclusion that we were related. I understood that we are all woven together with invisible thread. I also understood what an incredible coincidence is that one even exists. Our existence is determined by coincidences, Small displacements, delays, Early arrivals, a moment's distraction or a second when one looked up without reason and saw another, any man struck with, meetings that have given new generations. I learned wonder before life, tiden, the rhythm and an insight into the power of the moment.

But sometimes you suddenly and intensely get tired of life and want to lie down and dissolve. One does not have to be depressed to feel “I can no more! I don't want to!“One can be overpowered by hopelessness to be insignificant in everyday life. In a convinced moment you want to go to pieces and never have to gather again.

At difficult times, the feeling is a bordee and the wound of life, after all, a eerie meaninglessness.

Then it is good to remember those who came before. These people have existed, Obviously as I now even if only their names and years remain. But when I remember their name, moving their fate within me, Flamms to, glow. And that which has been their daily struggle. There are many generations of sea captains in my background. They traveled all over the world on three -masted ships, partly privileged but completely extradited to the wildest forces of nature, As when their ship was about to be lost in storm outside Peru. And the long stretches over the ocean must have been filled with daily hardships I can't even imagine. They have been able to. Not to mention the generations of farmers. Their bodies and dreams torn off the earth. They have frozen, svultit, worked with the gear of that time, Without electricity, drains and running water and so much we take for granted. How often may it have felt “no, I can not take it!"My grandmother's father was a boy,traveled to America and dug gold, came home after five years and bought a farm for his family. He made sure that all the daughters received higher education, In a time when it was not included in the women's ideal. He succeeded. The endurance that drove my ancestors cannot be neglected when life is courageous.

I can feel their power. The endurance that is life faithful. Their struggle for something that has always been a diffuse future. In their diffuse future I am, nu, I'm a random consequence of them. One day only my name remains, year of birth, year of death. But those who come after me should be able to get the power of the one who was I never gave up, Just like those who came before me cast endurance, dignity and courage in me.

Five hundred years old seeds

Ten years ago, a man raised me by sending quotes from legends about the Holy Fransiscus, which was born around 1180 and as a young man experienced a repentance and left their well -off life to take care of the sick and poor. He walked barefoot and without possessions, In order to mimic Jesus' life on earth. He and his companions became the first beggar monks. Fransiscus saw God's love embodied in the animals, nature and other people. His sermon to the birds and respect for all living have made a deep impression through the centuries. He is appointed to the Protector of the Animal. I read message and became curious, Not on the man, but on French. One day a friend I have not seen in twenty years give a lecture on the Holy Fransiscus in the All Saints Church in Stockholm and I went there.
It was the first step toward my downfall. In the church I met the destructor. In the following years he broke my brain – with good help that I was in acute sorrow after my father's death. The Wanting of the Wanting Saver was mental violence. He slung me into poverty and homelessness. From being strong and free I was long close to going under. Even I see God's love, without being a believer, in animals, nature and people and meet others with respect and listening. Since I didn't know who I had met, I also met my executioner so. He himself said "eat mud" to me when I defeated asked him for help. Eat clay. Idag, After putting it behind me and publishing the book The Wanting Subject, Is it time to write new. But in everything I write I have to find the main characters' names, it has to swirl to.
One day a name flew into the tank and I googled to see if it could grow in the creator soil. An artist was named. LOKE I looked through her work as suddenly a picture burned to.
It imagined seeds falling out of one hand.
I wrote to her. We immediately got in touch. The inspiration for the picture came from the fact that during excavations of an old monastery that had been leveled with the ground five hundred years ago had found some seeds. The herb gardens were the holiest place next to the church room and the monastery gardens were filled with herbs used as medicinal plants. They found the seeds were five hundred years old. One tried to put them, they sprouted and out of them grew new herbs, kraftfulla, obvious.
When I got to know it it burned again in the heart. In the magical way that happens sometimes the picture had come in my way, to my unloaded now, where I ended up after the journey in and out of hell and I needed it. I saved, I bought it.
The seeds that fall out of hand, have been deep in clay. The chance to get light again was minimal. Yet the power was naturally preserved in them, the power to grow again and enter into life. They are not in mud anymore.
Soon they fall in good Mylla. Soon they get light and water.
So what was the name I googled on? Fransisca.