Textílsetur, Part 2

Since my arrival I've been working on a black version of my white Island of 14,264 Days. I'm using a similar process as before with a few changes and will be sewing my last knots on the new piece in the next few days. The piece is about darkness, the sadness and heaviness of life, the difficulties and challenges, the other half... I wanted to be here in Iceland in the winter in the dark to make this piece and the season and lack of light has proved very inspirational. I'm not ready to go into greater detail or show images right now... I want to keep this one to myself for a little while longer. However, I'm happy to share some of the things I've been listening to, looking at, and reading over the past month including a few podcasts about different kinds of darkness, some articles, a map, and a beautiful poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Seeing in the Dark on Radiolab

Dark Side of the Earth on Radiolab

The Secret History of Thoughts on Invisibilia

Jasper Johns: ‘Regrets belong to everybody, don’t they?’ 

by Julie L Belcove

Jorge Manilla: Oscure Sacrifices by Susan Cummins

a map of "what the world would look like if it were only made of islands." 

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A Psalm of Life by Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 

        Life is but an empty dream! — 

    For the soul is dead that slumbers, 

        And things are not what they seem.

    Life is real !   Life is earnest! 

        And the grave is not its goal; 

    Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

        Was not spoken of the soul.

    Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

        Is our destined end or way; 

    But to act, that each to-morrow 

        Find us farther than to-day.

    Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 

        And our hearts, though stout and brave, 

    Still, like muffled drums, are beating 

        Funeral marches to the grave.

    In the world's broad field of battle, 

        In the bivouac of Life, 

    Be not like dumb, driven cattle! 

        Be a hero in the strife!

    Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! 

        Let the dead Past bury its dead! 

    Act,— act in the living Present! 

        Heart within, and God o'erhead!

    Lives of great men all remind us 

        We can make our lives sublime, 

    And, departing, leave behind us 

        Footprints on the sands of time;

    Footprints, that perhaps another, 

        Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 

    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

        Seeing, shall take heart again.

    Let us, then, be up and doing, 

        With a heart for any fate; 

    Still achieving, still pursuing, 

        Learn to labor and to wait.

Thanks for reading.