During an eight day visit to Isafjörður, Iceland, I created ten drawings with pen, ink wash and charcoal on paper.
This was a vacation, a time away from my curatorial work and opportunity to spend time exploring this small coastal town in remote Northwest Iceland. I was accompanying my wife who was teaching a two week course at the university. We stayed in student dorms with magnificent views of the harbour and surrounding fjords.
From our room we watched Humpback whales through binoculars as they surfaced on the distant coast about 10 km away. One night we saw magnificent northern lights. My first time seeing such a dramatic display. I was also surprised to see the waning moon circle the horizon, day and night, seemingly never falling below the horizon.
Epic geology surrounds Isafjörður, with tall cliffs of layered basalt, changing as the sun moved across the sky and cast deep shadows among the rocky spires. These layers of basalt are some of the oldest in Iceland, about 12 million years old. The basalt layers that formed as continental plates diverged were then shaped by glaciers during the Pleistocene, thick ice carving out the fjords into a stunning landscape.
The geological age of the basalts was not lost on me. I came from Nova Scotia, where some of the oldest basalts of this ancient rift first formed 200 million years ago. I studied the dinosaurs and other fossils that walked among those basalt cliffs that now line the shores of the Bay of Fundy, and the Cliffs of Fundy UNESCO Global Geopark.
Spending time drawing the landscape in Isafjörður was an interesting visual challenge. I observed and recorded the complex shapes, shadows, and forms of the cliffs that surround the town. I experimented with new (to me) media of ink wash and brush. As I was drawing, I heard the raven’s voice, and sounds of local children playing in the nearby school. The warm sunshine contrasted against the crisp clean air the moved down the snow capped slopes.
Drawing is an activity that provides an opportunity for stillness and observation. A reflection on the cultures and time that is found is such a beautiful place. On days when there was a light rain I did drawings from inside a glass walled bus stop shelter. One day, teenager girls flooded in after school had ended, and several commented on the drawings, offering supportive praise and thumbs up.
I enjoyed these days of drawing, and hope to return again sometime soon. Today, I leave Isafjörður on another Iceland adventure, attending a European Geopark Conference in Reykjanes. I look forward to learning more about the geology of Iceland, and sharing information about Nova Scotia’s 200 million year old fossils, when these continental plates started their slow journey of lava and ice.
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