Uno’s Animals: Pigs

Uno Axelsson had artistic ambitions already at an early age, but it was when he began to work with forestry that he found his niche. From 1975, when he began his career as a wood sculptor, until 2002 when he passed away, he created approximately 250 sculptures.

His work was always preceded by careful studies of the object to be recreated in wood. One can only be amazed at Uno’s ability to see a living creature captured inside a lifeless piece of wood and to release it in such unbelievable and striking detail.

~From the English brochure~

This sculpture of a sow and her piglets (in more or less natural size, I think) was carved out of one single piece of wood. This one took the artist 4 months to make, according to the guide at the museum.

A piglet who missed out on lunch (according to the sign)

When Uno first started doing artistic woodwork (which was not until at the age of 53, I think the guide said!) he made bowls, following the natural shape of odd-looking pieces of wood; then he began to carve animal heads on the edges of bowls; and from there went on to do bigger sculptures.

The eyes on his sculptures are not glass but painted with water colours and then lacquered to be made shiny and life-like.

More of Uno’s animals will follow.

Quotation of the Week (29/2010)

The page of life that was spread out before me seemed dull and commonplace, only because I had not fathomed its deeper import.
~Nathanael Hawthorne~

Wooden sculpture by Uno Axelsson

Come to me , all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
~Matthew 11:28~

Most of Uno Axelsson’s wooden sculptures are of animals, but this one is entitled “My Hands”, and includes the Bible quote from Matthew 11.

See more of his sculptures in yesterday’s post, and there will be even more to come.

Hi!

Last week while my brother was here for a few days, among all the other things we had to do, we also took a little time to visit a museum exhibiting the works of a local artist, Uno Axelsson (now deceased), who made the most fantastic wooden sculptures. I will be showing more of them in posts to come.

Uno’s art often started as nodules, obstinately growing against the grain. Large knots and gnarly trunks that for some reason did not stretch straight for the sun, are typical of pieces that inspired Uno’s fantasy. Such natural mistakes were the platform on which Uno created unique artistic treasures to wonder and delight.
~ From the English brochure ~

Over the weekend I’ve been very tired, so have been withdrawing into my shell and taking things very slow…

 
To give you an idea of the size of the snail…
(It is made all in one piece.)

A UFO Visitor

Click to enlarge, if you dare.

I’ve been saying in connection with the heat that at least one good thing about living in town and two floors up is that we don’t get a lot of insects. And I usually don’t, even with the windows and balcony door open at night.

The other morning when I got out into the kitchen though, I found this one crawling on a cupboard door in the kitchen.

Instead of hitting him with the flyswatter I managed to get him to crawl onto it, and carried him through to the balcony. There he sat down on a plastic footstool and waited patiently while I went back inside to get the camera. So before we said goodbye (i.e. before I got him to crawl back onto the flyswatter and then somewhat rudely threw him out over the railing to meet an unknown destiny), I took a photo.

But he did not give me his name, and the few names that did flutter through my mind do not seem to fit when I google them.

If someone knows, please enlighten me. He was probably ~2 cm, antennae excluded.

Unpredictable

The weather forecasts for Tuesday predicted thunder and lightning and torrential rain and floods and all kinds of disaster to fall upon us in the afternoon. The morning papers even had big black headlines telling people to stay in if they could….

Pfft… Again, a few drops of rain was all that came. Not even much wind involved. There was a certain drop in temperature though. So there probably was thunder somewhere in our oblong country. But not here.

Yesterday by noon the sun was blazing and doing its best to heat things up again.

Dad was moved from the hospital to a short-stay nursing home on Monday, and my brother is staying at the house (in the countryside) for a few days. Yesterday we both went to see dad and to talk to staff at the nursing home. Seemed as good as can be expected from a short-stay place and dad seemed to be “accepting” the situation as well, even though having no real concept of where he was. He was able to answer some questions about himself from the past quite adequately though. It’s when we get to the last few years that it gets confused.

Afterwards my brother and I went into town for lunch – at the restaurant in the background of this picture. (I’ve blogged photos of it before – it’s the one with the outdoors chrystal chadeliers.)

In spite of frequent visits to this town and neighbourhood all through his life (we did not grow up here, but our grandparents lived here, later I came to live here, and our parents moved back when dad retired), my brother has spent very little time on foot in the actual town centre. I thought it was about time for a bit of an update! So we parked on the other side of the park and walked across to the restaurant. I love walking through the park, it’s one of my favourite places.

Flowerbeds being watered in the park. 

Today again it seems we’re in for a bit of more unpredictable weather. (Thunder?) Planning to spend most of the day at dad’s house so better get a move on…

Quotation of the Week (28/2010)

“Gracious acceptance is an art which most of us never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving.”

Alexander McCall Smith
(Love Over Scotland)

The couple in the picture are complete strangers to me. I took the photo at the celebration of our National Day in June. This couple standing right next to me started dancing although no one else was doing it. The shot is straight from the camera, no cropping or editing. They saw me taking the photo, but just smiled…

Still Hot

Photo from last year (town park).

We’re still having afternoon temperatures a bit over 30C /~90F in the shadow.  Indoors in my flat now 27C/ 80F.

Towards evening yesterday there was some thunder passing by, but at some distance – only a few drops of rain here. Today’s morning paper however told me that the fire brigade had a busy afternoon yesterday, with no less than nine fires started by lightning in the area.

Ginny asked about air conditioning. That’s not standard in the average private home here. For the most part of the year we are a lot more concerned about keeping warm than keeping cool...!

I have two fans going to circulate the air but they do not cool it down.

Luckily since I live on the 2nd floor I’m able to leave windows ajar at night (and when I go out in the day). Would not dare do that if I lived on the ground floor.

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Dad was transferred today to a short-stay nursing home across town from me.

And my brother called from dad’s house in the afternoon to say he had arrived there, after a long and hot drive (~300 km).

Tomorrow morning I’ll call the nursing home again (talked to them briefly today) to make an appointment for us both to see the nurse there to exchange some more information. The timing of my brother’s visit is as good as can be. He’ll also be able to help bring some clothes and things from home for dad. I might go out to the house some day this week too, while my brother is staying, so that we can look over some things together.  We’ll see how it goes. The heat wave does not really inspire to a whole lot of “activity”.