Mari Shields
various titles
pine and birch

Have Saw Will Travel

We meet a colleague or two we haven’t seen for a while. And artists we have never yet met. It is exciting to learn what they are doing, how the work complements one another, how we each progress. That is the thing about symposia. In Finland, it was over a whole fresh-caught salmon for dinner. Yum… And then, of course, the sauna at the lakeshore. Lovely summer, better than where we’d come from, farther south. Hard to imagine the winter. And the lodgings wonderful - luxurious by my standards, and all of us so well looked after. Especially the cooking… Mosquitoes drive us indoors in the evening, so we talk about life, art, changes. We all pick up new things, absorb. And that wonderful collection of books!
My magic saw’s been arranged in advance and awaits - cannot fly with chain saws these days. Trees not suited for lumber were cut, brought to Saksala and were waiting for us. Pine, birch with character, big trunks. I seek great shapes and something to build an outdoor environment with, something larger than us, that we can retreat within, but it was not to be. The work became more intimate, sections inside and around sections, segments of a village, but they want to be indoors, more personal, more intimate. A suggestion, perhaps, of great cities, settlements, but this time we will look on and contemplate the larger version. Characters in the environment, these, as much as the environment themselves. It became lots of inhabitants in Saksala the habitat, smaller members of the population, the characters on the stage.
Recovering from an auto accident, this was my way back into my world, I thank you Saksala.