Storied Iceland

Our first view of the Land of Fire and Ice

Right before Christmas, we have this thing called the annual book flood.

We have such a strong literary heritage, and we read a lot in this country.

We really like to read. Every tenth person is an author in Iceland. 

We have a Nobel Prize winner, Halldór Laxness.

The annual book flood is when all the authors in Iceland release their books.

And I remember as a kid, we got this brochure on our door with all the books

that were being published.

- Jóhanna Elísa Skúladóttir

Icelanders are overwhelmingly literary. They write everything down.  Much of what we know of Norse mythology survives because medieval Icelanders wrote it down.  Consider that.

I went to Iceland wanting to experience some of the country through its stories. Rather than an artist’s trip with ample hours painting landscapes plein air, I wanted

to travel in and through the landscapes while listening to stories birthed there. What would touch me?  What would I take home then?  Seemed like a plausible enough premise for the trip.

Taking Impressions

Day three in Iceland, with a rare couple of free hours before dinner, I opened my sketchbook journal.  I pulled out the volcanic stone I’d picked up from our visit to the lava field near Kötlujökull glacier, and made an impression of it with the kneaded eraser.  Inked with the Pentel brush pen, the eraser became a makeshift stamp I could use to apply the texture of the lava to the page.

I stamped the face of one of the Huldufólk and the horse as they’d appeared for me in the lava at Dimmuborgir.   The old Icelandic stories of the Hidden People living in the stone walls were already opening my eyes.

I was keen to make a picture with a piece of the place itself.

Huldufólk, Hrafnar, and Hestar  — Hidden People, Ravens and Horses

The thing to know about Icelandic stories is that they grow directly out of place.

And no place better for this than Dimmuborgir, its name translated as Dark Castles or Dark Cities.  About 2,300 years ago, lava spread across this wet landscape and pooled here.  Water trapped beneath it boiled into steam, rising through the molten rock to form pillars, chimneys and arches. When the lava lake drained away, the extraordinary structures remained.    

Look long enough, and you’ll see castles, bridges, animals, Huldufólk and, of course, trolls.  A favorite story explains the formations in Dimmuborgir’s valley the following way:  Trolls in Iceland live in the mountains and venture out only at night; sunlight turns them to stone. The story goes that Di

mmuborgir was a ballroom where trolls gathered to dance. One night they were having so much fun they lost track of time. The dawn caught them.

Other stories have Dimmuborgir full of the Huldufólk or Hidden People, Icelandic elves who live in the same lava rock walls. Kirkjan, a natural lava cave, may be their cathedral, and the tall stone arch is believed to be the threshold to their mystical valley beyond.

I took pictures of the lava formations, collecting faces of the Huldufólk and trolls, as well as otherworldly creatures, and even an alligator.  I planned to draw them later, when I had a moment.

I was also on the hunt for a horse formation among the animals. I’ve been making posters for the Year of the Fire Horse and had been thinking about Icelandic horses, that special breed the Norse settlers brought to the island 1,000 years ago. If ever a real fire horse would show itself, it would be here, in a land still being shaped by fire.

The path wound through the eerily beautiful valley of lava formations.  Suddenly, a raven shot overhead, chased by a small, determined bird.  The raven called, did a barrel roll, and disappeared over the stone wall in front of me.

One of Odin’s ravens. Yes, likely. Was it Huginn (Thought) or Muninn (Memory)?

Thirty seconds later, around the next bend, there it was.  Bumpy, distorted, mythic. Lava fire turned into hardened earth.  Iceland’s Fire Horse.

Traveling while an Artist

The plan was ten days in Iceland. Full days of sightseeing. Iceland is known for its volcanoes and glaciers, fjords, waterfalls, and geothermal fields, of course, but it was sheep farming, horse raising, and Icelandic folklore that intrigued me.

The artist-illustrator in me had a single objective:  a state of relaxed focus.  To be fully in the moment as much of the time as I could muster.

In Iceland, I looked, photographed, took texture impressions, jotted notes, and sketched in a small spiral sketchbook. I didn’t know what my ultimate artistic output would be.  Didn’t matter.

I came home with drawings thrown loose into my sketchbooks. Inked impressions from the lava fields and the birch trees of Þingvellir.  An Icelandic horse sketched with my Derwent tinted-charcoal paint pan set.  Faces from Dimmuborgir, and a view of Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík.  A hastily drawn map of Iceland, and the two pages above from Dimmuborgir.

I also kept a digital journal of each day’s highlights, with a selection of photos.  Here I collected stories from the people we met.

All artifacts of traveling while an artist. Rich raw material to savor.

A Few Impressions from Iceland

Fjords, waterfalls, geothermal fields, black sand beaches.

Sheep Farm, Bjarteyjarsandur (met Adda and Gummi). Horse Farm (met Monika and Krafla).

Kötlujökull is an outlet glacier of Mýrdalsjökull, the ice cap atop Katla, one of Iceland’s most powerful volcanoes.

Afterword

I’m long home now.  The digital journal has become a little printed book on the shelf.  The Iceland entries in my illustrated journal are finished too.  A place for first thoughts about what interested me in Iceland and what I might make of it. Meant for my eyes only.

In the studio, I’m still drawing faces from Dimmuborgir and finishing the Icelandic Fire Horse.

And there was a small experiment running through this trip as well:  how much trip overhead and artist-workflow scaffolding I could hand to my AI robot without letting it anywhere near my creative space.