Settling in at SIM in Korpúlfsstaðir —

SIM has two locations in Reykjavik, one downtown and one in Korpúlfsstaðir, just outside the city, where I am. It is fabulously quiet here, with little but the sound of the wind and the murmur of the radiators. Korpúlfsstaðir is a former dairy farm built in 1925-30, now a golf club and complex of studios for local artists as well as the SIM residency apartment and studio. People seem to golf here at all times of day and night, and in the rain! The weather is very changeable, mostly cloudy with showers and breaks of sun, and the kind of  “magic light” that photographers love. It reminds me of Ireland in that way. On my first day here, I found a beautiful long walkway along the water and out to a windswept island in the bay with views of the mountains on one side and Reykjavik on the other. I know where I will be spending a lot of my time…

Yesterday I ventured into Reykjavik on the bus to get oriented. It is full of tourists at this time of year, and easy to get around in English, though I’ve not yet found the places to get very practical things (paper? toothpaste? decaffeinated coffee?). I’ll return for visits to tourist sites and the downtown SIM, Seljavegur, soon, but am enjoying my “day of rest” today and settling into the shared studio. Fellow artist Noe and I did a major cleanup and organization yesterday, and it is already feeling like a good space. The third artist (another Ann) will arrive next week, and that will be our little family for the month.

It is startling how different my perception of time is here. It never gets dark, and I realize here how much I rely on the level of daylight/dark to tell me what time of day it is. The light does begin to dim in the evening, and I find myself expecting it to continue to fade, but it does not—it just stops! For someone like me, who usually lets dawn tell me when to wake up, it is quite startling. So far I am able to trick myself into sleeping in the evening by pulling the shades and using a sleep mask. Who knows, maybe the long twilight will turn out to be the perfect shooting time! It’s not unusual to look out the window and see people golfing at midnight… wonderfully bizarre!

From an interview with the poet Bob Hicok (American Poetry Review):

“Artists are lucky. We don’t own the banks but we can erase time. That’s what happens to me when I write. Musicians especially talk about this: where did the afternoon go? Who knows, but it sounded nice.”