Weekend in color

I prefer beginnings to endings

I've realized that my love for film stills is probably purer than my love for films.

I used to think it's wrong..

2

The weekend in the internet

• ihardlyknowher.com/ where you can make a minimalist Flickr stream. Here's mine.
• i love sammelgedanken.tumblr.com

Retreat zine

The zine I made with Jaakko Pallasvuo is soon coming out soon on Milano Chow's small press Medium rare.

Is this it?

When I picture my dream residence I have this image of illustrator Julie Verhoeven in mind. The peach colored walls with her pencil drawings on them. A scan from Face circa 2001.

Looking at this image also makes the Strokes debut album autoplay in my head. Times..

Grey Melange

In short:
Grey Melange is a B-home exhibition I made with graphic designer Antti Hiljá. The exhibition centered around the color and texture of melange gray. It was held in my late grandmother's home where I was a passing resident this spring. The exhibition lasted for one night. There were 14 physical guests. I moved away the day after the exhibition.

The idea for the exhibition was initiated one weekend in April while making mac and cheese with my friend Antti. He asked me what my favorite color was and we started talking about melange grey. It turned out we both had an intensive relationship with that casual color and decided to make something out of it together. We planned the show during two weeks, made the images and took off one day to realize it.

Some things that interested me on the theme / this project:
- the possibility of collaborating with Antti on a theme we both instantly linked with
- the ambivalence of the color and space combo
- making room and time for something and then doing something in that space you have made
- realizing a show in one day
- changing a domestic space into something else
- good old making something out of nothing
- having a good-bye party before moving out

Things we made for the exhibition:
- scanned clothes and photocopied them (4 x A3)
- collages from googled images
- digitally shoplifted at Vapaavalinta home supply store by photographing grey melange clothes
- a pile of our melange grey clothes
- recorded a scene from Rocky, the sporty montage scene with one arm push ups etc
- some drawings where the drawing hand imitates the texture of grey melange
- list of connotations

A thing I forgot to make:
- Recommended reading sign on a table with Gerhard Richter: Doubt and Belief in painting -book on it

Stress level while preparing the exhibition:
- Elina 4%
- Antti 0%

Stress level measurement on the day of the exhibition:
- Elina 56%
- Antti 89% *

All in all I am content with how the show came out and went. I was so happy that people showed up. It was interesting to hear their comments and musings on melange grey though I was nervous. There was a solid level of curiousity and puzzlement in the air. The Rocky vidoe seemed to be a favorite. Boys had a go at one hand pushups and other physically demanding pushup styles which was cool. Some dancing happened around the grey pile. All good.



Grey melange is an ocean of thought to dive into. I tried to write more about what it is in the color and texture of grey melange but my thoughts don't necessarily translate into language nor should they. It has to do with something that happens when you are looking at nothing and it starts to look like a body of something. Like you are contenting yourself with something that seems like not a lot. It makes you feel very priviliged.

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* Note: Antti's higher stress level could've been due to the fact that he had his club that same night

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See more images of the show in my Flickr.

Read more about the B-home project here.

Smash Hits Claire Danes

I moved! No time for the internet, just moving things around in my new room. I took some time off to scan and show this poster I'm going to put on my wall after a solid break.

Gray Melange / B-HOME

B-home by Elina Minn and Antti Hiljá

Semisecret collaborative show.

This Friday the 15th at my grandma's old apartment
You are welcome to the opening!
email me for details: e l i namin n at g mail dot com

Read more about the B-home project here.

Triptych / New work

How to speak in complete sentences?

"It became notes on how I felt about aging, but the important thing is not that my hair and my hands tell me I'm about to die. The next image is more important. You have to finish with a total image of life."

- Agnes Varda on filming her hand with her other hand in Les glaneurs et la glaneuse

Postformal thinking

Today I read aloud to myself an article on postformal thinking.

On artistic work

1. Stills from Milos Forman's film Černý Petr (1964)

"Just following doesn't solve anything. It makes no sense"
"I thought he might somehow reveal himself."
"And what did you accomplish?"
"Nothing. I followed him all day."
"So you weren't working?"
"I was.""



2. A story by Elina Minn 7 years old

"niilo is a bear who loves farming he always plants carrots and parsley on his yard he really loves farming and that's not all niilo didn't control his farm because he poured milk and lemonade on the plants oh how stupid he is thought his parents he really is sighed his relatives niilo was confused but carried on farming niilo's mom questioned him are you still going on with that farm of course i am laughed niilo mom shook her head and sighed father banged his head on the wall so that mom had to fetch water to calm him down"

Still thinking..

Source

Thought for today

Waris Ahluwalia <3

Photo from facehunter (ew)

This is what I look like when I'm breathing

Stills: Milos Forman, Černý Petr 1964

YES

Heaven means feeling intimate forever

Fort by Ida Lehtonen

Quote from Douglas Coupland's Microserfs via I Love My Blog

On artistic work

1. Stills from Milos Forman's film Černý Petr (1964)

"Just following something doesn't solve anything. It makes no sense"
"I thought he might somehow reveal himself."
"And what did you accomplish?"
"Nothing. I followed him all day."
"So you weren't working?"
"I was.""



2. A story by Elina Minn 7 years old

"niilo is a bear who loves farming he always plants carrots and parsley on his yard he really loves farming and that's not all niilo didn't control his farm because he poured milk and lemonade on the plants oh how stupid he is thought his parents he really is sighed his relatives niilo was confused but carried on farming niilo's mom questioned him are you still going on with that farm of course i am laughed niilo mom shook her head and sighed father banged his head on the wall so that mom had to fetch water to calm him down"

So where are you when the loud ones rule?

Outside the scouts are marching



inside listening to Scout Niblett.

They're so damn loud I can't even hear you.
So come come round and help me shoo them.

finding things among (ugly) things and taking them out and looking at them

My friend works at Salvation Army and I often go there on Saturdays. On the counter there are plastic boxes full of assorted STUFF that the people who work at the thrift store probably hate to organize and don't want to bother so they just dump them into these boxes. Dollar store throwaway cheap labor trinkets, handmade stuff (that might have been gifts for someone?), also just bits and pieces and strings, rocks and sticks.

Some words we could use to describe the stuff in the box:

plastic
assorted
mixed
cheap
junk
cluttered
ugly
colorful
useless

If you have a box like this at home you know. Even the thought of having to dig into those boxes and sorting them out is pretty depressing. You'd probably rather just not have them around, you'd rather throw them out. So why do you have them? Maybe you don't. I know I do.

At rare times I atill become very interested and start to feel attached to them. This saturday was one of those rare times I was digging the box and feelin' it.



Throwing away useless stuff and bringing it to be sold to other people at thrift shops are two completely different things. Think of what use could your junk be to someone else.

Like these wedding candies that have aphorisms written on the back.

Stuff like:

"Happiness is a matter of digestion for me"

"Lucky the man who has a wife to tell him what to do and a secretary to do it for him"

Ancient Chinese secret, huh.

They reminded me of HyiHyiHyi* which is a d.i.y jewelry project I had with Mirkka some years ago. We also had an idea of making jewelry that comes with an aphorism, fortune cookie style.

Conceptual jewelry design, bless you.











Here is Johanna presenting one of the wonderful snake charms from the box.





Oh rock.

I'm feelin it...



Heartshaped wooden earrings.

Johanna feelin it...



I'm taking this home:



How would children describe these boxes? Maybe as treasure boxes. My mom was a dentist and she had a box like this at her work. To calm her small patients she would ask them to pick out something from the box after the appointment. I was always in awe that my mother could provide kids with this stuff. Maybe it somehow made up for the sad fact that your mom is a dentist and all the kids in school would rather not visit her that much. I dunno freud. But box was cool! The sensation of putting your hand amongst all the trasures and picking something for yourself.

So I realize I'm still fascinated and I recognize that and I don't completely know how to feel about that. What does that make me?

Growing and growing up are two completely different things I guess.

I could say a lot more about the things in the box. Now I'm going to eat with my friends and thus must leave the box.

Let's end with the conversation with that drunken American girl at the party on Thursday:

"I'm so angry!"
"Why are you angry?"
"Cuz of my things.... I lost my things..."

Love,
Elina

* HyiHyiHyi is a Finnish onomatopoetic phrase you say when you disapprove of something, a cross between a NoNoNo and a YuckYuckYuck.