Here in Sweden people celebrate and observe on the first Sunday of December by gathering together as a family and lighting the first of the four candles for each Sunday of December in preparation for Christmas.
Advent Sunday, fourth Sunday before Christmas Day and the first day of the church year, in fact, the first Sunday of Advent.
They celebrate the Sunday Advent by toasting a special red wine, Glögg, and eating the traditional Swedish bread called Saffransbulle, boular (a soft bread with raisins and glassier sugar on top). The red wine is heated and poured into a special advent glass. Then they will put some raisins in the hot red wine.
The excitement begins the first Sunday of Advent with the lighting of the first Advent candle. Each Sunday prior to Christmas, another candle is lit with growing anticipation.
Now you know what I shall do today. :) Wish my friends a nice First Sunday of Advent. Margareth
I think I will remember the past year as the year of awakening. Sometimes painful and very sad but ultimately the feeling of gratitude has come as oceans waves. It's a meaning with everything we learn....
I remember when I and my family came to Sweden 1973. It was in the middle of winter and there was thick snow on the streets. It was as if we stepped off the plane into a magic world. I remember that I was thinking to myself: Where is the princess of ice who should dance under the streets lights?
Strangely, I've lost quite a lot of my memories, but just that I remember like it was yesterday.
But time has passed and winter is not as it was. In southern Sweden is not as much snow during the winter any more.
The weather has changed, but sometimes happens that the snow proves even if it does not stays as long.
These pictures I took last year when the week was magic in white.
I read about the mistreatment of pigs and is thinking if I should become a vegetarian. My next project; to be a vegetarian? It ought to be healthier, too. While I try to heal myself with art and with "human" vitamins the result must be perfect. New way to cure: Art and Vegetable. Green Christmas next?
Well, my invisible friends are vegetarians. It strikes me that I should continue writing and photographing their lives and adventures. But first I'll try to translate the manuscript into English. Poor language. :)Poor readers:) Poor me:) Hm.
Is it appropriate to say that I like this video? My home, I want to go home. Who says our "third" universe might is the earth with Saturn's rings? I've always felt like an alien, lost on earth, far from my real planet. I feel comforted that I have met many like me around the world who have confirmed what we suspected. I am not alone..:)
Here is a picture of me when I was young and well hiddenm hmmm as always. I think I was 23 in that photo. It was taken in Cafe Opera in Stockholm.
Time passes and I realize: you're old when you can not remember the age at yourself when the photograph was taken. Hm.
It's more people from other countries that are interested in reading my blog. Hmmm, it's just one thing I can to do. Continue writing in English. WARNING: English teachers are forbidden to read my blogs:)
It’s quite interesting, everything make “me, my self, my inner me” more and more outside Sweden. It’s like I live far away from where I live because mostly of the positive things happen very far away from Karlsborg. I told one friend , that lives far away from Sweden too..:) that I have the feeling that my soul is around the world and my body is locked in the town I live. It’s quite frustrating sometimes.
Awwwwww I have to find the key and lock me up..:)
What is happen then? Well. I am one of those selected artist that is traveling (my art (soul?) is traveling) around USA. arranged, by the organization World Art Foundation (WAF). In many ways my life is fantastic. I shall participate in two different s galleries in USA this year: November in Santa Fe New Mexico, December in Laguna Beach, California . And everything started when I becomes a member (here you can read my way to be artist:) and some of my artwork participate on the Expo09 in California.
I made this video to be sure to not forget my first step into the international world.
To the next year this organization (WAF) is preparing expos in many countries.I will be in some of those selected countries and I sitting here and want to clone me self and my art too. (The only thing I have to find out how to print my artworks/illustrations. It’s cost a lot and I don’t have any sponsor here in Sweden. But that is the problem of next year.)
The fantastic is that we, the members of WAF, don’t need to pay the fee to those exhibitions around the world. In fact the organization does a lot of us artists. They make the advertising, booking galleries; help with a lot of other things. For me, they done more then that, they gave me the courage to believe in my self as an artist. I am so grateful for that.
They are writing books of the member’s artwork. It’s fantastic and absolutely amazing those artists work and I still ask my self: How comes that I am a member there? Not bad for someone that never study art, someone that have no name in the country I live in, don't you agree? I have to spoke with Jante laws..:) You can see what I mean about the artists amazing artwork in this book here: http://issuu.com/wafmasters/docs/wafmasters
Helena Almén Hötzl is one other swedish talent artist that is in the same organization. Girlpower in art from Sweden??!!..:) She is very nice and I love her artworks and I look further to met her IRL and not only our artworks that meet each other in different galleries around the world. Take time, take a look and visit her website: HH Design or watch her video on Youtube
Even outside the organization it’s start to happen surprising news. I repeat in English of what I wrote in Swedish in my last blogpost.
Art Project 1001001 unifies 100artists of 100 different countries with their artworks to develop 1 unique, unusual, innovative common masterpiece of art to fight against global human trafficking.
In the Art Project 1001001 Curatorial Committee you find protagonists of fine arts and authors from all continents, musicians, scientists of social sciences, who struggle against modern slavery with their partners Europe-Institute for Social Work, Berlin, Germany and the United Nations, Vienna, Austria. Of course all Curatorial Committee Members work in an honorary capacity!"
I am one of the selected artists that will represent Sweden. I think that if I don’t had my nearly friends support and the courage that Word Art Foundation gave me, I would never had the courage to send my artwork to the jury in Germany. It’s a big honor for an idealist like me that believe that the visual world is a powerful tool in the fight against injustice.
We, the selected artists, are now only waiting for the announcing (30 November) where the exhibition will be, what gallery we shall exhibit in Stockholm. I will update later about it.
But I can’t stop to see the comic in this: I was trying during this year to contact some galleries here in Sweden, asking if they were interested of my art, tell them that I was interested to make an exhibition, but no one was interested. n fact some of those "gallery agents" I spoke to was very arrogant and I know it is because I don’t have a name. Well I done that after I spoke to them: I wrote their name and the gallery name in my memories block and I promised my self this: If I will have success one day I will never exhibit there.
The funny or ironic in this project exhibition in Sweden is that it is people from other countries that make it possible that I will have the exhibition in Sweden. Give me a break!!!! I never have problem to write my self biography.:)
Life is a journey. I will always remember year 2009 as the year of huge changes in my life, not only in my private life but as well as artist too. I am taking the world in my arms..:) Love and light to my friends. Margareth
Jag måste skärpa till mig och uppdatera mig själv och uppdatera hemsidan . Allt har legat mer eller mindre i träda i och med jag har haft så mycket att få ordning på. En dag kommer jag att se tillbaka och fråga mig hur jag lyckades pussla ihop alla dessa utspridda pusselbitar.
Men sakta men säkert går det åt rätt håll nu. Det är lättare att återvända till livet när man minimerar de värsta. Och numera så ser jag ljus på framtiden och jag bör kunna klara av nästa utmaning. På ett sätt blir detta drag det ultimata eldprovet.
I flera år har jag levt strikt isolerad, inom kort kommer jag att ta steget mot det okända, långt ifrån ett isolerat företeelse.
Det gäller att våga, samla kraft, blunda och hoppa rakt i det okända och det utan fallskärmsavtal.
Sverige har väldigt mycket att vara stolt över, säger jag som har bott här nästan hela mitt liv. Men det verkar vara många svenskar som inte ser det vi, som har utländskt påbrå, faktiskt ser. Men det kanske är det så att för att se måste man sluta bli hemmablind?
Jag surfar mest utomlands och de flesta av mina online vänner är människor från andra länder. Jag känner mig mer hemma hos dem som har liknande erfarenheter som mig. När jag berättar att jag bor i Sverige så är det många av mina utländska vänner som hyllar landet, faktiskt så får jag mer lovord från människor utanför Sverige om landet i sig än själva svenskarna. Så nog har Herman Lindqvist många poäng i det han skriver och jag kan tänka mig att hans artikel kommer att väcka ett ramaskri.
Var hör jag hemma i världen? Född i Brasilien, bott i Chile men bor i Sverige i mer än 30 år. Har svensk, rysk, estländsks påbrå. Men jag presenterar mig som brasiliansk konstnär som bor i Sverige, speciellt när jag saknar solen mitt i det svenska novembermörkret. Men var hör jag hemma? Jag är mer internationell än svensk. Men jag är mindre brasiliansk än svensk eller är det vice versa? Jag är oerhört patriotisk när Brasilien spelar fotbolls VM..:) men ändå så illustrerar jag mycket i vad som sker i svensk politik. Hm.
Jag fick något att fundera över. Var hör jag, egentligen, hemma?
För det mest känner jag mig som en främmande fågel som har flugit vilse. Men det har nog mycket med mitt liv att göra, antar jag.
Det händer så mycket positivt att jag inte hinner skriva bloggar som jag gjorde eller följa med vad som sker runt om i landet för att illustrera det. Även om jag har flera skisser om svensk politik men de ligger här, som skisser. Jag har nämligen fått något helt annat att tänka på.
För ett tag sedan blev jag tillfrågad om jag kunde skicka in några bilder på mina illustrationer. Personen bakom frågan, art director Christina Seibold, arbetade med ett globalt projekt som var på gång att starta upp i Tyskland. Så jag gjorde det. Skickade in fyra olika illustrationer. Döm om min överraskning när juryn valde mig och nu är jag en av de konstnärer som får representera Sverige i ett fantastiskt projekt. Art Project 1001001 - FIGHT GLOBAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING
(Art Project 1001001 unifies 100artists of 100 different countries with their artworks to develop 1 unique, unusual, innovative common masterpiece of art to fight against global human trafficking.
In the Art Project 1001001 Curatorial Committee you find protagonists of fine arts and authors from all continents, musicians, scientists of social sciences, who struggle against modern slavery with their partners Europe-Institute for Social Work, Berlin, Germany and the United Nations, Vienna, Austria. Of course all Curatorial Committee Members work in an honorary capacity!)
Jag har alltid trott på att det visuella ordet är en oerhörd stark kraft som kan, om den används rätt, påverka världen till det bättre. Jag vet att människor har skrattat åt mina idéer, jag vet att folk har sett på mig lite som om jag var helt bakom flötet, men jag har skakat av mig deras blickar och gått min egen väg. Det här projektet, de människor bakom detta projekt, visar att det finns flera som mig, runt om i världen som tror att med konstens hjälp, kan man visst påverka.
Behövs det säga att jag känner mig stolt? Jag känner mig också ödmjuk över att kunna bidra till något av vikt. Det finns så många människor som lider i det tysta, fångade och utnyttjade som slavar. Det är skandal att trafficking fortfarande finns i vårt moderna samhälle.
Vi har alla ett ansvar att försöka förändra.....
Nu väntar jag med spänning för att veta när själva utställningen ska äga rum. Den första anhalten blir faktiskt Stockholm. Därefter är det 100 länder som kommer att delta i detta fantastiska projekt.
Jag kommer att uppdatera i takt med allt som sker. Ha en fin vecka
Living include responsibility to help and to care.
People are often unreasonable,illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind,people may accuse you of selfish,ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful,you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank,people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building,someone may destroy over night;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness,they may be be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today,people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have,and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see in the final analysis,it is between you and God;
It has never been between you and them anyway.
