Advice to winter travelers in Iceland: keep up with the weather reports, have a car with 4wd/ studded tires, and have a plan B! After a big blizzard in the North, I scrambled to re-organize my last few days in Iceland. I had hoped to drive to Reykjavik and spend my last two days at the National Library and visit the studios of the Icelandic Printmaking Association. It was not to be, Mother Nature had other plans, and that trumps everything. The road out of Olafsfjordur was impassible for 2 days, and I had serious doubts about driving through some long mountainous passes on route 1, the ring road around the island. So plan B: swim some laps and try to relax. In the end I decided to leave my car in the North, in Akureyri, and fly South on the day of my international departure from Keflavik, fingers crossed that the weather would hold.
On the up side, my drive to Akureyri, an hour away from Olafsfjordur, was uneventful. At times, though, the light was so spectacular that I thought I would go off the road. Here is the light at mid-day, between 12:00 noon and 1:30 on December 12. Then from 2:30pm and on, once again, the descent into blueness, deeper and deeper until dark. I am going to miss the blueness.
My last 10 days or so at Listhus were dedicated to my woodcuts. These are the three that I made, all editioned, and the blocks cancelled so I won’t have to carry them home.
Presence, 13″ x 9″, edition of 6
Olafsfjordur, 13″ x 9″, edition of 15
Siglufjordur, 9″ x 5″, edition of 13
Andrea Krupp/ /Day-to-day 