1. My first memories relate to colour and paint. Before I could walk, I crawled into a room where the floor had been recently painted. I got brown paint on my hands and knees and it took a long time before it wore off. One or two years later old I found a bucket with bright yellow paint and an easel. I painted long lines on all walls in the room and thought it looked beautiful.
2. I'm born on a small island with a population of 300 people. The language spoken on the island since at least 1000 years back in time is Swedish (spoken mainly in the coastal areas of Finland). Today in daily life I use a lot of languages - Finnish, Swedish and English – and some German and Spanish. I want to be fluent in at least six languages.
3. As a kid I was free to move around as I wished in the forest and fields. Very often my parents had to drag me into the house by force in the evening. I was usually covered with mud and resin and protesting loudly. My crawling in the wet ditches resulted in countless bladder infections.
4. Once me and a girl friend wanted to test how much weight a body could take. I lied down and my friend fetched red tiles and put them on top of me in staples. We never found out how much I could have endured because her mother interrupted the experiment.
5. The neighbour boy and I grew up thinking we are sister and brother. When we were seven or eight we made a cut in our palms and pressed the bleeding wounds together to mix our blood and swore eternal loyalty. We are still very close and very loyal and by coincidence we became neighbours again in Helsinki.
6. My grandmother had bloodsucking leeches in a glass jar. I think she used them to cure toothache and perhaps infections. She was born 1897.
7. Under the sofa I had a box hidden that contained dried rye bread and matches. This was to be used in case of emergency like if I would decide to run away from home.
8. As was common in the countryside my father made his own moonshine. I wasn't very old when I asked him about the steaming strange-looking home-welded pots on the kitchen stove. He told me that he was making rocket fuel for the Finnish state. There's no words to describe how proud I was!
9. There was a small library with mostly old books where I lived. I was reading a lot. Some important books were “Black beauty” by Anna Sewell (1877), “The Call of the Wild” by Jack London (1903) and “Bambi, A Life in the Woods” (1926) by Felix Saltén. A fourth book I read over and over again was Odyssey by Homer.
10. I used to have tame crows as pets during the summers. They are very intelligent and playful birds. They came flying to sit down on my shoulder and to whisper secrets in my ears. When the autumn came they turned wild and left to live their crow's life.
11. I was taught to judge people by character, not by wealth, looks or education. This is what is was like in the countryside - you were not supposed to make a fuss of yourself, or anyone else. However, there was a time when I thought education makes a person better. I don't think like that any more. Civilization comes from the heart.
12. At the age of 9-10 I decided to become a scientist. I built a laboratory in a pine tree and started my research on pine needles. I looked at them through a magnifying glass, wrote down my observations and drew diagrams. I believed that a scientist finds out amazing things by researching something that is seemingly boring.
13. The teachers in the primary school in the village were my own parents. My father was afraid anyone would think he favoured his own kids. He gave me much lower degrees than I deserved and more detentions than to anyone else - not fair at all although in a way he meant well. I was happy to move on to secondary school in the nearest town where I stayed during the whole week only to return home during the weekends. After the first term I was awarded a book prize for being “best in class”.
14. My adolescence included braces, greasy hair, a horrible sense of style and a ridiculous amount of big red spots. More than anything else I wanted to be beautiful, and I made my sister take photos of me when I was “modelling” in different positions by the sea or some other suitable place. She still teases me about it.
15. The little gang of teenagers I was a part of usually gathered in a shed or abandoned house where we played cards, drank beer and listened to music. Sometimes we went away for a kind of club evenings with dance and live music - summertime with boat, wintertime walking kilometres on the ice and then taking the bus. We girls used to dance in a circle with our hand bags in a pile in the middle.
16. I know (or used to know) how to dance waltz, tango, the Polka, the Hambo, the Schottische and of course: Finnish Disco Dancing.
17. There was an autumn when me and my friends used to play with a spirit board. Strange things started to happen, like when the whole house started to shake like in an earthquake. The sessions with the spirit board made me very afraid of darkness. It took me a long time to get rid of this impractical fear.
18. In upper secondary school I was supposed to give a presentation in front of the class. I suddenly lost my voice and my heart started to beat so fast that I thought I would faint. A strong feeling of shame struck me and I was unable to comprehend what was happening and why. This was my first panic attack from many that made my life a hell during the following ten years. I'm very grateful that the problem kind of faded away and disappeared. I think making art helped me.
19. I love horses and would ride every day if I could afford it. I'd love going on a safari watching exotic animals or learn how to dive in coral reefs.
20. My first boyfriend was working on a big ferry going back and forth between Sweden and Finland. Often I joined him on the boat, spending my time with the gaming machines when he was working since there wasn't much else to do. I used to spend far too much time playing computer games. Not anymore.
21. In arm wrestling this far I've won all women except for one, and around half of the men. The woman who beat me was from the same village as I.
24. I'd love a trip to outer space, even to the moon or at least being in orbit around the globe. I'm not sure about the UFOs since I never saw one but I'm convinced there's life on other planets. The thought thrills me.
22. For some years I was bowling with a group called Kuntokaato (straight translation would maybe be “Felling of condition”) – artists against art critics. I was never any good, but it was fun drinking beer and chatting together. I think my best is around 160.
23. After the first very meagre seven years, I've been very lucky to enjoy support from public and private foundations and institutions – enough to keep me running as an artist. Thank you, thank you so much! Also the public art commissions have been good projects and I hope to get more - it's so interesting working big-scale! During the years I've worked in grocery stores, in homes for elderly people or for mentally disabled people. After art school I sold roses in restaurants - with little success. I've worked as a librarian and as a research assistant at the university. I've worked with computers since the 80ties when I learned desk top publishing. I have supported myself by making the graphics and codes for web pages, mostly for cultural institutions. The past years I've been teaching animation and video at art schools. At the moment I'm working in a community art project for young people in east Helsinki.
25. A good thing with being an artist is that I've been able to travel pretty much even if I never had so much money. I feel lucky and rich having met so many good people both at home and away. I found another home village for myself in Putumayo, Colombia, for example... Life is really extremely interesting! And surprising.
Copyright Gun Holmström |