We arrived at the museum in Hofn
about ten minutes before the curator would be there to open it for us. We warmed ourselves sipping a cup of coffee we'd picked up at the Esso station. As we waited, we saw a young woman walk up to the entrance of the museum and hug the lee of the building. No, it turns out she wasn't the curator we'd been waiting for, but an artist with the same appointment for the museum that we had. She is from Holland and has been living in northern Norway and has received a grant to tour Iceland for a month. She would be touring for another couple of weeks yet, and her visit to the museum, like her visit to the country entirely, was intended to serve as a source of inspiration for her art. Most of her work is paintings, but she thinks she is going to start doing some sculptures and "installations."
I told her I was a poet and she asked if I were famous. Mary and I both laughed at that. I think she understood that I'm not so famous. Her work is starting to become known in northern Norway.
I'd be interested to see what kind of art her visit to the museum inspires, but I'm afraid I've been brought up not to ask a young lady what her name is, but to wait for her to volunteer that information, especially in a foreign country. So I'm afraid I don't know her name. In the natural history room of the museum, I did see her photograph some of the rocks that were on display. When I looked into the case later, I saw shapes in there that would surely inspire me if I were a visual or plastic artist. I know she also took a photograph of a large piece of weathered baleen, too.
The visit to the museum in Hofn differed from our visit to that at Skogar. Here the curator did not give us a tour, indeed he spoke English with difficulty. He is Hofn's naturalist, not its linguist, for one thing; the woman at the library had told us we could ask him nearly any question about Iceland's birds and he would know the answer. Here there were many photographs of Icelanders at work, churning butter, harvesting hay, grinding manure. Grinding manure? Yes. The wife would load the manure into the grinder, the husband would crank the handle. I'm assuming that "grinding" helps obtain a more even layer of nutrients when the manure is spread on the fields.
If one thing stands out for me about the museum in Hofn, it is the way many of the displays focus on the human element, on the Icelanders' struggle in the harsh environment. Again, as at Skogar, this was not brag, but fact, and it was presented with humility. The place had a local, home-made feel about it. There was none of that professional spit and shine which gets set down any ol' where; you see that in too many museums these days, the materials on display removed from the context of the lives around them. Here, Icelandic life was throbbing.
Downstairs, with me thinking Mary wanted it and Mary thinking I wanted it, we bought a CD of a local choir singing traditional Icelandic hymns. The curator opened the display copy of the CD and showed us a photograph of the choir inside; "this is my father," he said, pointing to one of the singers, "and this is my mother." What Mary and I were both interested in was traditional folk music; hymns don't exactly fit the definition. I will say, however, if I must listen to them, let them be traditional Icelandic hymns.
When we finished at the museum, the rain was still raining; the blow was still blowing. We offered the artist a ride back to her quarters so she wouldn't have to walk home in the rainstorm. She was staying at a house only a block or so from our guesthouse. She was glad for the ride.
To be continued....
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