Visit this nano blog to stay updated on where I am, what I’m eating and experiencing!

I will be cycling all over Holland, visiting the usual touristy spots, and traveling to Belgium to visit Ghent, maybe Brugge and perhaps hop a high speed train to Berlin!

Picnics in Vondelpark, beer tasting, cheese eating and art viewing.
Stay tuned!
Hugs
Tosca

The map image shows (red dot) where I’m staying while in Amsterdam! The green dot is Europe’s largest map (bike) store! And just down the street past my red dot is Vondelpark !!

The image above is one of the last Rugbrauds I tried.
However one of my last meals in Reykjavik was at a vegetarian restaurant !

it was, ok. The best thing about the meal was the mint basil dressing on the salad!
Meanwhile, my Rúgbrauð slowly bakes. It’s been in the oven since 1am and will hopefully be amazing by 1pm! I’ll update the result.
I found a recipe online for ingredients, amounts, etc., then translated the ingredients off my favorite Rúgbrauð package. The online recipe called for white sugar and milk, the Icelandic brand used brown sugar and buttermilk so, I purchased organic versions of everything. Here’s the basic recipe I used courtesy of Bibliophile’s Iceblog

Rúgbrauð !!

600 g sugar (I used 350g of dark brown organic sugar)
400 g whole wheat flour (200g organic ww flour)
2 kg rye flour (1kg organic rye flour)
1 tsp salt
50 g dry yeast
1,5 l milk (.75 l buttermilk which is roughly 3+ cups)

Mix the ingredients together and knead well ***next try I will allow the dough to rise)

To cook in used milk-cartons:
Half-fill each 1 liter carton, pressing well to avoid air bubbles in the bread. Stand on the bottom of the oven and bake at 100°C for about 12 hours.

To cook in loaf pans: I am doing the loaf pan technique!
Press the dough into tins/bread pans and stand in an oven-pan, half-filled with boiling water. Bake as above, adding extra water whenever necessary. This method is called seyðing, which translates as “slow-boiling”.

One type of rúgbrauð is called hverabrauð, or “hot-spring-bread”. This is bread that has been cooked in a hot spring, or buried in sand/mud at the edge of a hot spring and allowed to cook there.
Hverabrauð (hv pronounced like Kfuh and the weird looking crossed d sounds like TH in the) is what I was eating in Iceland and had the super luck to have a freshly pulled out of the ground loaf while I was in Myvatn!!

Things I brought home.

Memories. Happiness. Huge great big happy!! I LOVE Iceland. While never in a million years did I ever think I would travel there, I had dreamt of and imagined such a place. It fills me. Like Taos new Mexico had felt so profoundly like home (a home I’d never had) Iceland held the same strange eeriness. Eerie because I don’t fully understand why or where the deep feelings of home are coming from. It’s extremely moving, deep, profound.
yep, I was and am inspired!! I’ve already purchased a flight back for Fall (shhhh.)

Wool! A trip to Iceland would not be complete without purchasing an Icelandic wool sweater, hat, gloves, or scarf. I bought gloves – wanted a sweater but already spent many kroners. I also bought wool to make something…

felting wool. They sold it by the kilo for something like $5cad and those raw skeins were like $2 each, selling by the kilo the woman told me 9 rolls equaled a kilo. The wool came from the Icelandic knitting association in Reykjavik.

and found all sorts of life! Lots and lots of kelp, start fish, seaweed, corals, sponges, snails…

not sure what the green cactus looking thing is- yet.

The rocks are covered with seaweeds!!

Laura and i are traveling around the island. We left around noon heading towards Bildudalur but had to turn back due to the roads being closed (and scary) because of winter weather. So we turned around and headed back to route 1 to then make our way to the Sæberg youth hostel! and their hot tub

Anyways, long before we passed these amazing lava fields!!

So we pulled over to take a closer look- OMG the moss is SO soft and squishy like crazy pillows!!

It was some how like being under water

moss berries

OK. it’s only my 2nd day and i’ve already taken so many pictures!! anyways, i will load more tomorrow…maybe.

This time tomorrow I will be in Reykjavik.

I wanted to share the following information on the Millennium Seed Bank Project.

All human life — all life — depends on plants. Seeds hold the plant’s genetic information, so the biodiversity of our planet, as well as the sustenance of our species and others’, depends entirely on the seeds that survive from generation to generation. Since 2000, the Millennium Seed Bank Project by the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens has been working with hundreds of partners in 50 countries to provide an “insurance policy” against the extinction of plants in the wild by storing seeds for future use. In 2007, it banked its billionth seed. By 2010, they had collected seeds from 24,000 different species of plants, representing 10% of the world’s dryland wild plants. By 2020, the project will have collected 25%. The underground seed vault, if filled wall-to-wall, could hold 100,000,000,000 rice grains or 30 tightly packed double-decker buses.

In the following video Kew’s Jonathan Drori will convince you of the importance of plants, and storing/cataloging seeds.

You can help the project by adopting a seed. Like the Drosera rotundifolia (Round-leaved sundew) for £25 

There are also a number of stunning coffee table books that have come out of the project. Full of beautiful photos, and lots of inspiration for artists. Seeds, time capsules of life is one of them, and I highly recommend owning a copy! 

Seeds.

Go beyond the gardens here:

The following images are from SEEDS, Time Capsules of Life.

I’ve been trying (for years!!) to register at the Crucible, or the Glass Furnace in Turkey to learn Plasma sculptural techniques but need classes in Neon first. Unfortunately neon workshops aren’t offered in Toronto…

Meanwhile, my concept is to create an entire room full of handblown and formed, plasma filled neurons that will respond to people as they walk through the installation. Similar to firing synapses, sensors (heat, biodynamic?) will trace people’s location within the space and fire creating patterns of light and sound.

I’ve been working on neuron prototypes towards this -eventual- installation. The video here by, Morphologic has a similar feel to my imagined sculptures draping down from the walls and ceiling. Also appropriate in the video is that these tentacles are from the Portuguese Man O War, jellyfish

While in Iceland I will be visiting many sites, volcanic, thermal, beaches, lichen, etc., looking for clues and inspiration.

In Amsterdam they have an amazing Science Centre I plan to visit and explore.

Meanwhile, I’m revisiting past work that will serve as a starting point.

I suspect my discoveries will employ metal and glass as their sculptural vernacular.
Multiples, singularities, recordings real and imagined.

…to be continued.

$85pp
3 hours

Flame working March 15th
Ring band workshop March 17th

Visit the nanoWorld for more info!
or email Tosca for further information! nanotopia at me dot com