10 May 2018
The decision to go to Varmland County was impromptu. As it was a public holiday on 10 May (Christian holiday) and it was a Thursday, I took off on Friday and my partner chose Varmland.
The first place of stop was a Picasso statue in Kristinehamn which was an idea by Picasso but not done by him. He saw the works of the sculpture via video recordings.
In the late 1950s the artist Bengt Olson, a native of Kristinehamn, came across the Norwegian sculptor, painter and photographer Carl Nesjar, who had just begun experimenting with a new concrete-based material. At the time, Nesjar was involved in a project with Pablo Picasso, who was fascinated by the expression of art through the medium of concrete. They were working with a series of sculptures and painting called “les dames des Mougins” (The Ladies of Mougin), the theme of which was Picasso’s wife Jacqueline.
The idea was for the sculptures to be monumental in format and Nesjar was certain that one of the works could be constructed in Sweden for just 150,000 SEK. Bengt Olson, returned home to Kristinehamn and managed to convince the town council that this was a unique opportunity that was too good to be missed. The idea of locating the sculpture in Kristinehamn was sold to Picasso with the help of photographs, pictures and folk music so that he could get a true feeling for the atmosphere here. The deed of gift came in the form of a photograph from Picasso, with a model of the sculpture in place on the Strandudden peninsula. He had written the word Oui (Yes) on the photograph and signed it Picasso 7.7 1964.
The 15 m tall sculpture was inaugurated in June 1965 by the Swedish author Bo Setterlind at the annual midsummer celebrations. Although Pablo Picasso followed Carl Nesjar’s work via film recordings, he never came to see his work in real life. Source from Visit Kristinehamn.
We stopped at a random burger house for Schnitzel. SEK149. With a Fanta drink of SEK25.
My partner had already decided that we should spend the night in the outdoors as it was warm. He had in a mind a nature reserve in the marshland / swampland / bog. It was Byarmossarna Naturreservat. He had a fire torch with him to guide the way. The night was warm enough to sleep outdoors. The walk to the windshelter was about 2km. I was afraid of walking in the dark and uncertain of what I would meet. Thankfully, we walked on well-boarded walking path as we were in the marshland.
He built a fire that night. There were firewood well chopped stacked up in the shelter.
It was a bit of a squeeze sleeping in the shelter with the smoke occasionally blowing into our direction. But we had some good rest, nevertheless.
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