I'm Letting The Artist In Me Out!

I never knew that I would be able to call myself an artist, but that's what I am also, not 'only' a composer. And that is from one who during the school years almost didn't get a grade in art! So there's hope for everyone whose dreams were killed during school years.

My Relationship To Art

Growing up in huge parsonages in the Northern part of Sweden, as my father was a priest in the Swedish Lutheran church, there was a lot of wall space to hang art on. My grandfather on my mother's side, Fritz Granberg, was a Journalist and first editor of the newspaper Sundsvalls Newspaper. Which meant he had a lot of relationships with the local cultural elite in the city of Sundsvall. A lot of later-known Swedish artists passed by my grandparents' home (1930s - 1950s), struggling artists who were given a place to sleep, something to eat, and paid for that visit with art.

My mother was given some of that art, but sadly most of it wasn't signed. So the value was more artistic than monetary. Anyway, so art became a great part of my life from the early beginnings.

In my later teens, I got to know a librarian at the local library, who not only taught me to listen to Jazz music but also took a special interest in me and took me to local art exhibitions. He also invited me home to meet with artists and musicians who were his friends. A great mentor and my friend for a couple of years until he moved from the area, and after a couple of months he started sending me letters, and those weren't just friend letters, It was love letters! At that time I had little or no knowledge about bisexual or homosexual love, so I never answered those letters, and after a couple of months they stopped coming, and I never heard from him again.

I recently Started Painting
23rd of November 2023 (My birthday btw) my wife Miriam gave me a wooden box with Acrylic paint and other supplies to get me started painting. So from there, I have been slowly taking up painting as another part of my creative journey. I have painted about twenty-five paintings, so it's not a massive output like the music. But I plan to illustrate my compositions, maybe not all but a select few at least.

The first composition(s) I started to illustrate was: Solistice, my Clarinet Concertino which was the first composition I finished after my close to fifteen years hiatus. That painting is now in @alessandrawhite ownership.

Then I illustrated my Heavenly Mechanics Suite, and I think those five paintings turned out quite good. If You listen to the different movements you will see what I have intended with the paintings.

We have not yet decided where to hang them, but for now, that's okay!

The following two paintings I have painted as gifts for friends. The first one was painted as a gift to my old neighbor Laila where I lived during the worst period of time in my life, but she and I became friends when I was out walking Ture my daughter's dog.

The last one I will show off for now is The Bleeding Heart, painted last week as a gift to my dear friends Anders and Karin in Norrköping. I was the godfather of their son Mika who died from a rare blood disease five years ago, Mika would have been ten years old this year. And the title is about how all our hearts bled, and now have stopped bleeding, but the wound is still deep.

Right now I'm composing one week, and painting the other week. I really love that I'm starting to find my way around colors and structures in the paintings. If you could see this last painting live, it looks like the heart is floating thanks to the gold and silver surrounding it.