around skeppsholmen...

The STF Vandrarhem AF Chapman & Skeppsholmen is a highly rated hostel on board and on land in a prominent location on the island of Skeppsholmen with a view of the charming medieval town of Gamla Stan...

[there was no room available on board when we were there, so we stayed at the lovely Hotel Skeppsholmen instead] 

some of the many romantic and eccentric vintage boats [each with its own information plaque of its provenance and seafaring history] moored along the shores of the island...

The towboat is freckled with rust...

It is a heavy extinguished lamp in the cold.

But the trees have wild colors: signals to the other shore.

As if people wanted to be fetched. 

[selected lines from the first verse of 'Sketch in October' by Tomas TRANSTROMER, from Paths, 1973 - this poem translated from the swedish by Robin Fulton]

[on the flight over (in October!), I read of Tomas Transtromer being finally awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature at the age of 80 - he was born (and still lives) in Stockholm, publishing his first book of poems in 1954 and has since published many more volumes. I am liking what I am reading in translation but wish that I could read his poetry as he wrote them in swedish!]

 working boatyards on the more rustic side of Skeppsholmen...

Dejeuner sur l'herbe by Pablo PICASSO, 1962

[sculptural installation in the shady back garden of the Moderna Museet]

 The Royal Institute of Art [Kungliga Konsthogskolan]

[with the very cool Hotel Skeppsholmen in the background]

[this is one institute where I would love to be an art student again - while staying at that hotel!]

the absolute skeppsholmen

the islet of  Skeppsholmen dangles preciously, a bejewelled drop earring from the epilobe of central Stockholm...
the lustrous breath of an autumnal sun stirs the air, sparks the waters, flecks the trees - their leaves shimmering a thousand shades of gold...

the light-dappled writhe-morphous sculptures of Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely guide the way to the lovely and idyllic Hotel Skeppsholmen...
where the dashing naval officers no longer stride down the long hallways or gaze out the wide windows, lost in reveries of exotic shores and maritime feats and clear calm seas...

we survey the gilded foliage from the serenity of room 245 [dedicated to the first president of the Swedish Royal Naval Society who had lived here with his wife from 1773 to 1776]
across the park, the Museum of Modern Art [Moderna Museet] beckons with a luminously absorbing exhibit of the later paintings of Turner, Monet and Twombly...
the darkening atmospheric sublimity of Turner's Peace - Burial at Sea drifts emotively into my painter's eye, while Monet's Matinée sur la Seine, Giverny effuses my visual field with sensually nostalgic intimations...
and Twombly's Quattro Stagioni looms grandly over my effects with the vigoroso impact of a multi-hued bloodbath...
...I eventually escape to the rational materiality of the rigidly solid structural formations in the Swedish Museum of Architecture [Arkitektur Museet] next door!

the artful light installations within the hotel's hallways lead me back to my room - without running into any of the pensive ghosts of landlocked swedish sailors, regrettably...

 Skeppsholmen, the morning after...