Large Assignments
Eva Carlberg Westelius
Artist
We were four artists selected to compete for a alterpiece to a new church to be built in Norway The task also included two stained glaswindows. Later it turned out that my Norwegian competitors were so sure of winning that they only consentrated on the altarpiece. While I, who learnt from experience that a lot is won with a thorough presentation, actually became the winner of the competition!
ALTAR, Frogn Kirke. 1996
The editor of the local newspaper did not agree with the jury.
He wrote:
"Can it really be right to choose a Swedish female artist before three male Norwegian artists for a Norwegian church? Moreover she shows an incredible ignorance. Without support of any bible verse she suggest a Jesus without feet! How could the jury have let this happen?
The jury just answered that they held on to their decision.
The editor however did not give up.On the middle pages in th lokal newspaper the following week was a a gigantic Jesus figure with one of the losers posing in front of his work with the words:
"My altarpiece is already done! Its a gift totaly free of charge for the municipality. Instead they can buy an organ for the money!”
However the municipality assured me that the assignment was still mine to work on in calm and peace in my studio at home in Stockholm. However one day a small deligation of three norweigians came to Stockholm to check on me and my work to see that it developed allright.
To calm the storm that the editor had stirred up in the water glass people were invited to see the competition proposals with their own eyes. Of two hundred people - with the exception of ten - it turned out that all considered my proposal to be truly the best.
Half a year later when the windows and altarpiece were in place and even the bishop, who with pomp and circumstance, had come to consecrate, then the editor stepped forward somewhat surprisingly to me and apologized for his writings! He also thinks that the altarpiece has become really fine...!
Birth
Pieta
The one who throws the first stone...
LADY WITH ERMINE
and 35m2 copy at Culture House Stockholm 1993
One day when I was still a teacher I stod in the school's garage with my 19-year-old students ready to take on a task that was really too big for us. But we started off in good spiret.
- First, we will glue together these canvases two and a half meters wide and seven meters long. When that area has dryed the surface must be painted with primer. While it is still wet the canvas should be stretched with nails around the wooden pallets so I instruct my students. As I had never done anything like this big before I was not sure at all if it would hold. But the next day the two halves was lying there on the floor, compleet, creamy white and smooth as a drumhead, ready for us to start working on.
SUITE OF TWELVE
panels for Fossum Church
Stovner Center, Oslo 1994
Since I last saw them the twelve panels had got heavy golden frames on and look more dignified now hanging there upon the wall. I had come to Oslo because the priest told me on the phone he wanted cross glories on the Jesus figures. Not that it was necessary, I thought. It was clear who's who. But the priest wanted it that way.
Now that I steped into the sunny interior of the church he greated me from the a highest step of a ladder.
- This can not be done by the caretaker! To climb ladders is forbidden by their service agreement ! But it doesn't say anything about that in mine! the priest told me happily while taking painting after painting down so I could start working on the final glories on each one.
FREE BIRDS AND CAPTIVE, eighteen canvases for NOR insurance company A/S, FABRICATIONS, Oslo 1996
The one and a half meter high canvases were quite awkward to lift and handle where I stod in my tiny studio which I rent for the time being. I almost drown in details when looking at them from that near distance. To pretend to see the whole I had to squint my eyes as if I were at many meters away. Sometimes I even opened the front door and lined the canvases up side by side. From the elevator into the apartment and all the way out onto the balcony. It gave a somewhat better overview. I work in this tiny studio every weekend for three quarters of a year painting layer upon layer of lighter tones over darker in order to get a sence of space. Finally I rented a van over a weekend in April, and drove away loaded with my Free Birds and Captive across the border to the insurence company in Oslo.
It was early August. All shops were closed and I stood alone bewildered and time-pressed in front of a huge white entrance wall just realising that my idea presented to the community some moths earlier did not hold up. Now it looked wrong and too thin! It felt like a huge craving exclamation mark! So what do I do? Without any sketching tools I had no other choice than to cut coloured pieces out of some weekly magazine and arrange them to a new sketch. After a day or two I had managed to formulate a new idea to work from that actually felt much better.
THE SEVEN GATES
Entrance wall in Västerås 1999
Bit by bit I tackled the empty wall. With square sponges and large brushes I mixed pigments with emulsion and tested the colours on pieces of cardboard. To rest my arms after each day's work, I biked around the city every evening with many thoughts in my head. I could have called the mural "Crossroads" but decided to call it "The Seven Doorways." From the old myth of the goddess Ishtar. She who had to give one pressious thing away before entering each Doorway on her way to her dark sister..