Catherine Bannister

Yay baseball!! 💕

I am at Heathrow waiting to board my last flight home. It has been an outstanding adventure

Not one bit! Last adventure will be navigating US reentry without Global Entry

YUMMO

From the Munch museum in Oslo yesterday, two paintings by Edvard Munch: At The Window and Sun. Both are the same scene - his wife sitting in a room in profile in front of a window. in the larger one on the right, everything is crisp and light and you can make out her features. On the left, the figure is blurred (and if I’d been his wife I’d have complained it made me look like an old crone!)

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekJForJuxtiposition

An obelisk of carved stacked bodies in the center of circular steps. Surrounding the tower are grey stone statues depicting different stages of human life. As you walk clockwise, the statues move from childhood to old age

A stone sculpture of a man crouched over a seated woman with his hands on either side of her head

Two older women. The front woman has one hand to her mouth while her other arm reaches back to touch the forearm of the second woman. Both are kneeling.

A front view of the two older women, the obelisk rising behind them. I think this might be my favorite (or at least top 5) - the amount of emotion he got from a piece of stone is so wondrous to me

At the top of the stairs, the stone portion of the collection

The bronze sculptures on the bridge as you approach the obelisk and stone sculptures depict people of all ages playing and interacting - being human. Here a dad swings a toddler by his arms way out in the air

Two kids running with their arms above their heads, fingers spread

That baby is STILL crying! and stomping his foot. and his little left fist is shiny gold from everyone touching it

A young woman prancing with her right knee bent and toe pointed to the ground while she holds her many long braids over her shoulder

And then finally, saving the best for last: Vigeland Sculpture Park. I fell in love with this place on my first visit in 2000 and have now seen it in every season but early Spring. 💕

Nope. 2026 is the year of Strindberg.

It was a complete delight. Who knew he was so prolific - and in so many different ways?!

A statue of Henrik Ibsen sitting crosslegged in a top hat holding an umbrella

A colorful portrait of Ibsen with white hair and mutton chops blowing crazily

There was a room that showed brief animated interpretations of Ibsen’s works on the walls and floor. Here, A Doll’s House.

Upstairs in Ibsen’s study there is an enormous portrait of Strindberg. Apparently, the two didn’t get along (or at least Ibsen couldn’t stand Strindberg), but Ibsen wanted to have Strindberg’s eyes on his back to motivate him to work!

Second stop: Ibsen home and museum. Those mutton chops! And my 3rd encounter with Strindberg in a month!

A black and white print of The Scream by Edvard Munch

People milling about trying to get into position to see the next version of The Scream when it’s revealed to the room

A color version of The Scream with a red, orange and yellow lined sky over a red bridge - and the screaming face is tinged a light green

The color version of The Scream by Edvard Munch

And then, of course, The Scream. They have several versions of the work in different media so to protect them, they rotate 3 into the gallery, exposing each one for 30 minutes at a time. Like for the Mona Lisa, people crowd around to get a look

Head by Head, by Edvard Munch, in black and orange

Girls on the Bridge, by Edvard Munch, woodcut on European wove paper

Salome Paraphase, by Edvard Munch, woodcut on Japanese paper

“Salome Paraphrase” Paraphrased, by Catherine Bannister. Orange crayon on white paper, 2026.

There was an entire gallery of Munch’s wood cuts and rubbings - and another interactive part where you could make your own

In the “kitchen” one of the counters had little white mouse prints leading to a gnawed out hole in the drawer. Inside the hole, a bright light was shining, so you had to lean over and peer in.

Inside the drawer, lit up among the cups and saucers, old coffee grinder and glass bottles, a little mouse in a tiny dress eats dinner at a miniature table

In the “dark room” you could touch the screen that rippled and moved the simulated photographs that you were developing

In the bedroom night stand, another gnawed hole and another mouse scene - in this one, the mice have an entire art studio, complete with easels and canvasses

One of the floors was a fun immersive visit to Munch’s home where you could see many of his belongings and interact within the “rooms” (when you reclined on the replica of the divan, you could hear him snoring!)

Untitled, by Asger Jorn, is an abstract splash of colors (orange, reds, greens, blues and yellows)

Young People on the Beach, by Edvard Munch, shows just that - the front person is in white with a red slouchy hat. Behind them are two people in black and another in red sitting further behind

The Milky Way, by Rolf Nesch, is a mixed media abstract of turquoise tile shards, woods pieces, rocks, rope and other organic materials

Under the Stars, by Edvard Munch, was one of my favorites. It reminds me of Van Gogh’s Starry Night combined with Munch’s The Scream.

First stop: the Munch museum. Outstanding. We loved every bit of it. Here’s just a sampling of some of my favorites.

Elaborate wigs on mannequin heads in the window of the opera house

A mannequin in a ruffled shirt and top hat with a well-groomed mustache and another mannequin of a woman in a white blouse with black collar in a window of the opera house

A small pug dog (mannequin) wearing an elaborate black cape and frilly hat

The work rooms of the opera house have windows that allow you to see the artistry and craftmanship of the costumes, wigs and sets. We admired many of the wigs as we walked along.

The Oslo opera house is glass and white stone on the edge of the fjord harbor. The roof slopes all the way down and you can walk all over it for great views of city and water

A diver in a wetsuit floats in the water next to the opera house, signalling to a crane operator to maneuver a large concrete block hanging from the crane

People walk up the steep sloping roof next to soaring blue-green windows of the opera house

From halfway up the roof you can see the modern glass sculpture on a small island in the fjord. From other angles, it looks like a sailboat.

The opera house was a short walk this morning. It’s very different in the winter (no sunbathers lounging on the sloped roof). And I didn’t envy the diver in the frigid water trying to maneuver a concrete block!

Our hotel was centrally located right across from the train station and also a tram stop.

A bronze statue of a little girl wearing a knit poncho and boots, her arms outstretched under the poncho and raising her face skyward.

In one of the meeting rooms of the hotel, the light fixtures look like white origami birds on wires suspended from the glass ceiling

What a wonderful last day in Oslo. We saw so many wonderful things and walked so many miles. I’ll do separate threads of a few highlights of the day: the Munch museum, Ibsen’s house and Vigeland Sculpture park. But first, just Oslo:

The old and the new architectures at the Louvre in Paris

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekJForJuxtaposition

A small cosy room tucked away in an historic Oslo hotel has wood paneling around a raised area beneath paned windows. Velvet arm chairs and a table are under the windows. There are built-in bookcases along one wall and opposite them are wooden benches with luggage racks on top, each with vintage suitcases stacked atop. The dials and speaker front of an old phonograph are way off to the right. The ceiling is beautifully inlaid and detailed.

A closer view of the wooden benches that look like maybe they were from an old train? And you can see the detail on the ceiling here too

No pics today - nothing really to see except the Tromsø and Oslo airports, the motorway at a standstill due to an accident, and a misty grey evening in Oslo. Tomorrow we’ll get out & about again. Meantime, check out this cool room in our hotel I discovered when taking the stairs down to the lobby

❤️ ❤️ ❤️

US embassy in Oslo hit by explosion, Norway police say No injuries are reported after the blast in the Norwegian capital in the early hours on Sunday.

In other not great news

Inside the bar at Kettle Falls Hotel in Voyageurs National Park, MN, the building is so old that the beautiful wooden floor curves downward so much so that the pool table in the center has to sit on a platform that balances it out to be playable

#AlphabetChallenge #WeekIForInteriors

Maybe she got confused by the way you had your shoes 😉

Red wooden houses and cabins along the snowy shoreline of the fjord, under the mountains that reach almost to the water. They told us that the reason so many Norwegian homes are painted red is because they were traditionally painted using whale blood (for color) and cod liver oil (for waterproofing), both of which they had a lot of so it was cheapest. They supposedly still mix in cod liver oil with their paints (irrespective of color) to protect the wood from the extreme winter weather

The view from the upper deck toward some mountains on the edge of the fjord.

Another view from the upper deck - on the other side of the boat

The boat docked at a cod fish museum, its metal boarding ramp leaning against the pier and a tall white mountain in the background faintly visible in the grey and white cloud cover

We spent the afternoon on a fjord cruise, mostly inside with a glass of wine and una buena discusión con nuestros nuevos amigos de España. The rain eventually stopped and we got some great views.

Between Heaven and Earth, by Folke Fjällstrøm - birch tree, reindeer antlers, oil

A view down into a gallery with a large printed piece on the back wall and a small box with two red hats on top.

The 47 Most Wanted Foremothers, in collaboration with Eeva-Kristiina Nylander - a large print of 8 rows and 6 columns of Sami headdress against colorful backgrounds

Two Sami headdress, red with tall curving sops and fabric ribbons in prints around their brim

They had wonderful Sami and Sami-influenced pieces

2022, by Solveig Elizabeth Ovanger - Cod and pollock skin tanned with birch and willow bark

Milk bowl, by Jon Ole Anderson - made from wood and reindeer antlers

The Stilts, by Iver Jåks - a sculpture in wood (8 pieces of different sizes in various states of finish)

Solar Followed by the Lunar Followed by the Solar Followed by the Lunar, by Ann Kristin Einarsen - porcelain (rabbit), oak (pedestal), taxidermied squirrel

Next up: the Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (the Northern Norwegian Art Museum

A troll rising up from the fjord looks like a lichen-covered Cousin It with glowing eyes

This is Mara - Your Worst Nightmare You wake up sweaty and shaking, and sit up sharply, relieved it was just a dream. But don't let down your guard, you just had a visit from Mara. Appears as a terrifying female demon or a beautiful woman. A female sleep demon, either the ghost of an old woman who never married, or a woman turned into a Mara through a curse. Being born as the 7th child in a family will turn you into a Mara if you are a girl & a werewolf if you are a boy. The same happens if your mother has eased labor pains by crawling through the amniotic membrane of a foal. Mara haunts sleeping people or animals, sitting on their chests to make them feel suffocated & paralyzed while filling their heads with frightening thoughts, hence her name: nightmare. Although Mara can be troublesome, she's only sometimes dangerous, and there are several ways to keep her away. Plug holes in the walls with small twigs to make it more difficult for her to find a way to sneak inside. If you find a Mara's broom upon a tree in the forest, take it home and nail it to the wall above the bed or bedroom door. It can also be hung over the stable or barn doors to protect the animals inside from being ridden by the Mara. A sign of the cross or a Mara's cross (a pentagram) above the bed can also provide protection. Place your shoes with the toes facing away from the bed to trick the Mara into thinking that her victim has left the bedroom. Swapping the right and left shoes will also confuse her further. If confronted by a Mara, trick her into performing an impossible task to keep her distracted until dawn - and too busy to bother you. If you scatter peas, seeds, or the like around the bed, the Mara will have to count every single one of them, which will keep her busy for quite a while. Flaxseeds and hemp seeds are particularly effective for this, according to many European folk traditions. At dawn, the Mara will dissolve into a mist or a fog and disappear through a hole in the wall.

A troll with long blue hair playing a fiddle on rocks next to a waterfall. A Hardanger fiddle is a Norwegian traditional instrument named after the area in NW Norway where it originates. Four of the strings are strung and played like a violin and the rest (understrings or sympathetic strings) resonate under the influence of the other 4). Each one is handmade and decorated with paintings and inlays. The top is crowned with a carved female head or head of a mythical creature. The Christian church outlawed the violin and persecuted anyone who played the fiddle. It was believed that the devil himself or the waterfall spirit taught musicians how to play the hardingfele well, in exchange for their souls.

A display of characters from Peer Gynt in the hall of the Mountain King. I had the music in my head for an hour after this visit!

Last day in the Arctic. A rainy, gloomy morning is a good time to check out museums. First, the Troll Museum

Count me in!

I can bring you some cheese (maybe) if you want. Lene should be used to me wanting to buy it 🤣

Mine too! (And Stockholm: my favorite city in the world, but no Sweden for this trip - except from across the lake)