London!

Mattias was invited to speak at ELCAF, East London Comics and Arts Festival, and the rest of us tagged along, Rosa, Olivia and Olivias friend Julia. Also Jens, Mattias' publisher/graphic designer, joined us for a couple of days. We all stayed in this fabulous former-church-now-apartements in Camden. We found it via Airbnb, great if you want to rent an apartement on your vacation instead of staying at a hotel.  

 

 

View of the nice pub across the street from Olivia's and Julias' bedroom

 

 

Walking to Camden Lock Market

Mattias sold and signed his books Second in Line and the newest one Larger than Line at the festival. Both books sold out! So he didn't have to lug 25 kg of books back home again...  Larger than Line was fresh from the printer (Jens brought them with him, Mattias hadn't seen them yet).

Shopping and eating

Fish and chips

Chipotle (Mattias is one the illustraters for their bags, but apparently only the American ones, not the British).

 

Rosa and I tried a cyber sushi restaurant, but it was so complicated, cold inside and expensive, we ended up leaving... 

 

Desserts at Belgos!

Museums

Grants museum of Zoology

 

Victoria & Albert, the Fashion exhibition, I especially liked the shoes

A paper dress from the 60's

Tate Britain. Here we saw one of the most inspiring exhibitions ever: British Folk Art. Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photographs of that exhibition. Phyllida Barlow was also amazing, her monumental pieces very impressive.

 

Next was Tate Modern. We took the boat there from Tate Britain - nice view from the water. Louise Bourgois' sculptures are fascinating, I didn't know of her prints and textiles. There was a whole exhibition with drawings, prints, textile collages and paintings. Wonderful!

One evening we dropped the girls off at the musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Mattias and I ended up at Covent Garden, sipping bubbly wine and listening to a quartet play live classical music. Both parties were very satisfied with their evenings.

 

The full moon shone into our apartement. Felt like a huge eye watching over us. 

Ah, London, can't wait to go there again...

 

sidestepping

Yesterday evening Mattias and I went to the Concert Hall in Stockholm to attend the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award ceremony! The amazing illustrator Shaun Tan received this years award out of the hands of Crown Princess Victoria. Every year an illustrator and a calligrapher are assigned to execute the diploma. Mattias was this years chosen illustrator (!) and beside him (in the lousy shot) is Marianne Pettersson Soold, the calligrapher. They had done a fabulous job, a beautiful - huge - cooperation (Mattias made a very large image). Too bad I can't post any photos of it or the rest of the evening - photographing was prohibited.

At last I got to wear my "new" highheels - my secondhand shop bargain (30 kr!). Feet hurt but it was worth it :)

booked husband

My husband, Mattias' first personal book is finally out! It's called "First in line" and was presented at the book fair SPX 2011 in Stockholm on Saturday. It's a beautiful book, designed by Jens Andersson at Sanatorium publishing house. He did an amazing job with the heaps and heaps of drawings and sketchbooks he collected from the house a few months ago. Check out Mattias' blog for more pics. And to get your own copy :)


A favorite spread - one of many of course (yes, I am a wife - a proud one!)


Busy man. Jens in the middle, daughters to the left (asking for money to buy a comic book).

friday: kolla!

All dressed up and ready to go to Nalen (old jazz-hall) and the Kolla! Awards. Mattias was nominated for The Future in the Magazine Illustration catagory. It was a long day of interesting seminars; Rick Poynor (Eye magazine), australian Rinzen, illustrator Lars Melander to mention just a few. The evening was concluded with the awards ceremony, which we left without the gold or silver prize – this time :)