A gray and wet week in which nature once again set the tone.
The week was dominated by rain. Right at the beginning of the week, thunderstorms moved across the city almost every hour, bringing heavy rain. The temperatures dropped again and it remained wet and mostly gray. My working days were just as monotonous and filled with rather boring routine tasks.
Ivy on a wall in my father’s garden
Lupins and childhood memories
The first highlight was a dinner at my house with a friend I hadn’t seen for a long time. To celebrate the day, there was even a moment of evening sun, so we were able to enjoy the aperitif on the balcony after drying the chairs and table. What made me really happy were the flowers she brought: self-cut lupines from a flower field. I associate lupins with the Sundays of my childhood, which we often spent on a hill in the Black Forest. My father and other men flew home-made model airplanes while the women dozed in the sun on deckchairs. We children played in the forest or in the pastures among the grazing cows. The lupins grew wild on the roadsides up there on the hills. They probably still do, but I’ve never been back to that place and the sight of my friend’s lupins brought back the memory of it in one fell swoop and the desire to go there again. I sat there for a long time and studied the lupins after my friend had left. I was fascinated by the colors, the flowers and especially the leaves. Material for new works of art.
The beauty of lupins in my living room
Art on the weekend
At the weekend, it was a trip to the area around Basel that captivated me. I had wanted to visit the “Waldeslust” (Forest Fascination) exhibition at Forum Würth in Arlesheim for a long time and I remembered it on Saturday, which was a rather lazy day with constant rain that called for some compensation on Sunday.
Exhibition art works
Forest Fascination
The “Forest Fascination” exhibition thematically traces the multilayered perspectives of the forest through changing artistic positions and techniques, including painting, drawing and sculpture. It focuses on the tree as a unique concept, from its roots to its lofty crown. The strong symbolism of the forest motif is expressed, both in its transience as well as in its significance for humans, as a place of recreation and yearning or as a basis of life. However, the exhibition is far more than a journey into the beauty of nature. It is also a vivid reminder of the urgent threat to forests in the face of phenomena including forest dieback and the resulting consequences for humans.
(From the exhibition description)
Exhibition art works
From inside to outside
I really enjoyed the exhibition. The Birs river flows directly behind the exhibition building in the industrial area of Arlesheim and behind it stretches the Reinacher Heide, a nature reserve consisting of dry meadows where orchids and wild flowers, oaks and other trees grow. In short, a natural landscape that thrives untouched and is very pristine. It was just starting to rain when I entered the heath, but the changing weather created a special atmosphere that went well with what I had previously experienced in the museum. So the gray week ended with an abundance of green and perfectly balanced out the monotony of the previous days.
Impressions from Reinacher Heide
