Amanda Sandlin

Some thoughts on creative block, grief, and my residency in Norway. Swipe to read. 👉

This post wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the incredible humans I met along the way. Thank you Andrea Holm for being our lovely, insightful host, Havard for creating this space, and all the other artists for showing up every day with care and curiosity, Brazilian liquor and maple syrup. ❤️

the Arctic Hideaway Fleinvær

Kiesto Ceramics
Elizabeth Lopez
_eduardo_baltazar_
Maria Takeuchi aka ÉMU
insomniac hotel

I desperately attempt to drag answers out of myself and I’m just too damn tired for it. So like the earth I will get quiet and let the empty breathe.

Day 12/100

I desperately attempt to drag answers out of myself and I’m just too damn tired for it. So like the earth outside I will go to sleep.

Day 12/100

A quiet promise has taken hold of me. Like how the trees are still bare, branches jagged blobs of navy paint against a March sky, but my animal body knows it—the light is returning.

11/100 Days of Seeing

“My heart says this is timed perfectly,” a friend responds to one of my stories about how I’m on my way to an artist residency in Norway, despite not feeling called to pick up a paintbrush in months.

Eight hours later, our plane descends over Iceland through a thick, pre-dawn mist. I can’t see any semblance of a horizon, and it feels ominous in a way I did not expect. I kill time while we taxi (knowing exactly what I am doing) swiping through old photos when I inevitably stumble upon one of Dewey.

As always, the tears come immediately. In my grief-y, sleepless fog, suddenly it feels like winter again, and I am alone. “Oh god, is this what I am in for on this trip?” I wonder. “I need a sign today, Dew,” I plead into the grey.

The sun begins to rise during my next flight from Reykjavik to Oslo. I see a thin bar of pink over a dark expanse and take a breath. Daylight makes everything a little easier.

After we land, I hop on a hushed train beelining to the city center. There’s a noticeably different aura of calm here. The window blurs blue and white as snowy countryside streaks by.

I step onto the platform, taking in my first big breath of fresh Norwegian air, and look down at my feet.

A single feather.

I always told Dew, “Stay close by sending feathers. Don’t forget the feathers.”

I pick up the delicate white wisp from the wet pavement and zip it into the left chest pocket of my jacket, the one closest to my heart.

9+10/100 Days of Seeing

I reheat the remaining two inches of coffee in my cup. 15 or 30 seconds? I settle on 30, but open the microwave door after 21. The neighbor’s dog Macy barks at no one. I crouch on her front porch step and she licks the tip of my nose. It’s March 1 and my collarbone bakes in the sun. I resist the urge to make any of it mean something.

8/100 Days of Seeing

Big metal vats spin in the chocolate shop where I’ve been spending recent nights. My decaf Americano comes with a single square of sour chocolate that softens on a warm ceramic saucer.

I think about a conversation I had with my hairstylist yesterday.

“What do you like to do in your free time?” I asked her.

Between snips, she chuckled, “Well, we have a two-year-old, so that’s really not a thing.”

There was a time when that could have been me, and I blew the whole thing up—packed my Suzuki hatchback to the brim and drove across the country with my screaming cat under the seat. And the thing I am sometimes scared to say—I’m so glad it’s not.

I put my headphones on and replay the same song until I’m sick of it. It’s Saturday night. I watch two older men debate one table over. Newspapers fly, coffees jostle. My foot taps, “I wave goodbye to the end of beginning.” A suitcase lies half-packed on the floor at home. A rising in my chest as I open a blank page.

7/100 Days of Seeing

Miss you, my sweet. 6/100 Days of Seeing

I sit, cold toes on the cold floor and a crick in my neck, mind replaying a Leonard Cohen quote I recently read:

“For me, art is the evidence of a life, and not the life itself. It’s the ashes of something that has burned very well… and sometimes we confuse ourselves, and we try to create the ashes, instead of the fire.”

The message gongs deep in my chest as truth. It also feels somehow familiar. I recall something I wrote during a 100 Day Project in 2019:

“An artist in the studio is no good… She becomes an artist–first–by living.”

That was seven years ago, nearly to the day.

They say it takes about seven years for every cell in the human body to replace itself. Psychologists and astrologers also have their own seven-year cycle theories. For relationships, there’s the seven-year itch.

Maybe there’s something to it. Maybe I’m new again, or just older, or the ashes have been swept away, and it’s time to start a fire.

Day 5/100 Days of Seeing

I tend to think about every word I’ve ever said to anyone
and wonder if I cry too much over my dead dog
“No need to get lost in it”
a comforting thought tugs at my itchy sweater
“How much for a refill?”
“A dollar sixty after tax” says the barista with the blonde mullet
So I drink it
and choose to think about anything else
—how good the sun feels
warming wool on the back of my neck

4/100 Days of Seeing

We fly toward the dark and I feel different than before. Shadows creep in hard angles across the wing, edges aglow in the color of papaya I ate from a ziplock this morning while dripping in salt water. A seed of self belief nestles under my ribs, I can feel it. It feels right to be going. It feels good to feel small. 3/100 Days of Seeing