Travels with potteryali and family: Foreigners in a New Land
Published in: SWEA Bladet (Swedish magazine)
May 2010
I imagine that most, if not all, of you who are reading this are experts at navigating and living in a new country and so can relate to our experiences living abroad. It’s been a fabulous journey and I’m thrilled that I was asked to share some of our experiences with you.
We are quite a troop – all four of us – my husband Kevin, me and our little ones: Nolan, 3, and Tessa, 9 months. We travel most everywhere together on buses, trains, planes, and ferries. Tessa is usually happily strapped into the BabyBjörn while Nolan trundles about or rides in the stroller. Traveling about for 9 months in the Cook Islands, New Zealand and Australia is quite a different life from our very suburban existence in Raleigh. But Kevin’s need to do fieldwork for his PhD in Anthropology has granted us all the opportunity for an experience of a lifetime.
Our journey began in late November when we flew to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. This was our 3rd visit to “Raro” so it felt quite a bit like coming home. Similar to our previous visits, Nolan instantly took to the island life. He stopped wearing shoes and lived to go to the beach and play. When Kevin wasn’t in the midst of his interviews with Cook Islanders we’d take the opportunity to explore the island and chat with locals and foreigners alike. On one of our adventures we even spotted a little café that was run by Erik, a Swede! We of course had to stop for coffee and kanelbullar (unfortunately made with regular sugar as he was awaiting the hand delivery of pärlsocker from his sister in the coming weeks). It was quite tasty nonetheless. It was here on Rarotonga that, in the absence of my pottery studio at home, I started taking photographs of the landscape and industry. I realized that I simply must have some connection to creativity even when my medium, clay, is not available to me.
After a few weeks we left our bungalow which was surrounded by palm trees and chickens and headed to Auckland, New Zealand where we settled into a small apartment in the heart of downtown. Quite a change of pace and scenery from the tropics! Our place is just minutes from the busy and fabulous harbor. We all became entranced by the ships, containers, and cranes and it occurred to me that I should try to integrate these visual images of our travels into my clay work back in my Raleigh studio and so I sought out a teacher who could help me with this. I contacted a couple of different silk screen artists, one of whom happened to be Swedish, and eventually took a fabulous class and learned how to silk screen my photos onto clay! A very exciting step for me! This has really inspired me to focus my photography on images that will be useful to me on my clay work in the future.
I was able to bring a small piece of my studio with me on our travels in the form of clay beads that I had fired in my kiln at home. In order to broaden the style of my necklaces and bracelets I’ve taken a number of jewelry classes at a fabulous bead shop here in Auckland. I’ve learned a great deal and hope to continue to find classes at similar shops along our travels – a great way to integrate ideas from abroad into my work.
On one of our nearly daily playground visits, two Swedish sisters overheard Kevin talking to Nolan in Swedish and so introduced us to their lovely parents, Naomi and Marcus, who not only welcomed us to New Zealand but also connected us to the Swedish community here. We are now regulars at the Barngruppen, who weekly introduce us to new playgrounds around the city.
You might have gathered by the language in which this article is written that I do not speak Swedish – Kevin is fluent as is our son Nolan (thanks to Kevin’s efforts to teach him). One upshot of our travels is that we are together as a family much more than we are at home and so I am exposed to much more of their conversations. I’ve always been pretty good at understanding their conversations but haven’t been able to recall the words to make simple sentences. I’m trying to use this opportunity of our months on the road together to practice speaking. I’ve started by making simple sentences with many mistakes but both Kevin and Nolan are quite patient with me. Hoping that by the time we return to the states I’ll even be able to chat a bit in Swedish about things other than diapers and drinking juice (our usual topics of conversation).
As I bring this article to a close we prepare for the next legs of our journey – back to our bungalow in the Cook Islands and then on to Australia for a couple of months before returning for a couple of months in New Zealand. Let the adventures continue!
