#36

One day I came to Tuscola Illinois.

Why? A visit to Mr and Mrs Mayer. A farmer. 

The crisis for the Corn and farming in the US. Huge fields.

The horizon was in sight. For me the middle of the Praire. 

Stayed in a Motel, type Psycho. Visited the Sheriff, the Jail,

the Teacher, the office and Editor of Tuscola Journal.

Had drawings from the visit published.

Had lunch at Dixie Truckers Home.

Listened to a Pianola, Gershwin, Berlin and had

dinner at the Teachers home. 

Spoke to a very, very old woman who once,

in her youth had visited the Fjords of Norway.

Drank Budweiser, got drunk.

This was a kind of America I only had seen in movies.

I stayed three nights in Tuscola,

then we went southwards, Gert and I. 

New Orleans. 

#35

El Paso.100 degrees Farenheit. 

Rio Grande just a tiny brook. Helicopters hovering.

Empty streets. Sketching and painting in the shade of a traffic sign. 

Quickly. Suffering in the heat. Stayed in El Paso just two days.

Then northwards, New Mexico. 

#34

Very early I learned to know Anders Zorn

Every evening, just before sleep, I was studying  a picture

painted by him. Djos Mats was the title of the painting.

Djos Mats, a shoemaker, sitting at his desk, glasses and 

hat on. Leaning over his workbench.

I gazed at the picture. hanging over the sofa, and 

I was so amazed over how it was done ... small dots

of color, just on the tip of the glasses, a stroke of 

cadmium on the ear .... wonderful.

I tried to find out what 

made the light in the shoemakers eyes so vibrant..  

I wondered and wondered and then 

I fell asleep. 

Many times have I been to Mora and the Museum.

And I am still astonished when I see the pictures shown there. 

He was a marvellous artist.

I made this picture for an article about Mora

and Zorn. Published in GP.

Years ago.