Special Guest Post: kaija of paperiaarre

Hello from the hot and summery Turku (that’s in Finland, just so you know)! All this heat is slowly melting my brain and the best way to spend an evening in such condition is to sit down and start thinking. I don’t mean just letting random thoughts roam around in my head, but thinking about things that matter.

I’m so honored to be Poppytalk’s special guest this week, and I promise I’m going to try and write about things that matter: inspiration, details and friendship. All those things near and far. Little bits of Turku, little bits of Finland, little bits of Art.

The most appropriate way to greet all of you is to greet you with flowers! One things that's my daily inspiration is my city. Turku isn't too big of a city in global scale, but in Finland it's one of the big cities. Being originally a small town girl I'm not used to things happening where I live, even though I've lived in Turku for some years altogether. Last week was eventful to say the least, and I'm thrilled to share my excitement with you this week!

Gerbera’s Dream (Gerberauni) - an environmental work of art by artist Kaisa Salmi
(May 31st –June 8th 2008)

These two photos (above) were taken on June 5th.


There were approx. 100 000 gerberas (14 00 plants) on the stairs and in front of Turku cathedral! Beautiful, beautiful gerberas in different shades of white,yellow, orange, red and purple - the lightest colors being closest to the cathedral door.

Gerbera's dream was built with voluntary work on May 31st and June 1st. I took the following two photos on Saturday evening, when the sprinklers were on. Kids (and some adults like me) were running around on the narrow paths. Oh it was such a joy after a hot day!




The fun part in this work of art was that people got to take the flowers home on June 8th.Of course I was there (I have three huge beauties on my balcony now!), and it really didn’t take too long for the whole area to be swept clean from flowers!For some time it seemed like everyone on the streets of Turku had a flower pot in a red and white paper bag with them. So here’s how it looked 45 minutes after I came to pick my flowers:



And yes,there’s a man playing a saxophone on the stairs. I googled a bit and found out that it was the artist’s brother. I liked the thought of some random man playing there better, but you can’t always win, can you?

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