IN NORWAY
Last weekend, we celebrated Norway’s Constitution Day in Oslo, and I had the honor of wearing a custom-made festdrakt, sewn by my friend here in Norway. We selected the colors and patterns together, and she even upcycled a lovely white shirt from an old tablecloth! A festdrakt is a traditional-style Norwegian folk costume, similar to the bunad but with more freedom in design and materials. Unlike the bunad, which is specific to each region of Norway, the festdrakt allowed me to honor my time here as an immigrant with a modern twist. My outfit featured a light wool skirt, a leather appliqued lace apron, and a silk top, perfectly light and flowy for the warm 75-degree day in Oslo.
Constitution Day, or 17.mai, is my favorite holiday in Norway. Everyone dresses up in bunads, festdrakts, koftes, uniforms, suits, and summer dresses to enjoy parades, champagne breakfasts, barbecues, and school games with ice cream. It’s a heartwarming sight to see children marching to the castle where the royal family waves to them. Despite Norway’s small population of 5.49 million, the streets of Oslo are vibrant and diverse.
This year, 17.mai was particularly moving for me, partly due to my beautiful festdrakt, which symbolizes my six years in Norway, filled with integration, language learning, cultural exploration, and the joys of Norway’s work-life balance and safety. It’s been a challenging but rewarding experience, and I’ll miss many aspects of this life.
Now for the big news:
We’re moving back stateside in a month! We’ll spend July road-tripping up the East Coast before visiting family in northern Michigan. After that, we’ll settle in Virginia, where my husband will pursue a second master’s degree, and I’ll focus on my painting career in the art scenes of D.C. and Norfolk, VA.
I’m thrilled to dive into a new artistic adventure by shifting from acrylic paints to hand-made paints using natural pigments, and working on larger-scale paintings. Six years ago, I switched from oil to acrylic paints. While I love the rich textures of oil paints, both oil and acrylic don't align with my environmental values. I can’t wait to see how these new paints will transform my process and my work!
I’m super thankful for these years spent in the woods in Norway and we’re going to miss our family and friends a ton. It’s part of the challenge of a cross-cultural marriage to navigate two worlds. Yet, I feel like life has expanded for both of us having two sets of cultures, families, friends, foods, and landscapes to call home.
I hope that you will all continue to tune-in to this next chapter for us. It’s my dream to be able to work as an artist full-time and I can’t wait to share new work with you all and to start applying for shows stateside. In the meantime, I’m having a sale on select original paintings on my website:
