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Lemvig Looking Adorable

Before we continue, I feel I need to expound on L a little bit.

L is an eccentric artist/activist extraordinaire; kind of a Danish Auntie Mame, Georgia O’Keefe/Louise Bourgeois, and Angela Davis all rolled together.

L & The Sea

She lives/works in Copenhagen but grew up around here. Almost as a lark she put in a very low-ball auction bid on a dilapidated old restaurant/bar complex near the North Sea coast about four years ago, and as fate would have it, won the auction.

It’s part of a little grouping of about six houses/buildings (like one of those tiny unincorporated towns you see in rural Wisconsin or Minnesota). Two years ago also she bought a run-down little house a few doors down from the restaurant. Now she’s the Mayor/Sheriff of “Country Town” (as she calls it). She’s trying to turn it into an Artist Colony, but constantly struggles with the billion things that need to get done (and the fact that she’s just one person).

She and I hit it off really well from our first meeting, so now I am her Deputy/Hired Hand/Assistant helping out with the billion things in Country Town and whatever else I can do to be of help. We cruise through the Danish countryside (it’s a lot like where I grew up except not as hilly & wooded) in her little car with a cargo trailer attached; me riding shotgun and gaping out the window at the bucolic scenery and both of us amusing each other with stories and crazy banter. As different as our paths have been, we have had several similar life experiences/adventures/tragedies and an extremely similarly twisted sense of humor, so there is much to talk and laugh about as we go about our chores.

West Jutland Scenery

Clearing brush is one of the major things that I’ve helped her with, but hauling trash from Country Town to the Refuse Station is the thing that takes up most of our time. She and her helpers over the years have hauled tons of stuff out of the two buildings, but they were filled to the gunnels with various and sundry trash and weird-ass items, many of which remain. Dead appliances, funky nasty old furniture, random stacks of useless wood & moldy particle board, etc. etc etc.- plus all the refuse that comes from the gut rehabbing that’s being done little by little as her handyman-of-all-trades gets the water and electricity working in all the various rooms and L gets some of the bedrooms in a livable condition so people can begin to stay out there in a somewhat civilized fashion.

West Jutland At Dusk

She’s fast friends with the guys down at the Refuse Station and we usually roll in a couple times a day with the trailer jam-packed with a bouillabaisse of trash. Actually, she’s fast friends with half the area; being the Wild Local Girl Who Made It As An Artist In The Big City and who spends her summers back home making trouble and fun (simultaneously Famous & Infamous) and we are constantly running into folks she knows either from her wild childhood or artistic/activist adulthood.

She introduces me to people as her “Gangster Friend from Chicago,” which always gets an interesting reaction. Even when she goes on to explain that I used to organize people against gang members (she did some similar work in Copenhagen several years ago) a few still seem a little leery. I try to give a sweet smile, but that doesn’t do much good, seeing as most of the time I’m drenched in sweat and/or covered in dirt from my labors and with my hair all askew in cubist configurations.

Don’t Be Afraid Of The Nice Man!

Many of the people obviously wonder if L & I are lovers (FYI- We Aren’t) and even though I don’t speak Danish, I can tell a couple of them have actually asked her point blank about it. Despite L’s assurances to the contrary, I’m sure that tongues are ‘a waggin’ about that and several other issues concerning this weird American who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I grew up in a small town and know how they work, but having also been a Wild Child from the sticks, I also know enough not to worry and to just let ’em all talk.

In addition to the Country Town properties and a little summer house near Lemvig (where we stay while we get C-Town into shape), L also has a wonderful little Art Museum in the nearby countryside that we spend a few hours a day manning (it’s where I’m getting internet right now).

Hard work, fresh air, sunshine, and good company are doing me a world of good. Since I don’t have any pressing business anywhere else, I’m just trying to enjoy the moment and the feeling that I am being of use to someone doing who is something worthwhile.

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Country Town

The Big House

Country Town has incredible potential if L could just get over the hump with enough money/help. I’ve taken photos of the interiors but they can’t really do it justice. If it was all spiffed up it could house about 10-12 artist of various sorts who would have access to a painting studio, a ceramic kiln (someone wants to donate one) and a nice little performance space. The performance space has this crazy mural of various & sundry country/rock greats (along with L as the Sheriff) done by a local character named H (he’s continually stopping by to goof with L & to touch up his mural). There’s also a neat little grove with some apple trees on some land behind the little house and luscious scenery all around. It could really be something.

Sunset From The Back Deck Of The Big House

L has been working steadily on it over the years as she spends her summers tending to the museum and visiting with friends and family in her hometown. She’s very careful not to get overextended financially in rehabbing the properties and also not to get too burned out with all the work, but she’s only one person and the help she gets is often spotty at best.

The Little House

One problem is that many interested parties (especially in the Copenhagen/Aarhus Art Crowds) are enamored of the idea of having a place to make art, party, & cavort- but not so much interested in putting in the hard physical labor it takes to make something like this happen. It’s the old problem with the idea that city people have of country life; they think it’s all lemonade on the porch and fun in the sun and then they blanch at all the hard work it takes to maintain rural properties and rehab old dilapidated buildings. It’s pretty much what killed the hippie commune movement back in the 60’s/70’s IMHO; all the bourgeois suburban kids bailed as soon as they discovered that farm/country living wasn’t all skinny dipping and laying about getting stoned, but instead was an Imperial Fuckton of hard unending work.

Another problem is that there is just SOOO much stuff to be done (a serious Imperial Fuckton), and that the little bit that L and her peeps can do is often negated by the beating the place takes from the elements, especially over the winter. It sometimes seems like bailing out an old boat which has a big leak in it, and on occasion I wonder if I’m participating in a quixotic quest.

On the other hand, much has gotten done over the years (especially when I hear about the condition the places were in when she bought them) and continues to get done (a great carpenter just did some major spiffing on the exterior). And what the hell, Quixotic Quest is my middle freaking name. I’m on a HUGE one of my own, for gosh sake! Not my first and probably not my last. Actually, it’s kind of my Magnum Opus of Quixotic Quests.

There were also three delightful artists from further North in Denmark who just visited and really “get” what L is doing here, and seem like the type of folks who aren’t averse to some hard work. They want to come and stay in Country Town later in September, even though it’s out of season and L will be mostly back in Copenhagen. They could be the vanguard of a new wave.

So the Bottom Line is that I don’t care if my hard work was for naught because I have had a blast during my time here and it was just what I needed at this point in my life and my journey.

And who knows, stranger things have happened and L is as tough and dogged as they come.

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The end of the season has come and L is closing up the Art Museum and heading back to Copenhagen. Circumstances back in Copenhagen are forcing her to do it a little earlier than she was planning to, so now I am scrambling to get back into my own quest and find the next place I’m going to visit (and the next friends who are ready to put me up for a bit).

We shall see where the path leads…