Art Feature

Luffare

by Lesley Darling Gustavus Adolphus College Luffare. While in a course on sustainable living, I wandered through the Swedish countryside with a group of wonderful, easy-livin’ Swedes. Rather than list the numbers, facts, and statistical quotes about my time, I want to say that the people I spent my time with sought something different, something overlooked. Our patchwork group included meat-eaters and vegans, farmhands, butterfly-catching birdwatchers, and Stockholm dwellers. We were the alternative set, the wanderers, the seekers, the land-folk.…

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61 Degrees

By Lesley Darling Gustavus Adolphus College How does one take qualitative human experience and chart it? How does one quantify emotion? After an eight-month course on sustainable living in rural Sweden, I returned to my Midwestern undergraduate career both illuminated and disenchanted. Inspired and actualized through my land-living life in Sweden, I felt disillusioned by the systematic reality I faced here in America. I wanted to be back on the land, living intentionally. At the same time, I knew that…

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Volsungs Drawing

By Steve Horn University of Wisconsin–Madison From the Author: This drawing was inspired by the epic poem “The Saga of the Volsungs.” The im­age depicts Sigurd the Dragon Slayer defeating Fafnir. This is a key moment in the poem, solidifying Sigurd’s place in history as a great warrior. The drawing reflects a common style in Norse and Icelandic art: the knot. The knot is used to show the interconnectedness and familial ties in much of this ancient literature. As someone…

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