From the first day since I arrived in Seattle, I could see Mount Rainier at the evening of Art Mee.t
It was thrilling to be back in this city, where the idea for Art Meet had first been born — and then seeing my paintings displayed on the 41st floor of Kinects Tower, surrounded by the city, the mountains and the water.
I especially loved seeing Rise among the skyscrapers.
I painted her with that feeling of looking upward, finding courage and inner strength. Somehow, seeing her there, surrounded by the tall buildings, felt exactly right.
As the sun moved across the sky, the light changed the paintings too. What I had painted in my studio became something different in that setting.
And then, around 40 people, from 26 to 82 years old, gathered for Art Meet Seattle.
Some knew me. Some knew Barlow Gallery. And some were people who actually lived in the building and became curious about what was happening upstairs.
We looked at paintings.
We talked.
And people began sharing stories.
It started with a painting
The idea for Art Meet was born in Seattle.
At a gallery opening in Bellevue, I was supposed to speak about my paintings when, just before the presentation, I unexpectedly lost my voice.
My daughter Sarah stepped in.
She started talking about one of my paintings and what she saw in it. Someone else joined the conversation. Then someone else.
Suddenly, we weren't talking about what the painting was supposed to mean. We were talking about what we each saw and felt in it.
The painting became a conversation.
That moment stayed with me.
I wondered what might happen if we created an evening around that idea. No lecture. No right interpretation. Just paintings, people, curiosity and one question:
What's the story?
Three weeks before Art Meet Seattle, I held the first official Art Meet in my hometown of Karlstad, Sweden.
And now I was back in Seattle, where the idea had begun.
The stories people saw
One of the things I love about Art Meet is that I don't know the stories before they happen.
I make the paintings from what I feel. But once someone else stands in front of them, the painting can become something entirely different.
One person looked at a painting and wrote:
“Taking a break from the busy world and appreciating the beauty in passing.”
Another saw a woman sitting by a coffee corner, surrounded by books, taking a moment to appreciate the world.
These weren't stories I had written into the paintings.
They belonged to the people looking at them.
To the City as a Living Film
One woman connected a painting to a trip she had taken to China and a decision she had made for herself while she was there.
The painting became connected to a particular moment in her life.
Someone else described the city as a living film.
And that is exactly what I hope can happen when people spend time with art. The painting opens a door, and suddenly another story is there.
Sisters
A painting became a story about sisters.
About friendship.
About the joy of simply being together and being young.
It wasn't about explaining the painting.
It was about what the painting brought back to someone.
Inner Seeing
My daughter Sarah wrote about Inner Seeing:
“She used to experience the world differently, seeing pain and feeling weak. Now she has found confidence and faces things with power.”
Another person wrote simply:
“Wiping a single tear.”
Two completely different responses to the same painting.
And both felt true.
Love, togetherness and seeing ourselves
Love Is in the Air became a favorite for several people.
Someone wrote:
“They might say I love you for the first time.”
A couple in their fifties looked at Together and wrote a story about seeing themselves in the painting — as if it were the two of them fifteen years from now.
I loved that.
Another woman who bought a painting told me how happy she was that she and her husband had agreed on the same piece.
And then there was Embrace.
One man looked at it and was reminded of the way kelp moves in the water.
Again, something I had never intended.
And yet, once he said it, I could see it too.
You don't have to know why
My gallerist Rachel has a particular connection to Avanti.
I could see it in her eyes when she first saw the painting.
She told me she doesn't know why she loves it.
And I think that's perfectly fine.
We don't always need to know why a painting moves us.
Sometimes we simply recognize something before we have words for it.
That is one of the reasons I don't want to tell people what my paintings mean.
I want to know what they see.
A World of Her Own
There was one painting that surprised me most of all.
I had been working on a large painting called A World of Her Own.
When I began it, I thought I was painting a story about a woman absorbed in a book — a woman who could travel anywhere through reading, imagination and words.
I had been very protective of the painting while I was making it. Something about it felt precious to me.
Then, the evening before Art Meet Seattle, I suddenly understood why.
The story was for my daughter.
She is pregnant, and the advice I want to give her is simple:
Keep reading.
Keep reflecting.
Take a few minutes for yourself every day.
Stay connected to yourself.
Because perhaps that is also part of becoming a good mother — remembering that you are still a person with your own thoughts, dreams and inner world.
The painting had been telling me something I hadn't understood yet.
Perhaps a world of one's own isn't a place.
Perhaps it is a moment when nobody else is telling you who to be.
What I discovered in Seattle
One of the unexpected joys of the evening was seeing my paintings in that setting.
I learned that I love being somewhere surrounded by water, mountains and city.
And I loved watching the paintings change as the sun went down.
The colours shifted.
The light moved across the surfaces.
The city outside changed.
And the paintings changed with it.
It reminded me of something I am beginning to understand more deeply:
We see art depending on where we are in our lives — and even depending on how we feel that particular day.
Someone asked me which painting was my favorite.
My answer was simple:
It depends on the day and how I feel.
I'm beginning to notice patterns in my own work too.
My favorite paintings often seem to come in sets of three.
They tend to happen when I feel really good — when there is heart and courage in the brush, and when I am out of my own head.
When I am searching for life, movement and energy.
When I can feel a story evolving in the artwork.
What Art Meet has taught me
When I first had the idea for Art Meet, I didn't know exactly what it would become.
Now, after Karlstad and Seattle, I am beginning to understand it differently.
The paintings are the starting point.
But the real experience happens between the painting and the person standing in front of it.
And then between the people who begin talking because of what they have seen.
A painting can remind someone of a sister.
A first “I love you.”
A trip to China.
Kelp moving beneath the water.
A future version of a marriage.
A single tear.
A few minutes of quiet.
A decision.
A new sense of confidence.
Or simply the feeling of being alive.
That is what I love about Art Meet.
The paintings inspire the conversations.
And the conversations give the paintings new stories.
Perhaps that is why the question is so simple:
What's the story?
And perhaps there is never just one answer.
