I Dreamed of a Faro Retreat

In my dreams last night I have been accepted to be a visiting artist at Ingmar Bergman's estate on the Baltic island of Faro. I get off of the ferry and Stockholm based super stylist Eva Lindh appears from a mist on the beach, ready to outfit me in cozy woolens ... (photo: Lena Koller Image from http://www.evalindh.se/)

or more practically, for walks around the island, in coat and hat - faux chinchilla for me please.

(Photo: Lana Koller Image from http://www.evalindh.se/)

When I get to the house, I find I need to cheer the place up a bit and reupholster the chairs in Ingmar's screening room with Svenskt Tenn fabric. http://www.svenskttenn.se/

I am ready to record all I see in my social diarist Archie Grand notebooks. http://www.archiegrand.com/

Being the end of November, it is cold on Faro so I gather pillows and blankets together...
(Photo: Anna Kern Image from http://www.evalindh.se/)

among them is my favorite throw by Pia Wallen. http://www.piawallen.se/

I make cocoa for all of the other visiting artists, writers and filmmakers.

We gather around a small table. As I blushingly begin to admit to the group my schoolgirl fixation on Max von Sydow I lower the tray of drinks. (Photo: Charlie Drevstam image from http://www.evalindh.se/) There is no room on this little table for the tray let alone a chess board. Is that Max I see sitting on the couch? I feel my wrist go limp. The tray crashes. Candles are knocked over. My dream is swiftly turning into a nightmare and all I see are flames. Anguish and dark thoughts fill my heart...

I awake in a panic to hear myself crying out into the darkness. "....why, oh WHY, did I not enter Ingmar's living room into the Brickmaker's Coffee Table give away contest at Brooke Giannetti's Velvet & Linen?!?! " http://www.brookegianetti.typepad.com/

It is too late for me and that heavy tray but not for the lucky contestants. Help Brooke out by going to her site and voting on your favorite room. The contest ends this Sunday, November 29th.

E.

Island Muse Faro

I was at Christies Auction house in New York on Thursday helping to set up for a fundraiser I am involved in each year, the Tibet House Benefit Auction event. I had to pass many times that day through the front entrance of Christies, where there are large screens displaying various upcoming auction events and Christies Luxury Properties for sale. I was stopped dead in my tracks more then once by luminous images of landscapes featuring rustic boulders, pebbled shores and windmills. It all looked vaguely familiar.

Where was this? The island of Faro and the property listed was Ingmar Bergman's estate that had sold just two weeks previously. The Christies catalog describes the property as such:

The estate’s four dwellings are set amid a rustic backdrop of dunes, boulders, and tumbling waters....

...Hammars is the main house, secluded along a road that winds through pine forests and quiet meadows. Completed in 1967, it remains an integral part of the island, along with the pebbled shores and luminous sky. Framing gorgeous sea vistas, the residence was designed by architect Kjell Abramson in close collaboration with Bergman himself. The writing lodge is an idyllic two-room timber structure with a magnificent ocean view; it can be seen in the final sequence of the iconic television drama “Scenes from a Marriage.” The serene terrain here is defined by fossils, pine trees, and an undisturbed horizon with ever-changing light.

Situated on an open meadow, Ängen is a comfortable winter retreat house, built in a classic Gotland style by expert craftsmen and offering three bedrooms, a living room with an impressive fireplace, and an inner courtyard that glows with lilacs in summer. Finally, just a short walk from the water is Dämba, a beautifully restored 1854 farmhouse. In an old whitewashed barn situated nearby is Bergman’s private cinema, where he watched films every day." (photos of estate from Christies Properties)

Sven Nykvist (left) and Ingmar Bergman on Faro. Photo: Associated Press

Bergman was arguably one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century producing films such as The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Cries and Whispers and Fanny & Alexander. Bergman fell in love with Faro when he came to the island with legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist in 1960 to scout for the film Through a Glass Darkly. He says in the film documentary Bergman Island that he felt instantly at at peace on the island as if he had come home. Although Bergman had many marriages (six wives, nine children) the island of Faro seems to me to have been his biggest muse. It is here that he wrote and filmed most of his work and chose to live full time, very much in tune with the island's unique light and rugged beauty. I tried to find pictures of the houses but was unable to come up with much. The rooms are very sparse and to get a good look one should go to the W Magazine video of Bergman's home at: http://www.wmagazine.com/video?videoID=46093135001 .

From left, Ingmar Bergman, Sven Nykvist, Erland Josephson and Liv Ullman filming Scenes from a Marriage. Photo from The Everett Collection.

To live on an island, simply. To live surrounded by books, film projects and with a barn devoted to screening films twice a day. To be so at one with your home that you think nothing of writing notes on the surfaces of your walls and bedside tables. To live with your home as a personal diary and laboratory. This is how Ingmar Bergamn lived - what freedom!

The property is being prepared at the moment for a further creative future! It was bought by the Norwegian inventor, Hans Gude Gudeson and will be turned into an artists' retreat. Linn Ullman, Bergman's daugher with Liv Ullman says of this development, " Faro was a working place and will continue to be. There will be new books written, new films will be develpoed and new projects will be made."

I am so inspired that I may just apply for a grant! Where do you like to live and create?

Do remote islands hold any appeal to you? We'd love to know!