Back to the Trees

The year was 1983 and the place was the town of Järvenpää. My interest in arts was growing up but I had not got into the Academy of Fine Arts. I had to go forward without teachers and contacts. Almost ten years earlier, maybe in the spring festival of our school, I´ve heard one guy playing piano and I admired him as an artist. But he was living in Stockholm and I had no contact with him...until he came back to Finland.

He was "Il Padre" for me. Collaborating with him opened new visions and got bravery to continue this dangerous path. Well, often I was not brave enough and then I made fatal operations with alcohol. In spite of these mistakes there were an amnesty by "Il Padre" for me and after these sad periods we were eager to go on.

Once I had a dream with a poem. The Voice told me: Katso aaltoihin, ne vyöryvät itsensä yli. Siinä on ajan syli. Behold the waves, they roll over themselves, there lies the lap of time...Many, many years later I used those words for the lyrics of the band Amorphis, but in the 80´s they got their place in the video which I made with Mr Asser Korhonen. (Also known as "Il Padre" or Mr. Asher.)

Asser was the cameraman and he made the music for our art video. My role was to be a reporter, but at the end of the video there happens something important for my later work. My first piece of some kind of performance art was born.