Arriving at Arctic Canvas: creativity, becoming, and the midnight sun

I’m currently on a creative residency in Iceland, staying at Arctic Canvas. A breathtaking space on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula designed to immerse you in wild beauty, stillness and flow. It’s a place where earth, sea and sky converge in quiet conversation. Where creativity feels like a living, breathing presence in the room with you. This creative residency marks a sacred pause. An intentional time to retreat and reconnect with the rhythm of nature. To listen, to feel, to create without agenda. What follows is the story of how I arrived here. Not just geographically, but creatively and soulfully. Through a series of liminal moments that unfolded under the light of the midnight sun.

Arriving in the midnight sun

I never expected to arrive so late. But that is because I’d tried to let go of expectation.

All too often time travelling in Iceland is structured around booking in trips and accommodation to cover vast areas. Where nature is consumed and part of neatly made itineraries, rather than somewhere to rewild and remember we are deeply part of it all. When you choose to create space for nature to lead your curiosity and creativity, it calls for great surrender. To trust in the alchemy of the moment and that whatever the journey that lies ahead, it will be in deep connection to the elements. The rhythm of weather, light and wild chance.

Creativity and curiosity is a muscle. Sometimes it needs a free-range release from the regular routines and spaces it is flexed in for it to expand. And so by creating space without agenda, you commit to letting go of plans. Stepping into something far more alive.

Following the elemental call of wild islands

My journey to Arctic Canvas, the most inspiring creative retreat space nestled on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula, began in southern Iceland under golden skies. Landing in Iceland early on the morning a day before my Creative Residency started meant there would be a night to find somewhere to lay my head. I had a few ideas and wanted to wait to see what plans the weather had.

The forecast whispered possibilities too good to ignore. Sunshine on the Westman Islands, a place I had always longed to visit. With the gift of sun, I managed to get ferry crossings sorted and found last-minute accommodation. Only 300 metres from the puffin cliffs.

Where cliffs rise like myth and the sky is alive

The Westman Islands, a volcanic archipelago off Iceland’s southern coast, rise from the sea like something mythic. Arriving by ferry feels like you’re entering a secret world. The port tucked in an alcove behind the vast, sheer cliffs towering above. Lush and impossibly green in summer, alive with the calls of tens of thousands of seabirds. Everywhere you look, wings are moving. Puffins, fulmars, kittiwakes, my whole field of view in motion, the sky alive and full of sound. The wildness here feels ancient and immediate, it is overwhelming and arresting in the best kind of way.

A liminal moment unfolds

That evening, a liminal moment unfolded.

There are some images you dream of taking. Perhaps part of that anticipation is wondering if you will ever be in the right place, the right time, with all the elements you hold in your mind’s eye aligning. But that for me is one of the deep textures of this passion and love of nature and photography I hold. The longing makes the moment you get to realise this all the more precious. Often these moments are not about their grandeur, but for their feeling. That quiet surge on a cellular level in my body when light, place and presence align, rises like fizz.

The sun was setting. The sky was glowing but there was no direct light. Then in the absolute epitome of liminality, the light found a gap and the puffin shot of my dreams revealed itself.

I pressed the shutter and that gentle, cellular-level fizz erupted in a rush of dopamine pulsing through my body. I could have screamed. Instead, I quietly cried with the deepest sense of gratitude.

The unseen layers behind the image

So much has built to be in this moment, to be sat there, to bear witness to it all. The time learning about light, locations, how nature will behave, how to quietly and sensitively immerse in nature to share their space and see them so closely without impacting on them. Pivotal moments of changing my kit to Fujifilm (more on that here), so I have more lightweight and agile kit with the zooms I need to create in those moments. Meaning I can go off hiking on my own in the middle of the night with all I need in one bag.

A single frame, years in the making, finally came into being.

I think it is all too easy to see an image online, like and move on. For we are saturated by visuals now. But often what is so overlooked is the culmination of years of investing in your knowledge and craft to be able to bring it into the world. I think that is what makes moments like this so singular and stand out for me.

A surreal alignment with Whale Wise

The next morning held another layer of surreal serendipity. I’d been out on the cliffs with the puffins until nearly 2am, so I woke late. Slow and content, sipping coffee from bed, looking up to see a ship gliding past the iconic Elephant Rock cliff, just beyond my window. It was the Lindblad National Geographic Explorer and on board were two of the Whale Wise research team. Katie and Ben, visiting scientists on expedition.

For folk who don’t know, I am the President of the Board for Whale Wise. Therefore, it was utterly surreal to be on these islands by chance. Finding that we were all going to be in the same place at the same time. Roll forward a few hours later, we shared coffee in person, a wonderful connection, in the most unexpected of places. The threads of purpose, story and sea all weaving together again.

A whisper from the light

When I booked this trip, most ferries were sold out. The only option was to catch the last ferry back to the mainland at 22:00. By 23:00, we were driving up the coastal road from Landeyjahöfn, which basically meets the iconic waterfall Seljalandsfoss. I noticed something in the light. The sun was setting to the northwest, and a whisper from my intuition amplified into my consciousness. The kind of instinct I’ve never been able to ignore.

“I need to go to Seljalandsfoss”…

And with a near 4 hour journey ahead of me to land at my creative residency, I started driving in the wrong direction. Surrendering to my curiosity and chasing the hope that the light would burst through the gaps in the clouds I could see.

The firefall moment

Waterproofed head to toe, I ran up to the waterfall, up the steps, scrambled over the rocks and I was in the cave. A line of light chasers, shoulder to shoulder, in anticipation of the same moment. There was an almost festival fever about it.

And for a fleeting moment, the last light of day poured into the falls, turning the water to flame. Orange at first and then the moment…

Firefall.
The sun painting the cascade in red.
A gift.
Just for a liminal moment.

A night drive into a new beginning

And so, with that surreal and fiery foss moment captured, it was time to navigate west to my creative residency at Arctic Canvas.

Four hours across Iceland’s southwest corner, under a sky that never truly darkened. The midnight sun skimmed just beneath the horizon, casting a dusky hue across the land. Deep purples and steel blues shifting in real time. I was wide-eyed, awestruck, alert to everything.

This was more than a journey.
This was a passage.

As I drove along the south coast of Snæfellsnes, the rising sun turned the clouds red again. I arrived at my creative residency at Arctic Canvas just before sunrise. A creative sanctuary at the wild edge. Architecturally stunning, quietly luxurious, and deeply connected to earth, sea and sky.

A space to remember who we are

I felt utterly alive and energised by all that had unfurled. So I decided to stay up and greet the day.

And as the first light rose behind the mountains of Snæfellsnes, pouring through the east-facing windows, it took my breath away. The world was quiet apart from the sound of the birds. The air was still and the land was lit in golden hues. This beautiful space to hold me for the next two weeks for my creative residency.

And in the stillness, I remembered something.

Creativity is not tangible or fixed
It is a passage.
A state.
A becoming.

It is forever liminal.
It requires nurture.
A space of surrender, flow and alchemy.

It does not arrive on command, but when we arrive to meet it.
When we follow the light, when we listen to instinct and when we trust the timing.

This journey — from puffin cliffs and firefall to the wild heart of Snæfellsnes and landing at my creative residency — was not about chasing. It was about the alchemy of the moment. About allowing the unexpected to sculpt the wild edges of becoming.

Arctic Canvas is not just a place to stay.
It is a portal. A threshold.
A wild invitation to connect with your creative self.

And just as I brushed my teeth, ready to collapse into sleep after the long journey north, I glanced out to sea from the bathroom window. And there they were — fins! Orca fins, slicing through the surface of the waters just below the cliff. A female with two calves glided past. Followed closely by a male and what looked like three or four more females. Further out, another group surfaced about two kilometres from shore, their presence unmistakable. I stood frozen in quiet awe, toothbrush in hand, heart thudding. I ran for my camera and captured a few frames.

And to top it off, three gannets passing by, with the middle one darker than the others, meaning it is a juvenile. Maybe 1-2 years old, which is so good to see with the catastrophic impact of bird flu. What a welcome to my creative residency at Arctic Canvas. What wild, serendipitous magic to end this liminal arrival to this truly special place!