In the bitter winds of autumn 1963, Tove Jansson, helped by Brunstrm, a maverick fisherman, raced to build a cabin on a treeless island in the Gulf of Finland.The island was Klovharun, where for thirty summers Tove and her beloved partner, the visual artist, Tuulikki Tooti Pietil, lived, painted, and wrote, energized by the solitude and shifting seascapes. The island’s flora, fauna, and weather patterns provided deep inspiration which can be seen reflected in all of Jansson’s work, most famously in her bestselling novelThe Summer Bookand her longstanding comic strip and novels for children, Moomin.

Tove’s signature spare, quirky prose, and Tooti’s subtle ink washes and aquatints combine to form a work of meditative beauty, a chronicle of living peacefully in nature and observing the islands ecology and character. Notes from an Islandis both a work of artistic collaboration and an homage to the deep love the two women shared. One feels as if Janssons journal, with Tootis sketches tucked inside, has been unearthed like a treasure from under a pile of old quilts in the back of their rustic cabin.

Hardcover | 128 pages | 5.08″ x 7.80″