Here are some more posts for ya'll! Thanks to everyone who sent me an email, it's really great to be hearing frm you over the ocean. Yeah!

Day 9 – 1^st August

Artists talk all the time. But today, I had a public program and so people had to listen to me talk, and that is always great! And I even talked about art! It was good to get started on the public programs, and lovely to see some of the great people I have met here come along to hear me rattle on.

However, it is possible that this event has overshadowed any other part of the day: I saw a really big moose. It was really big. I was having an evening with Kris after the program and, just as I filled my mouth with pasta, a huge bull moose with enormous antlers hurtled past the verandah. I tried to let everyone know, but my mouth was full and they were all having a chat. Lucky for me the moose just hung around for a bit, and we could all admire his amazing velvety headgear.  They do have very ugly necks though.

Day 10 – 2^nd August

Here are the parts that make today: 2 parts making art, 1 part thinking, 1 part walking about, 4 parts mussels and 1 part screech.  Over here, they have this thing called screech. It’s like really rough rum. And when you come to Newfoundland you have to be screeched in, and then you will be a part of Newfoundland. After my day of art times, Jen and Liv had planned a mass screeching of all the newcomers this evening, but after a rough trot falling down the stairs and a grey drizzle descending across the land, we decided to have a night out in.  A couple of lovely folks came past, and Jen and Andrew made a delicious dinner of mussels and meatballs. Jenna made a hulk Hogan moustache out of wool.

And then I wore a yellow sou’wester, kissed a cod, drank some screech and sang a funny song about a bye in a boat. Hurrah for Newfoundland! Long may your big jib draw.

Day 11 – 3^rd August

I think that today went in the kind of flash you get from putting a fork in a toaster. I made art for a large portion, yet still the works looked the same. I planned to climb a hill, but then it was suddenly night.

But, oh, what a night. Kris and Munju came over for some tacos, we had a little wine, and then walked the 15 metres from my house to the heritage theatre to catch the end of the Appalachian Spring concert, which was excellent. The Gros Morne Summer Music festival is on for the entire time I am here, which is truly wonderful. I will soak up all I can. We walked around in the cool and the dark, we met with a lovely Yoga woman called Sarah and had a tune or two with her. Again, everyone I meet here has been both lovely and talented. Well-done Newfoundland.

Day 12 – 4^th August

This morning begun with a good block of washing up followed by a little emailing and then a bit more art transport organizing from a distance. Yes, even in the glamour of the Newfoundland coastal artist in residency program, admin can catch you. It banks up until nothing can be done but to begin the snowploughing of responses and forms.

Fortunately, this repeated shoveling was interrupted by my second public program here. Making animal extensions! I was very pleased to have such a great turn out, (thank you CBC radio for promoting the workshop) and to be lucky enough to have fantastic assistance from park interpreter extraordinaire, Quinn Pike!

The kidlets made some amazing things today. Among them were bull horns that attached to heads, a complete cat transformation made only of card and pipe cleaners, a bear and a Labrador in headpiece form, masks of fox, fish, newfoundland lynx (with tufted ears), a hat with moose antlers and a sparkly cod hat, as well as many excellent drawings of animals found in the park. I always forget that you can’t take photos of children making art, so instead I will show you the art itself:

I was so inspired; I went home and finished making the bear net. And then undid it and made it again. Twice. I am still unsure if it’s right now, but it got too late a night to be thinking about it, so it’s resting and I am eating.

Day 13 – August 5^th

It is very strange the urge we have to climb to the top of things. There are lots of hikes to be done around here, but the ones I am most keen to do always end up at the top of a hill. Today I hiked the lookout, which is a short walk, but a very steep one. Since I’ve been here I’ve done a good spot of walking about, but I wanted to do at least one hike on my own. So, I sang and clapped all the way up like a twat (they say it’s a good way of avoiding bears. They also say that very few bears have been seen this year, and so it’s unnecessary) and then I got to the top and looked out. It was a truly beautiful site. To the left Gros Morne mountain sat all bald and lumpy, in the middle a thick forest, underlined by the arm of bonne bay dotted with boats, and to the right the odd, red barren landscape of the tablelands. The way such disparate landscapes intersect here is great; they don’t merge, they just butt up against each other like a collage of national geographic magazines. I watched and drew up there for a while, and had a good old sing back down the hill too.

I promised myself that I would go home and make art, and, despite some very enticing offers of walking and soup from Kris, I did. And it was good. I have made a good spot of headway with the hare ears, although I am worried they might look like donkey ears. I am keen to get some good chunks done, so that in the next few days I can begin to document them. The landscape here is so wild, and has been such a big influence on the work; I cannot just take these objects home and document them in the bush. So, full speed ahead!