farewells and thanks

This is it, my residency is over. It took me an hour and a half to pack all the drawings into this tube. I took this to the post office on Wednesday and Zanja was incredibly helpful. I miss having a good post office. 

I was thrown a farewell BBQ by several of my new friends, it was lovely. We had huge cheese burgers, chips and salad. Dave braved outside despite the rain and wind to barbeque the burgers. 

 As I left this morning a mist iced the top of the hills. I apologise to any local stuck behind my car as I did the speed limit- the gloom of the morning looked like a moose's dream.

I would really like to thank so many people for making this residency possible. First of all The Rooms for selecting me. Anne Marceau for her invaluable help particularly as I was preparing for the residency and Michael Burzynski for his advice on rocks. Kris Oravec for her help, advice and friendship-this residency would not have gone so smoothly without her aid. The artists I met during this residency including Christine Koch & Barb Daniell. Thanks too to Molly White, Robert Nelder and Peter Lakin for delicious dinners and good company. Barb Gillam for the best vegetables I ate in Newfoundland. Many thanks to Gayle Tapper for more delicious cooking, beautiful harp playing and for inviting me to several events & parties including Ruthie Tapper's 90th. Thanks also to Sharon Chaulk for her hospitality and the lift to Corner Brook and particularly her help with the purchase of the tube (thanks too to Lisa Shears of Shears building supplies for coming to my rescue). Thank you Zanja of Bonne Bay Post Office for providing an exemplorary service, for delivering my post (poste restante) and for sending me to the Legion to meet Danny Williams, the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. Thanks to Hugh and Barb for being good neighbours and for sending me off with muffins and cookies! Finally I would like to thank everyone I have met during this residency for the welcome they have offered me, please forgive me if I have not named you all. The kindness I encountered has touched me greatly.  

the art of packing

The residency is nearly at an end and now I needed to focus on how the artwork was getting home. I spent the day in Corner Brook. I got a lift and had a really enjoyable day as a result. It could have been totally miserable on my own. Particularly as the plumbing store was reluctant to sell anything to me at all and could only think of problems. Fortunately Sharon knew her daughter's building supplies firm would help, they were excellent. The drawings are so big that they are rolled into a huge industrial tube (a cardboard roll used for casting in-situ concrete pillars) topped with two sewerpipe caps.

I had an educational experience going to "box stores" as they are referred to here. The raw, fluorescent strip lighting flattens everything and adds a surreal, burnished glow to the colours. Strangely I genuinely enjoy these places, especially if I have no vital need to be there but I can relish the enormity of the place. It is not the prettiest of environments but it is a necessary part of living here. Woody Point is beautifully isolated but specialized shopping means a three hour round trip to Corner Brook. The same is true of the hospital.

It did nothing but rain from lunchtime onwards. When we returned in the afternoon I found the view had disappeared again.

Cow Head

Today was an explosion of sunshine. I left Woody Point for Cow Head and there was barely a cloud between them. I spent the evening on the lighthouse trail. I was cushioned by pine needles while walking through the comfortable scent of balsam fir, to reach the rocks on the beach below. 

 The strange formations are a result of ancient underground landslides...

All over the Park there are divided graveyards. It is clearly marked in Cow Head. The society feels intergrated here and this seems incongruous. I'm not sure I would want to be labelled in the afterlife.

 

The cemetries are both on the peninsular. A tiny causeway links them to the town. A huge refridgerated fish truck nearly took me off the road as it hurtled towards a dock behind me.

 

Fall is in the air and the wind blew gustily yesterday, the sky was all racing clouds and light. This morning I am watching heavy clouds encircle the patch of pure blue over the artist's house. 

Soon I will get into action and start being infinitely practical by cleaning floors and preparing the house for the open studio later this afternoon. I am having a slow start because I was working after the 90th birthday I went to last night. It was a lovely party; the birthday girl is in excellent form and had been quoting poetry to me earlier that afternoon. I was profoundly touched to have been asked and it was inspiring to see someone with such a straight-forward pleasure in life and the people around her.

the works crew

 

I went out with the works crew. I wanted to see how the park worked on a daily level. They were working on the Trout River road and were putting in poles with reflectors on them so that they can be seen above the snow. In a blizzard these are sometimes all you see and people drive from one pole to the next. A hole is first drilled into the ground and the pole is hammered into place.

 

I had no idea what this was for: it is a pole to show where the storm drains are so that when there is rain and it starts to melt the snow, a hole can be dug to clear out the storm drain to allow run off. I feel rather humbled that even the snow is large scale here. 

The long rope coming from the pick up has an anchored weight attached and is 50 ft long so that they keep the same distance between the poles.

K Rock

 

Foolishly I listened to a forecast last night predicting rain. Today became a day of administration in Deer Lake as a result. It is a 2 hour return journey. It takes me from the South Arm of Bonne Bay through the hills to Deer Lake. It is imperceptible from the photograph but the colours are just beginning to turn. I wanted to capture the kilometres of tree-lined road I drive. Today like vivid traffic lights there would be spots of pure orange from rusting ferns and sudden deep maroon-red bushes amongst the green. 

I've started driving with the radio on. I only get reception for one channel and that depends on the mountains, it is: Western Newfoundland Classic Rock, K Rock. I have been practicing to say that with a Newfie accent but have failed so far. It took until Deer Lake when they played something I recognised and I sang along with the greatest gusto knowing I would be unheard.

in green gardens even moose slip up

It was only a 12 and half kilometre walk but I am totally exhausted. It was those hill things I am just not used to. I joined Jerry, Linda and the gorgeous Charlie (a chocolate labrador) on a hike to Green Gardens.

The tiniest bear-shaped spot on the image below is a distant shot of Charlie leading us. 

We went to the distant beach and back. There were 30m high cliffs of pillow basalt around us. In the distance the cliffs towards Trout River are deformed peridotite and gabbro, I can say this with a certain authority because the residency has a geological map. What intially seemed like small driftwood from above was tree trunks and a couple of huge logs formerly used in the logging industry. Sadly on the beach there were also the decayed bodies of two long-dead moose. Teenage ones had misjudged their footing in the snow and fallen off from the cliffs above. Somehow I imagined moose to be more sure-footed and less falible in these situations.  

We had a picnic by a beach waterfall. As we left the sun burst out, pebbles glistened and foolishly I picked several up. They gained considerable weight walking upwards.