This category covers everything about travelling
I am midway, a little over the middle, of my six weeks in the US. Traveling in these days is interesting. Which is a way of saying complicated, not easy, but not terrible, and contains unexpected surprises both good and bad. I landed in Minneapolis, and shortly thereafter Kij and I began driving across the …
March 29 I am moving to Longyearbyen, Svalbard. Trying to find a place to live in a location under such a severe housing crisis is hard. Every avenue I explored turned into a dead end. I had the first two weeks of April at the residency to hang my show, but I didn’t know where …
When traveling, given a choice between a multi lane highway, and a mysterious single lane road, I will take the single land road every time. This is the philosophy by which Kij and I travel. Asphalt or gravel? Gravel. Gravel or dirt? Dirt. Granted we have ended up in the middle of nowhere Iceland, having …
For November I am living in Laugarvatn, Iceland courtesy of the Gullkistan Creative Center. I’m living in a beautiful house very like a beach cabin and it’s all mine. There are three bedrooms and a bathroom downstairs as well as open-plan kitchen and living room. There’s a second floor dormer bedroom that’s really beautiful, but …
A year ago, more than that, when my host invited me to stay with her and referred to her home as being outside of London I imagined a two bedroom flat, possibly one bedroom and I would sleep on the couch, in Twickenham or Croyden or perhaps Chelmsford. There would be easy access by rail …
We have one day left in Iceland. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while we drove the ring road about what I want the shape of my life to be. Ever since walking out from under the shadow of grief I’ve been in flux, knowing I want -something- but not knowing exactly what. Being …
My time in Longyearbyen is a little more than half over, and a month now seems way too short a time to stay here. I should have opted for two months, but I did not. In two weeks I have watched the change from 24 hours of daylight to 13 hours of daylight – 11 …
As a reward for finishing my first painting in Longyearbyen I gave myself a day off and took a tour of Pyramiden, an abandoned Soviet-era mining town. It also included a brief stop by a glacier, and a trip into a small bay. We started out from Longyearbyen, then traveled out of Advenfjorden into Isfjorden …
Months ago when I was accepted to these residencies and set up my initial travel plans I arranged to spend a full day in Oslo to do some sightseeing. Of course, I completely forgot about this, leading to a very tired me arguing with the check-in clerk that I wasn’t staying two nights, just one. …
Today I did one of the most important things I wanted to do before leaving Seattle. I visited the Tsubaki Grand Shrine to ask for courage, focus, and creative inspiration at the shrine of Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto. I feel a special closeness to the Fearless One, patron of the arts, among many other things. I love the …