The Grey Islands

Another Trip!

2011-09-07T08:31:00.000-07:00

I've just gotten back from my second trip to the Grey Islands this summer and I am happy to say that my camera worked fine this time around (in fact I got a brand new camera just in time for the trip). So here are some pics and notes about the adventure!

We got into Conche at about 3pm and found this little iceberg (and bergy bits) in the cove:

I should mention that I didn't go by myself this time. There were eight of us altogether and a good time was had by all. Here Paul is getting us loaded aboard his boat, and Jordan is in the background.

The boat ride was amazing! We saw dolphins, orcas, minkes and humpbacks, not mention the millions of seabirds. Here are the dolphins that swam under the boat:

We also got very close to some amazing icebergs. There were probably about fifty icebergs gathered around the island:

The first thing we did was walk up to the kiln and unload it. Most of the pots were pretty underfired, as I expected, but it was good to see the kiln still standing nonetheless:

The next day we saw caribou and I managed to get these pics despite not knowing how to properly use my new camera yet:

We eventually reloaded the kiln and tried another firing:

We had to wait through another spectacular sunset before we could unload the kiln in the morning:

I haven't gotten satisfactory images of the pottery yet - that will be the next post.

Home Again

2011-07-12T13:20:00.001-07:00

I'm home again after nearly a week on the Grey Islands. I was alone the whole time, and though the weather wasn't too bad I took the easy way out and stayed in Paul's cabin every night. I got some pics of the ride out, some pics of caribou, and a few pics of the kiln before my camera completely died. I spent three full days collecting wood, rebuilding the kiln into a functional form, and firing, and didn't get a single picture of the whole process. What's more is that I never got back to unload the pots from the firing, so I don't even have a piece of pottery to show for all this! I was firing the kiln from 10am to about 10pm on Saturday night, and Paul showed up so early Sunday morning that I was still in bed. I never even made it back up to the kiln to see my results!! I suppose that's just an excuse to go out again later this summer to see what happened. Anyways, here are the pictures that I did get, hope you enjoy.

Paul getting ready to leave Conche.

The kiln just as I found it.

The only real thing that had happened over the past two years is the bagwalls falling over.

The stacking of the bricks also became quite loose, though nothing else fell in. I suppose this is due to the heaving of the ground during the freeze/thaw cycle.

Here's a close up on the loosening of the bricks on the lid of the firebox.

And here are some caribou. There were lots of them around, but I didn't try to get too close, and they were pretty happy about that.

The Pots Are Glazed And Ready To Go!

2011-06-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of the pots I'm bringing to the Grey Islands with me. If everything goes as planned I should be out there on Tuesday morning, and back by Sunday morning. Although I gotta say, I wouldn't mind getting stranded by the weather for a few days.

Going Back

2011-06-19T17:50:00.000-07:00

In just over a week I will finally be returning to the Grey Islands. I've booked my time off work, I've booked my travel plans, and I've started packing my bags. I'm excited!

It's been nearly two years since I was there last. Too long, yes, but a trip last summer just couldn't happen. Well now I will have six days there, probably mostly by myself, to do with as I wish. So what should I do?

Well, for one, I plan to make some pottery. I'm going to rebuild the kiln into a more functional form and put some pots in there and fire them. I don't know if this is going to work - heck I'm not even sure the bricks have made it through two winters in any sort of decent shape. They may be destroyed from the freeze/thaw cycle, or if the little stream they are situated next to has shifted course then they may have toppled into the water. But I will bring some bisque fired pots and put them in there and do my best to make a big bloody fire.

If that doesn't take up all my time then I also plan to have a look around for clay deposits. For the last month or two I've been using a lovely clay that I dug here in the vicinity of Corner Brook so I've become interested in using the materials I can find at hand. Imagine - if I find a nice clay on the Grey Islands then...well, I don't exactly know what I'd do with it, but it's something to think about anyways.

So in the next couple weeks you can expect there will be a few more posts on the blog with pictures and tales from the Grey Islands. Stay tuned!

Utensils

2010-12-22T15:05:00.001-08:00

Now that I have the run of a fully equipped sculpture department I can't help but do a few things that tend to interest me from time to time. Like these wooden utensils I've been making:

The First Game

2010-11-16T12:38:00.000-08:00

Pics from the opening reception of Mixer:

Game On!

2010-11-09T17:29:00.000-08:00

I've just about got my Settlers of Grey Islands game finished. All that is left to do is to print some more cards and cut them out. Below are some pics of the game as it is now, and an invitation to Mixer, a faculty/staff exhibition at Grenfell College where I will be showing the game. And - it's interactive! That's right, if you are in Corner Brook and want to play a game while it's in the gallery just pop down and it can be arranged!

October in Red Deer

2010-10-19T16:01:00.001-07:00

A couple weeks ago I was in Red Deer, Alberta, to present at the 1000 Miles Apart Ceramics Conference, an annual get together of students and faculty from the four prairie art schools that have ceramics programs - ACAD, University of Regina, University of Manitoba, and Red Deer College. I did a two-day studio demonstration where I built one of my self-firing pieces. It's been four years since I made one of those things and I had forgotten how nerve wracking it can be (I won't go into detail right now about the time I caught a gallery's carpet on fire). I also did a lecture while I was there - it was a really good time. Here are some pictures of the conference:

The main ceramics studio:

Julia Galloway (who also demonstrated) and Leon Popic:

Some of Julia's pots:

Robert Harrison (also a demonstrator) and Teri Frame (who did a performance):

Me standing next to the new arch that Robert built:

The pizza oven (staffed by Paul Leathers and Trudy Golley):

And the pizza party:

October in Corner Brook

2010-10-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

My Grey Islands travel plans this year have been a complete bust. I couldn't go as planned in August because of a family emergency. Then my Labour Day weekend plans were rained out by Hurricane Earl. And now I've got a job, which, as we all know, is the total end of freedom for me for the time being. My next chance will be Xmas if the weather is decent, which it probably won't be, although Paul has mentioned that he has gone out in December before. I don't think that's too realistic for me though - my mother might lose her mind if I went to the Grey Islands for Xmas.

I should mention that work is going quite well. I've been enjoying myself and putting a lot of work into the clay and ceramic areas at the school. We have a new kiln arriving next week and when that gets here I'll be totally rearranging the clay room.

On my off time I've been working hard on the Settlers of Grey Islands which is finally nearing completion. I'm planning on showing it as part of a faculty/staff exhibition at the college here in November. I've got some volunteers lined up who are actually going to play the game in the gallery during the opening reception on November 13th. I think I will also have a game myself once a week in the gallery while the show is up, and I'll have an open invitation out there for anyone who wants to join me. Some pictures of my progress will be forthcoming shortly - just got to install the new kiln so I can actually fire the hex tiles.

Earl

2010-08-31T10:46:00.000-07:00

My weekend jaunt to the Grey Islands seems to be in considerable jeopardy due to Hurricane Earl. The latest track forecasts have the the storm passing either to the east, the west, or directly over, the Grey Islands on Saturday evening or Sunday morning. Not exactly a good time to go camping or be out in boat.

So, I would say, in all likelihood the trip will be cancelled. I will have to amuse myself by looking at these amazing pics of Earl from outer space, rather than by making something of the last weekend of summer.

John Neville

2010-08-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

I just got an email from John Neville. He went out to the Grey Islands a couple weeks ago, and he and Paul Bromley went up over the island to find my kiln. They came back with this picture.

Which brings me to my plans. I've made arrangements to go to the Grey Islands for two nights on Labour Day weekend. If the weather cooperates it should be a great trip. I haven't decided yet whether I'd like to spend my time out there just hiking around and having fun - I will have a couple friends with me - or if i'd like to spend the time rebuilding the kiln into a functioning wood kiln and do an actual firing. I've got a handful of pots in the works just in case.

Settlers of Grey Islands - Update

2010-08-05T16:11:00.001-07:00

Work continues on Settlers of Grey Islands, although it will probably be at a snails pace for the next couple weeks while I'm in the process of moving to Corner Brook. Here, though, is a picture of some completed tiles and playing pieces.

My friend John Neville is heading to the islands next week for a few days. I'd dearly love to join him, but I don't think I'll be able to do it right now. Perhaps I will make a plan to go on Thanksgiving weekend. At least living in Corner Brook I will be that much closer.

Settlers of Grey Islands

2010-06-30T03:32:00.001-07:00

All spring I've been working on this little project called Settlers of Grey Islands. It started off as just a spare time fun activity, but has snowballed into being something more serious. It is a customized version of the popular board game Settlers of Catan, but based on the Grey Islands. I'm still working on it, and it should only take a couple weeks to finish up if I can get a solid block of time to finish it. Here are some progress photos:

The game tiles will be made from relief-carved coloured porcelain, while the cards use photos from the Grey Islands.
If you are familiar with Settlers of Catan, here is how the two games compare:

Robber = Polar Bear
Soldiers/Knights = Foxes
Roads/Settlements/Cities = Trails/Tents/Cabins

Meadows/Sheep = Heath/Caribou
Mountain/Stone = Mountain/Stone
Forest/Wood = Forest/Wood
Grassland/Wheat = Bog/Berries
Hills/Clay = Beach/Sand

If you are unfamiliar with Settlers of Catan you must go out and play it right now! It is really the most fun game.

New Post

2010-04-06T05:35:00.000-07:00

It's been many months since I wrote a new post to this blog. I never had the intention of stopping when I did, it just sort of happened. I suppose life is like that.

I always wanted to post some pictures of my cone packs. A cone pack is a small device that is used to measure the temperature (or, more accurately, the heat work) inside of a kiln. Normally one distributes several cone packs throughout the kiln so that a comprehensive record of temperatures inside the kiln is made. Any typical firing can have internal temperature variations on the scale of tens of degrees depending on where the temperature is measured. For instance, it is common for the top of a kiln to be at a higher temperature than the bottom of a kiln simply because heat rises. Furthermore, careful observation of the cone packs during the firing can be helpful to create the most homogenous temperature possible. Minor adjustments can be made to either heat up a cool spot, or cool down a hot spot within the kiln.

Since the entire island was inside my kiln I thought it was important to distribute my cone packs far and wide across the terrain. I placed cone packs at Northwest Point (the westernmost point on the island), Keefe's Point (the southernmost point on the island), Bussey's Ridge (the highest altitude on the island), an unnamed point on the east of the island, and near the kiln itself. Here are the photos of the cone packs where I placed them:

Firing

2009-11-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

Below are some images of the firing. I actually did two firings, due to the fact that my 35mm camera broke at the beginning of the first firing. I fixed the camera and refired the kiln the following evening. The firings happened on September 11 and 12 and each lasted about 8 hours.

How To Build An Inside-out Kiln - Part 2

2009-11-20T06:16:00.000-08:00

Sure, it's easy enough to pile a bunch of bricks on top of each other and say that they're an inside out kiln. But what actually makes it inside out?

I had a lot of time to think about how I was going to build this kiln as I hauled all 500 bricks from Paul's wharf to the kiln site 3km over land. In the end I decided to go with a double-bourry box kiln. It is the kind that I used during my NSCAD days and the kind that I am most familiar with. You can see an archetypal double-bourry box kiln here.

It is a very straightforward design. There is a large ware chamber in the middle with one firebox on each side. The fireboxes have two sections - a combustion chamber on top where fuel (wood) is burned, and an ash pit below that doubles as a flame channel. This is a very simple diagram of a double bourry-box kiln:

Note the lovely pot in the ware chamber, the fires in the combustion chambers and the ashes in the ash pits. To turn this kiln inside out I decided to dissect the design down the middle so that essentially I would end up with two halves. Then I transposed the two halves so that the fireboxes were overlapping:

The final step was to discard the unnecessary or physically unstable parts, most notably the arch/roof:

In this configuration the ware chamber is relocated to an undefined region to the left and right of the (now single) firebox. In principle I could say that virtually anything is within this new ware chamber - even the whole island. Compare the diagram to how the kiln actually looked when it was finished:

Artist Talks - St. John's and Halifax

2009-11-05T14:14:00.000-08:00

I will be talking about The Grey Islands twice next week - first at Eastern Edge Gallery in St. John's on Monday at 7pm, then Tuesday at NSCAD in Halifax. Please come out to see lots of pictures and hear lots of stories that haven't yet made it into the blog.

How To Live On A Desert Island

2009-11-05T14:11:00.001-08:00

The most recent copy of The Scope includes a DIY column written this week by yours truly, all about how to live on a deserted island. Check it out here.

Finally, a product

2009-10-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, I will finally be exhibiting an actual work dealing with my Grey Islands experience. It is a short looping video (19 seconds) titled Iceberg Paintings. At some point last winter I got it into my head that I was going to paint icebergs. Not on a canvas or anything like that, but actually go out in a boat and put paint on an iceberg. When I considered how ridiculously unsafe it would be to try to do that with a brush I had the brilliant idea that I would use a paintball gun. By the time I got to the Grey Islands, it seemed more than poetic enough - and a little less simplistic - to just have at an iceberg with my 12 gauge. Here's a still from the video:

The video will be exhibited at Eastern Edge Gallery in the soon to be opening Annual Members Exhibit.

Designs

2009-10-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

I've been searching the net to find good images of a double bourry box kiln so that I can explain the design of my inside out kiln. So far, I've only found this really great example of a single bourry box kiln, but I will keep looking.

How To Build an Inside-out Kiln - Part 1

2009-10-17T07:43:00.000-07:00

I am often asked, "How do you build an inside out kiln?" Well, here is how the bricks go together:

Archaeology

2009-10-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

One day while strolling on the beach in French Cove I came across this peculiar looking stone:

It is semicircular, the size of a quarter, made of an amber translucent material, and has a very deliberate looking worked quality. The two large faces (the top and the bottom) are nearly perfectly parallel and the edges are chipped all the way around to one of two distinct angles. I picked it up wondering what it was and wanting to find out more about what human had made it.

It didn't take much work to figure it out. I asked Tim Rast, a local craftsperson, archaeologist and flintknapper what he made of it and he got back to me in no time flat.

According to Tim:

"Its definitely a French gun flint. A very nice one. Here's a link with photos of a few more modern reproductions of French and English gunflints.

"When gun spalls are made the original flake is trimmed to a standard size and shape by taking off lots of little chips around the edge. Thats the shaping that you noticed on your flint. There are also small chips removed when the flint is used in the musket. There will be a relatively flat unworked surface in the middle and lots of little flakes around the edge creating the square or half-moon shape. The underside will be almost completely flat.

"Muskets that used gunflints started to replace matchlock muskets in the 1600s and they started to be replaced by percussion cap firearms in the 1800s. I have a reference that says that large scale gunflint manufacture started to decline in France in the 1820s, although at least one family was still shipping gunflints to Chile in the 1920s. Your flint could date to pretty much anytime during that period (17th-19th century), which also coincides with the time of the French Shore."

Cool! Thanks Tim!

Recreation

2009-10-09T00:00:00.003-07:00

Last week I went fishing with my father during the annual cod fishery. Some people call it the recreational fishery, but I don't end up with this much food when I go to play ultimate. This was the first time I've gone cod fishing in decades, and I had forgotten what a miracle the ocean is. Or used to be before we fished all the fish.

On the Grey Islands I spent most of my time up on the hills or in the woods, and it was easy for me to forget that the reason people lived there in the first place was to work on the ocean.

What am I actually doing?

2009-10-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

The question I've gotten most in the past two weeks is "What are you doing now?", so I thought I should take a moment to put it in print here.

Aside from eventually blogging all about everything on the Grey Islands, I've got a lot of other shit going on. I've wrangled back my BikeShare job, and there is a ton of stuff to do before our funding finishes up in December. Tomorrow there is a sustainability fair at the university and I'm doing free bike tune ups for anyone who dares defy the weather by bringing their bike outdoors. We've also got an exciting line up of bike courses for the fall - I'll post them as soon as they are made public.

In the world of art, I've taken on the position of chair at A1C Gallery. This is something that anyone who's done it before knows can easily turn into a full time job (without pay, of course). I've been involved in A1C since the beginning, and now that we are past the initial crises of birth I think this could be a really good time for the gallery and contemporary art in St. John's.

Soon I'll be getting back in the studio and I can hardly wait! I don't want to give too much away yet, but I've got this great idea about caribou antlers, pottery shards and gravestones. And there are other old and new projects: I've determined to finally finish up my little Tim Horton's intervention and I'm working on two separate film and video ideas. And I want to make pottery, too. I'll have to blame Alexis for that.

Oh yeah - and I've got this elaborate plan for a series of exhibitions/lectures next year. There are a bunch of deadlines happening in the next couple weeks that I've got to prepare for. It's a lot of grunt work, but it's got to be done.

To top it all off, I missed a whole summer of ultimate and bicycling so I'm determined to do as much of those things as I can before the snow flies. I've got a beautiful new bike on order from Cychotic which should be here in just a few weeks!

Not to be all full of myself, but I have to post this:

2009-10-05T15:16:00.000-07:00

25 Greatest Works of Art Ever Made in Newfoundland and Labrador

Subjectivity aside, this does seem to be a pretty good cross section of art in Newfoundland over the past 30 years (was there any art in Newfoundland before then?). The reader comments at the bottom are reasonably predictable - ranging from the irate "those artists are a bunch of Canada Council sissies", to the generic "I like some of these selections, but I hate the others", and of course CFP's belligerent counterattacks. Naturally some people are against the arts in general (at least art that is not their own), and naturally some people can't seem to get past a subjective response in their reaction to art. I don't doubt The Grey Islands is one of those selections that one reader feels is "downright laughable".

Another that I'm sure caused more than a few giggles of disbelief would be The Stage. It's exclusive, it's debatable as to whether it is actually art of any sort, and as CFP says, "You don't know about it" which is enough to turn most people off. I've never been there for poker, but I have been part of the St. John's art poker scene occasionally, and have to admit it's quite the interesting and eclectic experience. But aside from that I'd like to defend The Stage from another perspective: it has another art history that even less people know about. Many years ago, a young Neil Conway lived in the stage, where he played country jams, battled the weather, and made pottery on an ancient kickwheel. As I remember, those were quite the times. The story of the stage is deeper and stranger than most people realize, and the unlikelihood of it as a venue for art is enough to make me appreciate that CFP has included it in his list.

We now return...

2009-10-05T15:12:00.000-07:00

OK - so you've been wondering where I am and what happened? I needed a little break. I've spent most of the past two weeks eating, drinking, and catching up on the parts of my life that I've neglected for 3+ months. While I still feel exhausted and somewhat overwhelmed I think I'm at least at the point where I can make a few blog posts about stuff. So here I go!

Yo

2009-09-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

I am slowly making my way back to St. John's. I've been stopped off at my parents house in Clarenville for the past few days but will be heading into town tonight. I feel a bit like the astronauts must feel when they get back from space - overwhelmed but happy.

I had a great summer. There were absolutely no problems, and I am healthy and ready to get back to work. I will have lots of pictures and videos to post on here, and stories to tell eventually, but I don't have my computer back yet and there are many other important things I must do before I can get that done (like find a place to live, etc., etc.).

Anyways, stay tuned to the blog for lots of fun stuff!

Some landscapes

2009-09-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

Me

2009-09-17T10:37:00.000-07:00

And a couple pictures in case you've forgotten what I look like.

A few pics of the kiln

2009-09-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Haven't had a chance to go through all of them yet, but I pulled these out for you to have a look at.

Too tired

2009-09-16T21:50:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the pub. Too tired to make a real blog entry now.

I'm back

2009-09-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

More details coming soon. I have to go to the pub right now.

Finally :)

2009-07-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

I am ready to go. After a series of frustrating delays everything has finally come together. My bricks are in the back of Paul Bromley's boat. We're leaving at 4am tomorrow morning. This will be my last post until I get back later in the summer. Wish me luck and tune into my Spot page to keep track of me.

Bricks II - The Saga Continues...

2009-07-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Yes, they have arrived. But it was not an uneventful arrival. It was, in fact, a bit of a mess.

First thing Monday morning I got on the phone with Bill at Ornamental Concrete. I needed to find out where exactly my bricks were and when they were going to get here. He made a few calls and then got back to me saying they would arrive on Thursday. Then, a few hours later, he called again to say they would be here on Tuesday. At that point it became clear to me that he didn't really know anything. So I got on the phone with Day and Ross myself. It took a couple hours, and many subsequent calls, but I finally found someone who was able to tell me where my bricks were. Corey at customer service insisted that they had arrived in Conche at 5:33pm last Friday. Well, I had been to the fish plant and they definitely weren't there, but Corey came back to me and said someone named T. Reid even signed for them.

I'll admit, sometimes I overlook the obvious, so in acknowledgement of that I went back to the fish plant to have a look. I scoured the place, and they absolutely were not there. Then, rather luckily, I ran into Scott Patey, the plant manager. He told me to call a few businesses in Roddickton and just to ask around about whether they had seen the bricks. Sure enough, first call I made I found them sitting in the loading dock at Roddickton Home Hardware. They had in fact been there since Friday evening, and Tyson Reid, the stock boy, had signed for them despite the fact they were addressed for someone in a different town. Apparently Day and Ross will deliver to Conche, but what they mean by that is they'll drop your gear off at some random place in Roddickton without telling anyone. Nobody contacted me, not Day and Ross, not Ornamental Concrete, not even Home Hardware. And - now this is the unbelievable part - my package was not the only one there! There was also a palette of boxes destined for the Conche summer garden party that had been missing for weeks! Apparently Day and Ross make a habit of serving their customers this way!

Having no other options I hired a local fellow with a pickup to bring my bricks the rest of the way into Conche. It took three trips and $200 to make this happen. And I could've easily gone to the islands on Monday had anyone known where the bricks were, so I lost three days of working in beautiful perfect weather. And I had to stay in Conche for an extra three nights, which cost me another $200.

I've called Day and Ross to try to recoup some of these losses. At the very least they should cover the $200 I spent completing their delivery for them. That was yesterday. Unfortunately today is Canada Day (everyone's on holiday) and tomorrow I'm leaving so I think there is very little possibility that any of this will ever be resolved to my satisfaction. I'll tell you one thing - I'll never trust Day and Ross with a shipment ever again. All in all their incompetence has cost me more than five hundred dollars.

On the upside, the fellows at the fishplant are having a good laugh - they've convinced one of the younger guys he has to carry all five hundred bricks by hand to the other side of the plant:

Capelin

2009-07-01T12:24:00.000-07:00

The cove is swimming in fish right now - the capelin are in, there are tomcods hiding under every boat, and I even just saw three salmon passing along by the end of the wharf.

Kilns and ovens

2009-07-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

It's not unusual to find fire bricks along the beaches of the French Shore. I picked up these two today in Conche. They are the remnants of bread ovens made and used by migrant fishermen in times gone by. Just outside of Conche, in Crouse, there is an archeological dig happening. They are unearthing a French fishing site that was used from the 17th to 19th centuries. On Monday I had a tour of the site with Peter Pope, professor of archeology at MUN. The highlight of the tour for me were the bricks and stones that Peter says made up an oven that was probably used as long ago as the early 19th century. They are still in place where they stood against a wall of rock that functioned as the rear wall for the oven, although the arch and side walls have long since collapsed.

The French started making bread ovens in Newfoundland not long after the revolution in their homeland. One theory has it that the process of democratization instigated a desire for a few basic human rights - access to fresh food, for instance. Peter tells me there were no English bread ovens in Newfoundland contemporaneously to these early French ones, which I think is no surprise since the descendents of English settlers in Newfoundland still have no appreciation for fresh local foods.

I was lucky to discover that I am not the first to build an oven in this area, and that there is a tradition - albeit a lost tradition since the French were banished from their fishing grounds - of oven construction here. I'm going to take these two bricks to the Grey Islands with me and incorporate them into my kiln. They are beautiful and ancient, perhaps 200 years old, perhaps brought across the Atlantic from France, rounded and smoothed by the ocean, and still bearing a smoky colouring from countless uses. I realize it may be an archeological transgression to take these from the place where I found them, but it would equally be an artistic transgression to not acknowledge the precedents of local history and culture in my project.

2009-06-30T02:46:00.000-07:00

The island floating ahead of me like a moon, tugging me forward. Whatever it has in store.

Leonard Quniton saying, 'the voices in those old homes.' And there it was, pulling and me already going its way. An island of voices and ghosts. But ghosts and voices are everywhere. Even along the road. Flashing by. Stop and let them speak.

A way to corner myself is what I want. Some blunt place I can't go beyond. Where excuses stop.

John Steffler - The Grey Islands

Scotch

2009-06-28T15:11:00.001-07:00

If they have ice washing up on the beaches like this on the Grey Islands I'll have to bring along a bottle of scotch.

Some images from Conche

2009-06-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

Iceberg:

Sea arch:

Whale:

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera out when I almost stepped on the giant owl.

Waiting for bricks

2009-06-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

After a 14 hour drive (saw nine moose) I have arrived in Conche. I have to thank Dave and Tracy for getting me here in one piece. The last twenty kilometres over foggy, moose infested dirt road were particularly stressful. But here I am and everything is OK.

Well, almost everything. You see, my bricks still have not arrived here. This is the beginning of a long story, but I might as well get into it since I really don't have a lot else to do. I bought these bricks (500 low grade fire brick) from Ornamental Concrete on Kenmount Road. The price was good and they were exactly what I was looking for - in fact I was amazed that the purchasing process went so smoothly. For the record, I was concerned about the shipping right from the beginning, but Bill at Ornamental Concrete called Day and Ross himself where they quoted the price of $440 for shipping them right to Paul Bromley's door.

So when the bricks arrived in St. John's from Halifax (the fact they'd have to go back 600km in the same direction to get as far as Deer Lake before heading up the Northern Peninsula was an irony not lost on me) I asked Bill to hold onto them for a couple weeks so they wouldn't be taking up space at Paul's house until I got there. They agreed to ship them around the 15th so they'd be here waiting for me when I arrived on the 26th.

Flash forward a few weeks and I, having moved on to more pressing matters, assumed everything had went as smoothly as promised. I called Paul to tell him to expect the bricks two Fridays ago, but as he was out fishing I had trouble getting through to him. Eventually I talked to his sister-in-law who told me the bricks never arrived. Apparently Day and Ross decided they didn't want to ship to Conche. This was after they decided to take my money and tell me they would ship them, and before they decided they would not contact me about changing their shipping plans. Now that is some poor business practice.

So the bricks went back to Kenmount Road where they waited for me to call and make a big stink. I think Bill went to bat for me on this one - he called Day and Ross and got back to me saying they would be shipped on Wednesday past. It's now Saturday, and I expected them to arrive yesterday, but they are not here. So I'm sitting here in Conche, practicing my existentialism and waiting for bricks.

Weather

2009-06-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

It is pouring right now in St. John's - one of those days where you can be thankful you are not in a tent. When it started this morning I was out in Logy Bay on my bike. I got absolutely drenched on the way back in. I've been out in some bad rainstorms and this ranked right up there with them.

I just realized that Environment Canada's radar network extends as far north as the Grey Islands. While this will be totally useless to me, since I won't have the internet, you will be able to check on the weather I'm getting by visting this link:

http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html?id=XME

Spot

2009-06-23T07:01:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to remind you that you can view my Spot page by going to this link.
Each time I send a message via Spot it plots a point on this page and attaches it to a Google map. I'll hopefully be checking every day or two, so you should be able to see my wandering throughout the island.

Address

2009-06-19T09:45:00.000-07:00

If you leave me your physical address (either in an email or via a comment) I will do my best to send you a letter/postcard from the Grey Islands.

10 days left...

2009-06-17T05:44:00.000-07:00

...let's hope this weather holds out:

Still Life With Thanatotic Animals

2009-06-15T14:22:00.001-07:00

Opening this week at A1C Gallery is Still Life With Thanatotic Animals by Lee Henderson. Lee's exhibition is an installation of photographs taken of stuffed animal heads. The heads have been photographed through the viewfinder of a second camera, so that visible in the prints are the details of exposure, aperture, focus and other camera settings.

The opening reception for this show is Wednesday at 8pm. The artist will be in attendance and there will be an artist talk at 8:30.

Ice update

2009-06-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

Ice conditions continue to improve off the east coast of Newfoundland. The latest satellite data shows the furthest south extent of pack ice to be near the southern Labrador coast:

This is good for multiple reasons: it signals that summer is indeed on its way, and as the pack ice heads north, hopefully warmer water from the south will move in to replace it. (This in no way means there won't be icebergs in the area. In fact right now the Northern Peninsula is celebrating the Iceberg Festival)

Second, I believe there will be minimal likelihood of polar bear encounter. I was talking with a conservation officer in Roddickton last week, who assured me it's been a month since anyone's seen a polar bear anywhere near the area. The last one near there was relocated to Belle Isle, not to be confused with Bell Island where I was camping last week, or with Bell Island on which I'm going to be living this summer. The original French inhabitants of Newfoundland should've really tried to be a little more creative with their place names.

Woohoo!

2009-06-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

I've got my ride. Dave Gooseney, who I play ultimate with, is driving me all the way to Conche. He and his girlfriend seem happy to just take the weekend and go for a ride. Dave, like me, has never been up that far before. It should be a fun road trip.

I'm almost packed as well. There are a few final things I need to pick up, mostly some pots, pans and kitchen stuff, but also some tarps and art supplies. Now that I've started to put things into boxes it seems I will have less gear than I thought. That's a relief - minimalist that I am the less stuff the better. And the more stuff I have the more likely something is to go wrong anyways.

And food - well, I'm still working on that. I have a lot of grocery shopping left to do. And dehydrating. And calorie counting. But these are all things I feel are best accomplished during the week before I leave.

Two weeks from today will be my third on the island.

Still looking for a ride

2009-06-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

I'm still looking for a ride to Conche at the end of the month. I really, really don't want to have to coordinate a bus/shuttle/whatever trip with all my gear. I'd much rather just hire someone from St. John's to drive me up there.

So I am making you (yes, you!) an offer. In exchange for driving me to Conche I will pay for your gas there and back, and for a night of accommodations in Conche. You can also come with me for a day trip (or longer) to the Grey Islands. This would be a great way to start your summer vacation, and a great way to explore the Northern Peninsula and Gros Morne, not to mention a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the Grey Islands.

I am planning on leaving around the end of June. The drive to Conche is a full day trip each way. I will have a fair amount of gear with me, but I think it could all fit into a small car, especially if there are only two or three of us.

If you're interested please let me know quickly as I need to get this sorted out asap. And if you can think of someone who might be able to take a few days off and would enjoy the adventure please send along this message to them.

Camping

2009-06-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

I went camping last night on Bell Island, partly as a test for some of the new gear I've gotten in the past few weeks, and partly as a follow-up to a bicycle touring workshop I conducted last Saturday. I brought along my Spot satellite tracker to see how effectively it could trace my path. You can look at this page to see where we went on Google Maps.

I am so impressed with this "Spotcasting" feature. All you have to do is press the button and make sure Spot has a clear view of the sky. I had it strapped to the top of the stack on the back of my bike while I was riding.

I think I will try to make extensive use of this feature while I am on the Grey Islands. That way I can create a record of everywhere I go, and also ensure that people at home know where I am and that I'm doing well.

And now a few pictures from Bell Island:

A sea stack at sunset:

The new tent:

Wild strawberries:

Bird colony on a sea stack:

WAM!

2009-06-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

I was on WAM (Weekend Arts Magazine) this morning. If you would like to hear the interview you can download a podcast from the CBC website here. I was lucky to hear the interview myself - I was camping last night on Bell Island (not the Bell Island of the Grey Islands where I will be living later this summer, but the Bell Island in Conception Bay) and woke up just in time to turn on my wind-up radio and listen to myself.

Images from the islands

2009-06-04T15:28:00.001-07:00

These are a few images I took from a Land and Sea episode about an eider duck project out on the islands. The location in these photographs is very near where I will be dropped off.

Farmer Mike?

2009-06-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

Figuring as how I'm going to be on the islands for 60-90 days I've picked up some seeds on the miniscule chance the Grey Islands have anywhere near the appropriate combination of sunlight, water and soil to permit agriculture. This is what I've got and how many days it will supposedly take to mature:

Cress: 35
Cabbage: 55
Arugula: 35
Mesclun: 40
Spinach: 50
Mustard: 40

As I know next to nothing (perhaps less than nothing) about gardening this is all a ridiculous experiment. Anyone have any thoughts?

Ride?

2009-06-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

Anyone wanna give me a ride to Conche? I still haven't decided how I'm getting there, but I'd be really happy to pay someone with a car to bring me there. All expenses paid road trip anyone?

Bike Workshops

2009-05-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

Just a little self-promotion - BikeShare, which is where I spend a good portion of my time, is hosting some bike workshops over the next few months. I will be teaching some of these, including the touring workshop and the one-day maintenance course. Have a look at this:

Sprained Ankle

2009-05-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

During a game of ultimate on Saturday I rolled my ankle badly and ended up with a classic lateral sprain. It was very painful and I ended up very much immobilized. But four days and half a dozen ibuprofen later the swelling is mostly gone and I have recovered a lot of the movement. Fortunately I made a glorious catch in the endzone on the play, so at least it wasn't for nothing.

This is a bit of a bummer though. I've got an incredible history of health - I've never broken, fractured, sprained or strained anything ever before. In fact, this is probably the worst sports related injury I've ever had in my life, which, when you consider how much ultimate, sepak takraw, street hockey, tennis and bicycling I've done in my life, is pretty remarkable. I like to tell people that I'm neither heavy enough nor strong enough to injure myself. But I suppose I will have to take it easy in the weeks leading up to my departure in order not to aggravate my ankle. I might miss the beginning of the ultimate season, and I probably shouldn't do too much hiking/biking in the next little while. I'll take the optimistic approach with this one though, and claim it as an important and timely lesson - I'm not invincible, just lucky.

Success!

2009-05-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

One major hurdle has been hurdled - my bricks are sitting on a palette on Kenmount Road waiting to be shipped to Conche. It will take 3 to 4 business days for them to get there and will cost less than $500. That's a pretty sweet deal.

Ice Update

2009-05-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

It's the end of May and I thought I should post an update on the current ice conditions. We've made some great improvements compared to six weeks ago but there is still significant ice off Newfoundland's northeast coast:

When I called Paul Bromley about 10 days ago I just happened to catch him returning from his first trip of the year over to the islands. Apparently his cabin and wharf made it through the winter without any damage, there is still snow on the islands, and there was no sign of polar bears although he did see several caribou.

There's nothing quite as romantic as the first snowfall of the summer...

2009-05-26T05:08:00.000-07:00

An unusually warm and pleasant spring left me itching to get into the outdoors and reconsidering my decision to wait until the end of June before I head to the Grey Islands. Right on cue an end-of-May snowfall has blown in to remind me that this is Newfoundland, and that I won't be going anywhere any time soon:

Even Kennyloggins, my roommates cat, is in a state of irritated disbelief:

On the upside, I had a great day of receiving packages yesterday. My firearms Possession and Acquisition License finally arrived, along with a few boxes of books I sent myself from Regina. More importantly though, my package from MEC arrived. This included a Thermos, a new tent and groundsheet, a wind-up radio, flashlights, a sleeping bag liner, and my solar panel battery charger. Which brings me to a point: maybe I shouldn't complain about the weather too much - the snow arrived just in time to test my solar panel (which is currently trickle charging a pair of AA batteries despite the lack of any actual solar activity today) in potential Grey Islands-like conditions.

Addresses

2009-05-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

Remember this post? Well it turns out this probably wouldn't be such a bad idea. I am trying to figure out exactly how to ship my bricks from St. John's to Conche and it is proving to be a little tougher than I anticipated. Paul Bromley, the fisherman who is bringing me to the islands, said he'd receive the bricks for me, but when I asked him what his address was he said "Address? Just tell them to ship it Paul Bromley in Conche. Everyone here knows me anyways." I'm highly doubtful Day and Ross Shipping will be able to give me a price for Paul Bromley, Conche.

Eventually I got his mailing address out of him (a P.O. Box), but the concept of a street address seemed beyond him. I thought for a moment that Conche might not even have streets or addresses to go along with them, but then I looked it up on Google Earth and there is, apparently, more than one road in the town.

So next I called the French Shore Historical Society (where I had introduced myself a few months ago) and asked them what the deal was with shipping in the area. On the other end of the phone Joan told me that no one really knows their street address in Conche. She was, however, able to tell me that Paul lives on Stage Cove Road, and in her head she counted off seven other houses that lined the road before his. "So he must be 8 Stage Cove Road" she said. Whether this information is accurate remains to be seen, but whoever lives at 8 Stage Cove Road is about to receive 3000 pounds of firebrick.

Update

2009-05-21T20:25:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post, but I'm not that sure I have anything exciting to report. Preparations continue at a reasonable pace: this week I'm learning to use my new GPS unit and making great headway with my food planning. New tent is on order from MEC and I just picked up a book about foraging for seaweed. My firearm Possession and Acquisition License should be coming in the mail someday soon. And I got (but haven't yet set up) my Spot device.

There are still a few logistical things that are worrisome to me. I still haven't finalized the details of shipping my bricks to Conche, although Paul Bromley says he will have no problem receiving them for me and getting them out to the islands. and I haven't yet figured out how I'm getting myself to Conche, but my roommate's friend Jordan tells me he might have to drive to Roddickton in June for work. That'd be more than ideal, but I haven't actually talked to him about it yet cause he doesn't seem to answer his phone.

Urban Wildlife

2009-04-29T18:20:00.000-07:00

Fort Amherst is one of my favourite places in St. John's. I try to go over there at least once a week while the weather is nice. It's a decrepit crumbling mess, but I love it. Every now and then something amazing happens while I'm there. Last summer I saw a seal playing in the water. And last fall I saw a weasel there - it came right next to me, literally centimetres from my feet, and glared up at me.

I'm not sure why I decided to go to Signal Hill tonight instead of Fort Amherst as I had planned. I wanted to test my bear bangers and when I left the house I just went east instead of west. But I had a nice walk out along the cliffs and found a quiet spot to make a racket. I shot off one banger. It did what it was supposed to do - it shot straight up in the air and made a big noise. It was a calm night so the echo of the shot rumbled along the cliffs like thunder. The banger actually put off quite the show, so I thought better of setting off a flare so close to the city, and I packed up my gear and turned to walk home. Then, out of nowhere, a fox lunged out of the bushes and ran towards me!

Coming at me through the darkness it scared the daylights out of me first, but when I yelled it stopped in its tracks. It was just curious, and so was I. We played a sort of game of hide and seek for the next 20 minutes, and it came within 3 metres several times. It followed me most of the way back towards my bike, and probably would've kept following me if I hadn't deliberately scared it away before I got back to The Battery.

This is an interesting situation. Not only did the banger fail to scare away this (harmless) predator, but I think the noise actually attracted it. How's it going to work on a polar bear?

Brick Shipping Problem Solved?

2009-04-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

Maybe I can use this technique to build my kiln:

Progress

2009-04-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

A few things of note this week:

I went and had another visit with Renee and Duncan Finlayson, my sailor friends. I borrowed their food dehydrator and have my first load of apples, onions and garlic drying right now. I guess the apples will end up tasting like garlic, but this is just a test batch to see how the whole system works.

Also, I picked up my bear bangers and flares from The Outfitters today. Later this evening I'm going to run over to Fort Amherst to shoot a few off. I need to know how to use these things before I need to use them. Funny story - the guy who sold them to me said "You should buy as many of these as you can afford, because you're going to be bored out of your fucking mind out there alone for three months."

There are a few things that I've been avoiding getting into that I'm going to have to deal with this week. My transportation to and from Conche, and shipping my bricks and other gear to the islands. These necessary logistics are not the fun part.

Blogs

2009-04-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

Here are some fun blogs (art and otherwise) I try to keep on top of:

General St. John's going's on's:
http://signalblog.ca/

Extreme Craft:
http://extremecraft.typepad.com/

Not really a blog, but an online journal thingy:
http://www.shotgun-review.ca/

News from the world of ceramics:
http://musingaboutmud.blogspot.com/

What the fuck is Dude Craft?
http://www.dudecraft.com/

Bicycle art project:
http://cowride2009.blogspot.com/

Fellow adventurers:
http://tierraymarnl.com/

Headquarters

2009-04-22T06:15:00.001-07:00

This is where it all happens:

My studio/office/bikeshop.

Communication

2009-04-21T04:16:00.000-07:00

I think I've solved one of my most worrying problems. I've basically had three options in mind for communication while I'm on the islands, none of which was satisfying to me. I've heard there is sporadic cell phone reception from the higher elevations on the island, but it is unreliable and won't necessarily work in case of emergency. Do I really want to have to climb to the highest peak on the island if I've tripped and broken my ankle?

A satellite phone would work well, probably from anywhere on the island, but it is very expensive. $300 per month to rent a unit, plus $4 a minute for air time. I could easily end up spending fifteen hundred dollars if I go this route. That would severely restrict the other gear I want to bring with me.

I've also heard that a two way radio can communicate with nearby communities, but radios are a very complicated affair. There are portables and there are ground units. There are frequencies and wattages. There are battery cases, lithium ion cells, and AC power sources. An inexpensive unit costs over $300, and even at that price no one who'll sell me one will even speculate on what type of range I'll get out of it.

I was feeling a little desperate until I discovered Spot. It is a very simple GPS satellite linked one-way communication device. It has three buttons, "OK", "Help", and "Emergency". It can send these messages to any preselected phone number or to a website, and is made specifically for people like me who are working/playing alone and out of regular communication range. So I can set up a schedule with someone in civilization who can receive these messages and react accordingly. As a bonus, Spot also records your coordinates every fifteen minutes, so when you get home you can see everywhere you've traveled in Google Maps. Pretty nifty.

So I think that between my cell phone and Spot I will have met all my communication needs. Now I just need a volunteer who be willing to receive my distress call should I ever have to make one. Any takers?

Icy!

2009-04-16T18:45:00.001-07:00

It is freezing out in St. John's tonight. -8C, to be exact, which is a far cry from the +15C we experienced a few days last week. I can't take much more winter, I think. I had to bundle myself so heavily today I could barely move. The North Atlantic Ocean is a very, very cold place right now. Look at this ice map from Environment Canada:

Reading List

2009-04-16T08:09:00.001-07:00

Several people have asked what I'll be reading while I'm on the islands. I'm not really a big reader, but there're a few things that I find indispensable. This is what I'll be bringing with me:

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - probably all five books, but definitely Life, The Universe, and Everything, because this is the one where Arthur Dent is stranded by himself on prehistoric Earth for five years. Very appropriate.

Cellini's Life - John Bear gave me this a few years ago and I've taken it with me on many camping trips.

Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics - My copy of this book bicycled across North America with me in 2007. It is worn, stained, wrinkled, and torn. It is like an art piece in itself. Eventually, after it's been through a few more adventures, I think I will send it to Bourriaud.

Christian Bok's Eunoia.

Native Cookery and Edible Wild Plants of Newfoundland and Labrador - Hoping to use some of the local resources to sustain myself. This was published by the government of Newfoundland in the 70's.

Edible Fruits and Herbs of Newfoundland - Published by Memorial University in 1975.

and, of course, The Grey Islands by John Steffler.

Ugh!

2009-04-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

First polar bear report on the island of Newfoundland this season:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2009/04/15/polar-bear-415.html

42

2009-04-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

My friend Lee just pointed out that The Grey Islands has an uncanny resemblance to a Douglas Adams story. It becomes a little more canny when I reveal that I was inspired to do this project partly by the story of Wonko the Sane in So Long and Thanks For All The Fish.

Wonko, you see, had given up on the world and decided to build an insane asylum in which to keep it. The final straw, the thing that drove Wonko to construct the asylum, was a set of instructions printed on the side of a package of toothpicks: "Hold stick near centre of its length. Moisten pointed end in mouth. Insert in tooth space, blunt end next to gum. Use gentle in-out motion."

"It seemed to me," said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost it's head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane."

So Wonko the Sane simply turned his California beach house into an asylum.

"It was like this:
"It was inside out.
"Actually inside out, to the extent that (Arthur and Fenchurch) had to park on the carpet.
"All along what one would normally call the outer wall, which was decorated in a tasteful interior-designed pink, were bookshelves, a couple of those odd three-legged tables with semi-circular tops which stand in such a way as to suggest that someone just dropped the wall straight through them, and pictures which were clearly designed to soothe.
"Where it got really odd was the roof.
"It folded back on itself like something M.C. Escher, had he been given to hard nights on the town, which it is no part of this narrative's purpose to suggest was the case, though it is sometimes hard, looking at his pictures, particularly the one with all the awkward steps, not to wonder, might have dreamed up after have been on one, for the little chandeliers which should have been hanging inside were outside pointing up.
"Confusing.
"The sign above the front door read 'Come Outside,' and so, nervously, they had.
"Inside, of course, was where the Outside was. Rough brickwork, nicely done pointing, gutters in good repair, a garden path, a couple of small trees, some rooms leading off.
"And the inner walls stretched down, folded curiously, and opened at the end, as if, by an optical illusion which would have had M.C. Escher frowning and wondering how it was done, to enclose the Pacific Ocean itself."

Wonko never left the outside where he could sit next to the ocean all day long, while the rest of the world went busily about its affairs safely contained within his thoughtfully constructed asylum.

At this point I feel the need to point out that I read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy obsessively. It's not that I once read through the five books of the inaccurately named trilogy a few times. Since my cousin Sinead gave me the box set during my visit to Ireland six years ago I've probably read each book twenty times. The only reason I haven't been reading them obsessively in the past two years is that when I left Regina I put the books in storage. Last week I picked up a copy of So Long and Thanks For All The Fish from Afterwords, and I've read it twice already, much to the detriment of my plan to reread Nicholas Bourriaud's Relational Aesthetics. Over the past two years my obsessiveness has been otherwise directed - if you have any idea how much I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer these days, then you know how much I used to read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

You see, I believe that Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy explains a whole lot about everything, particularly, and this may be on account of my interest in art practice and theory, postmodernism. For example, the antagonist, Arthur Dent, is thrust into an existential quandary when Earth and everything on it except him and the pyjamas he is wearing is destroyed by the Vogon construction fleet to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Following years of aimless wandering through the galaxy Arthur somehow finds Earth - brought back from oblivion by superintelligent dolphins - only to leave it again, this time willfully, to follow a woman. Doesn't he learn anything?

And the story of Wonko underlines the principle that there is no privileged frame of reference from which one part of the universe can objectively observe another part of the universe. What is insane to one is sane to another, and what is inside can be outside from a different perspective. The only actual definition of an art object is a relationally determined consensus between individuals. The Grey Islands won't be ceramic art because their soils contain a particular ratio of silica to alumina. The Grey Islands will be ceramic art because I am bringing it into a discussion of what, exactly, ceramic art is.

Cone Packs

2009-04-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

I just realized I will have to make cone packs for this firing. How should I approach this? In a typical firing one places a cone pack on each shelf near a peep hole. This firing will not be typical.

The logical approach would seem to be to leave them at strategic locations all over the island. Perhaps at the geographical extremes of the island - the northern-, southern-, eastern- and western-most points. Probably also one near the kiln site, one at the site of the old settlement of Grey Islands Harbour, and one near my campsite. And perhaps anywhere else I find interesting. This way I will get a good overview of the firing temperature throughout the area.

Which brings me to another point - how exactly does one flip a kiln inside out? I've got a few ideas, but nothing really solid yet. I think it's going to be particularly difficult to control the flame path and the oxidation/reduction cycle. Time to get out the sketchbook and have a go at it.

Gambling With Bears

2009-04-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

"In recent years, many coastal communities, including St. John's (particularly a lucky bingo hall!), have been visited by polar bears."

I found this quote on the Wordplay tourism website. I haven't yet determined the accuracy of this statement, but I will do some research and see what I can dig up.

In the meantime, it has been a lovely spring for looking at the sea ice. It's been onshore many days here in St. John's and around the east coast. Last night while walking home from an A1C meeting an iceberg was perfectly framed in the narrows. I wonder what this means for ice conditions later in June...

Busy Times

2009-03-30T05:59:00.000-07:00

It has been very busy times here in the past couple weeks. In addition to my regular part-time job making pots with Alexis Templeton I've picked up another part-time gig repairing bikes for BikeShare. It's a pretty ideal situation really - I can spend the morning in the bike shop and the evening in the studio.

I also committed myself to working one day a week at A1C. Normally it's a really fun thing to do - just sit in the gallery all day and chat with whoever comes in. But the show we have in there now I find really off-putting, and so do most of our visitors. I would guess the average visit length is in the 20 to 40 second range - people come in then turn around and go straight back out again. It's not offensive or anything, just really, really uncomfortable.

And for the next couple days I will be teaching a workshop at the Craft Council called Ceramics and Social Engagement. We are going to be exploring social practice in relation to ceramics and performing a group artistic intervention.

So in the past little while I've been lax as far as The Grey Islands is concerned. Today I'm going to make an effort to get something done, token as it may be. So I will make a "to do" list:

*Apply for Firearms Purchase and Acquisition License
*Look for bricks
*Talk to Renee and Duncan - shotgun, first aid, dehydrator, tent
*Get an MCP card
*Get a physical exam
*Email Gerry - solar gear
*Irish Museum of Modern Art residency application
*Long Beach residency application
*Eye appointment
*Call Craig Strang
*Blood test
*Talk to pharmacist
*Pick a date to leave!
*Complete my gear list and go shopping!
*Call Paul Bromley
*Make a new budget
*Shipping bricks to Conche?
*Get that Land and Sea eider duck episode
*Ship my gear to Conche
*Go shooting
*Email Nicole
*Investigate provincial firearms regulations
*Get my book back
*Get an SLR
*Figure out GPS
*Extensive solar panel testing
*Keep drying lots of food
*Go food shopping
*Figure out transportation to and from Conche
*Find my fishing gear
Email Bruce
Call Pauline
Get a video camera
Kiln design
Dental appointment

Hmmm...it's a bit overwhelming to look at it all written down like this. But the sooner I start crossing things off the list the better.

Craft Talk

2009-03-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

I just posted this on the A1C blog but it's so good it warrants being posted again.

Visitors

2009-03-12T06:31:00.000-07:00

Many people have asked about visiting me during the summer. It actually shouldn't be too hard to arrange. There is a guy who goes back and forth regularly in his longliner for a reasonable price, and I should have some telephone contact while I'm out there. I suppose the hardest part would be driving all the way up to Conche.

Someone asked whether having visitors would interfere with The Grey Islands. Not at all! In fact I think it would be a very enriching experience. While solitude is an important part of the project I won't turn you away if you want to come for a day or a weekend or even a week. I'm going to be out there for a lot longer than that so seriously, it's not going to take away from the rustic experience of it for me. There are a few people who've already promised to come visit - David, Linda and Isabella are going to visit later in August when the berries are ripe.

So when I get things figured out a little more I will post about how best to visit me on the Grey Islands over the summer. It would be fun. All I ask is that you bring me some fresh fruit and other treats!

Firearms Safety Course

2009-03-12T05:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I finished up the Canadian Firearms Safety Course. This course teaches you to load, unload and handle a gun safely, and successful completion enables you to apply for a firearms Possession and Acquisition License. I will be putting my application in the mail later this week.

Why do I want a gun? Two reasons: first, the small but not insignificant threat of polar bear. I hope to never use it and to never ever see a polar bear in my life, but I want to at least have the option of lethal force. I'm also gonna bring pepper spray and "bear bangers" - little explosive devices you can toss in the direction of a bear to scare it away. Of course all this goes along with regular bear safety rules - keeping a clean camp, proper food storage, and avoiding confrontational situations. There is very little chance of encountering a polar bear when I arrive on the Grey Islands in late June or early July, and the probability of one arriving later in August or September is virtually zero. But preparing for the unlikely will not only leave me in a better situation if it actually does happen, but also puts me in a good psychological state going in.

I've never hunted in my life, but I think that having gun would also be a good idea in the event of a food emergency. Say for instance my food stash gets flooded, or everything gets spoiled somehow, and I need to take care of myself until help arrives. It is nice to know that I could at least shoot and roast a few seagulls if I have to.

People and Preparations

2009-03-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a busy time around these parts. In fact I can't remember when I've had two weeks in a row that have been so productive.

Last week I had a great conversation with Paul Bromley from Roddickton. He has a couple of cabins out on the islands and brings people back and forth in his longliner. He had all kinds of useful information for me, notably that there are no black bears on the island and there is intermittent cell phone reception up on the higher points of land. He can bring me out and back for $200 each way, which seems like a decent deal. He also said there are a couple of busy times out on the island - early in August he rents out his cabins to vacationers, and later in the fall people go out there to hunt caribou.

I was also talking to Paul's sister, Mary Foley, who is one of the teachers at the all grade school in Conche. Mary was very excited to hear that I was going to be in the area - she wants me to do a workshop with the students before I head out to the islands. I am excited by this idea - it will be good to do something fun at the beginning of the summer, and it will be great that everyone in town will know that I'm out there (for the sake of my safety if nothing else).

Best of all, I had a great dinner last week with my old friends Renee and Duncan. Renee and I used to work together at the Craft Council where we left at the same time (in fact, we shared a going away party if I remember correctly). Well they are an adventurous couple, having sailed all over the world, including a trip last year to Greenland and back via northern Labrador. So they've already had to deal with a lot of the issues I am facing - long stretches with little or no contact with anyone else, the inability to resupply at any given time, and polar bears. They've got a bunch of gear they want to lend me - tent, wilderness first aid kit, shotgun, food dehydrator, etc. They are veritable fountains of knowledge, and great people to bounce ideas off.

I guess the point of all this is to demonstrate the importance of other people in my project. I didn't do anything in the past couple weeks to materially prepare for the project - I didn't collect supplies, or design my kiln, for instance - but I feel immensely more prepared mentally and psychologically. Sometimes I despair that I've undertaken a project that is so solitary and individual, but then I realize it isn't so much after all. And that counts for a lot.

Polar Bears

2009-02-22T04:56:00.000-08:00

Honestly, I never even considered this possibility when I first conceived of The Grey Islands. However, when I got my grant results back from the NLAC and it hit me that I was actually going to go through with this I suddenly realized I might run into a polar bear. Suffice it to say, that week I didn't sleep much - thoughts of living alone on an island with a polar bear were, well, terrifying.

It's not unusual for polar bears to make it as far south as Newfoundland while hunting seals on the sea ice. A search of news releases from the Department of Environment and Conservation shows three Polar Bear Advisories on the Northern Peninsula from the past year alone. Most alarmingly, the Sea Duck Joint Venture, which conducts research on eider nesting sites in the Grey Islands, reported that one of its study areas was ravaged by a polar bear in 2007. Fortunately, most of these incidents seem to occur between February and April, and I certainly won't be heading that way that early in the spring. But there is at least anecdotal evidence that shows polar bears have been found in the area as late as June. I have much research left to do.

And preparation. I need to talk with wildlife officers about the likelihood of an encounter. I need to create a strategy to keep myself and my belongings safe while I'm out there. I need an emergency escape plan in case something goes terribly wrong. I've decided to learn to shoot and to bring a gun with me to the islands. And, in the unlikely event that a bear encounter seems imminent when it comes time for me to head out there, I have selected a backup island on the south coast where I know I can safely go.

Curiously enough, this isn't the only bear-induced anxiety sleeplessness to affect one of my art projects. A couple years ago during my Bicycle Rehabilitation Project I had some pretty anxious moments while camping. When you're alone in a tent in the Rockies and are woken up by snorting and stomping coming from the forest in the middle of the night it's not easy to fall back into a peaceful sleep. And another night while camping in a small town in the Canadian Shield a local resident made a point of coming to tell me about the size of the black bear that was in his backyard "just the other day". Bears. Fucking bears.

A Little Off Topic...

2009-02-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

Just now while I was researching transportation to the islands I came across this line on the "about us" page of a website of an outfitter in Roddickton:

"Mayflower Outfitters is located on the Great Northern Peninsula in Moose Management Unit 40."

For years I've wondered why Newfoundland is not broken down into smaller political units - counties, townships or something of the like. I remember first moving to the town of Perth in Lanark County in eastern Ontario and being astonished that I was always nested three layers deep "in" some place, even when I was miles out in the country on my bike with nothing around me. I suppose we have bays, but it's become less and less frequent to refer to places like Harcourt, Trinity Bay, or Westport, White Bay, for instance. Also, a bay is obviously not a functional division of land - which bays would Buchans or Wabush be in?

So my proposal is to institute the Moose Management Unit as the official division of land within the province. Imagine the delight of receiving a letter addressed like this:

Alphonsus Bucket
12 Fishgirdle Row
Harbour Bay
Moose Management Unit 27
Newfoundland and Labrador
Canada

I'm sure the surveying and boundary making is already done so it wouldn't represent that much of a logistical challenge. And certainly most residents already know which MMU they reside in. And yes, it's perversely idiosyncratic, but so is having our own little time zone.

Islomania

2009-02-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

I never knew this existed, but apparently it does:

Islomania on Wikipedia

The Islomaniac

Dinner For Strangers

2009-02-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

Another project interested in the more conceptual aspects of craft practice:

Service: Dinner For Strangers

Stories

2009-02-07T11:05:00.001-08:00

In the past few months I have met no shortage of people who have ancestry from or experience with the Grey Islands. Although the communities have long been resettled there is a definite cultural memory of the place that generally has to do with hardship and isolation.

Take for instance a story I heard at a dinner party a little while ago, about a child who stepped on a nail and died after infection set in. There were no medical services on the island and no transportation to the mainland was available for several days because of bad weather.

These are the kinds of stories people tell me when they hear about my project. They don't necessarily do it to discourage or to scare me, but more to get a feel about my commitment level to the project and how I can justify what I'm doing both artistically and personally. I've always believed that art (and craft especially) relies upon the viewer living vicariously through the artist. If, for example, an urban dwelling professional romanticizes about the back-to-the-land movement but can't figure it out how to make it work for herself she might be happy enough to buy a dinner set from a nearby country potter. And I expect The Grey Islands will be no different - there will be an audience for this piece that projects its (usually third-hand) experience of the place onto my actions there.

Maps and Images

2009-01-27T12:49:00.000-08:00

Here are some maps and images of the islands. On the topographical maps note the extreme ruggedness of the terrain.

The Grey Islands

2009-01-26T17:13:00.001-08:00

The Grey Islands is an interdisciplinary ceramic art project that I will undertake during the summer of 2009 on The Grey Islands, an uninhabited island group off the east coast of Newfoundland’s Great Northern Peninsula. For three months I will live on the islands where I will create and document a site-specific ceramic art piece. The project will be documented with video, photography, drawing and my own oral narrative. Ultimately I will compose an exhibition based on these documents and my time on the islands.

The installation itself will be quite simple. I will build a wood-fired kiln according to a traditional design, only I will invert the design so that in principle the kiln will be inside-out. Therefore, in a conceptual sense, the entire island will be "inside" the kiln - when I fire the kiln I will be firing the island.

My project is inspired by the work of John Steffler, Canada’s poet laureate and author of the poetry book The Grey Islands. In Steffler’s book the protagonist travels to The Grey Islands for an extended period of time to realize his romantic notion of survival. I relate to this character because I see a correspondence between his idea and the romantic yet cliché idea of the rural potter who survives on the margins of contemporary society and economics. As a ceramicist I have been exposed to this “rural potter” concept since the very beginning of my education - it is engrained within the lore of the ceramic genre, and therefore I feel it needs to be investigated. In a sense, my project presents a somewhat tongue-in-cheek analogy: How could the “rural potter” cliché translate onto a postmodern conceptual ceramicist?

Most importantly, this project addresses the topic of interdisciplinarity within the craft genres. Works being produced by contemporary ceramicists are increasingly difficult to understand because they often involve non-traditional materials, modes of dissemination, venues and audiences. As traditional definitions break down it is not uncommon to see artists dealing with ceramic content, issues and themes while (temporarily) abandoning the ceramic material in favour of something more expressively appropriate. My own practice has developed in this way, therefore my recent projects have included such diverse forms as performance, webart, intervention and photography, which, problematic though it may be I vehemently consider to be ceramic art. The ultimate purpose of The Grey Islands is to say that traditional hierarchies of medium and concept need to be reevaluated even within the material-oriented craft genres.

Welcome!

2009-01-26T15:26:00.000-08:00

Thanks for checking out my blog about my upcoming art project The Grey Islands. I'll tell you a little bit more about the project itself shortly, but for the moment I'd just like to tell you why I'm writing the blog.

The Grey Islands is quite possibly the most challenging task I've ever set out to accomplish - artistically, logistically, conceptually and personally. Simply put, I want to record all the thoughts, fears, contingencies, and risks that will go into creating this piece. These will be useful to me in my reckoning of the project itself, and hopefully a little interesting for you to read. I hope this blog will answer questions about the project - not only questions that others may have (which have already been numerous), but also questions I am still asking myself as I prepare.

Please check back regularly and feel free to respond to anything you might see in here.