'Everything a man should be'

I capped off my summer in Newfoundland with a quick trip to Brigus. I've been wanting to go there ever since I read this fantastic book by Jennifer Niven - the title refers to Captain Bob Bartlett, a native son of Brigus, and rescuer of the shipwrecked crew of the 1913 Karluk expedition.

His Brigus family home is now a National Historic Site - and a very cozy historic site it is. I can imagine how nice it would have been to come back to it after a couple of years trapped in the Arctic ice.

(I also read this great book by Michael Winter - a fictional historical novel set in Brigus in which Captain Bartlett features as a main character...I got a little bit fixated I guess.)

A corner of The 'Artic' Room.

Frank, the National Historic Pug-in-a-Boat.

In other news, school's back in this week. Some interesting things will come out of this year - many more posts on that in the next little while.

Good As The Weather

I'm back in Montreal now, eating amazingly delicious cheap food and already getting into screaming matches with horrible evil motorists... you take the good with the bad I guess.

Last weekend was the Eastern Edge 24 Hour Art Marathon - you can see some pictures here. One of my comics was included in the Dreamzine publication that was part of that event.

Here are some drawings I made during the Marathon fun-slog - I started drawing imaginary yearbook entries but then got inspired by a book on stationery and surface design that I saw the Urchin Papery tent:

All in all it was a really fun event - I went expecting to do only a 4-hour slot and ended up staying for 13 hours instead. Some friends started at 1 p.m and stayed 'til 9 a.m the next day... the time flies when you're watching friends spinning fire in the parking lot, dancing like a maniac, eating dirty pizza at 2 a.m., and talking with artsy weirdos into the night. Hope to do it again next year.

I painted this banner behind the requisite St. John's belly-dancers - it says 'Dreamworlds' and it has lots of glitter on it.

Unexplainable.

Engaging in some guerilla gold-leafing - my bicycle got gilded.

The hour she is late.

I have a couple more Newfoundland posts still to come - then it's back to the old doodling grindstone. School starts tomorrow and it's gonna get real... stay tuned.

I'm In a Weeding Mood

I'm back from a stay at Eastport Organics, working, weeding and walking the dogs on the beautiful sandy beaches. The food is absolutely fantastic - I've never eaten better food anywhere in Newfoundland (and I would venture to say elsewhere in Canada). If you're going by Terra Nova Park way, it's worth the detour for a bag of organic salad greens, kale, swiss chard, and other good things.

The fruits of chanterelle-hunting at a secret spot near Salvage.

Garlic scape.

Blueberry fields.

My blueberry-picking (and eating) companion Koda.

On my day off I took a trip to St. Brendan's Island (officially known on maps as Cottel Island but no one calls it that). No paved roads, only two tiny convenience stores and a couple of hundred people at the most. I got the feeling a young woman cycling alone here is not a very common sight...

Message in a bottle.

Dock Cove.

To the lighthouse.

I find looking through old yearbooks to be totally fascinating  - here are some drawings from Memorial University Cap'n'Gown 1967 that I found on the shelf at the farm: