After a sweaty, muggy commute dragging wheelie suitcase, backpack, handbag and massive sketch-book first to BH photo store (the battery was a dud) and then up to East Harlem to meet the other artists, followed by a 2 hour drive out of New York and into Connecticut, we’ve finally arrived.
This is settler territory- we passed through Essex, Middlesex, New London, and Stratford amongst others on our way to Devil Hopyard’s park, which is roughly where i-park is situated. Its surrounded by lush greenery, towering trees, little wooden paths and a wild variety of bushes, flowers and plants: absolutely beautiful. The house we’re staying in is New England style farmhouse, with the studios more like outhouses. They took us on a little walk around, all of us oohing and aahing at the beauty of the place and getting excited about walking into the woods.
Of course I’m paranoid about ticks, which they seem to accept as just part of life here, assuring me that I’ll definitely get a tick at some point, but that’s its not such a big deal and loads of people have had Limes disease and recovered ok- !!! Anyway I’ve bonded a little with the Korean girl over football, we managed to get the TV working to watch the American pundits savouring their last minute win and their historic progression into to the last 16. We are going to watch the matches together this weekend.
Just returned from a slightly lengthier walk into the woods. Its not dissimilar to England, except everything is bigger somehow- including the bugs, which buzzed around me continuously. Its hard to imagine exactly what I’m going to make here; really all there is a lot of trees, and wildlife, so I have to be careful it doesn’t turn into a nature documentary (especially as I saw a ruby red bird on my walk, as well as a flock of black geese and a couple of rabbits). My walk also revealed the fruits of other artists’ residencies- strange, large-scale environmental sculptures constructed from mostly natural materials like mulch, wood, leaves, and the odd bit of chicken wire. One of the sculptures is made out of inner tubes, and hangs between 2 trees, reminiscent of Geiger-type alien spawn. I doubt I’ll be making anything like this, although I’ll have to work out a way to get the best out of this amazing natural setting and not end up hunched over my laptop all day.
Anyway we are about to have our welcome dinner, now that the remaining 4 artists have also arrived- the chef has made a giant turkey in the Thanksgiving tradition, which smells really good- I’m starving!
