it has been harder than i had expected returning to the ritual of these entries. i am enjoying the post card tag that i was playing with people - a stone age version of twitter - with others exchanging letters there was quite a resurgence in the post. it was refreshing to see the traits of the senders in their choices, their care in the whole package.

at the same time, even though i was teaching two digital classes - imagine - i put mine away and picked up the leiquinhas in an effort to be so mobile that i could make snaps whenever and wherever. leiquinhas instead of the usual medium formats simply because they seem oh so trendy right now. i was correct with lesser weight more snaps happened.

i thought that i would start practising here at the end of march, then 15 april precisely a month before the residency started but choosing postcards and answering real letters took precedence.

the delay came also from looking forward to the summer. the residency, the world cup, sound symposium, and reunions on the avalon.

i am still fretting the sale of sullivan’s loop am grateful to the alioths for allowing me to use it all these years am sad to see it sold as it did feel like home, especially in winter. even though in recent years i used it less and less, it seemed that it would always be there whenever, the urge arose, the improvements, wi-fi throughout, the printer, books left by others. evenings after a day of wander were peaceful there overlooking the cove.

last year i have come to realise that i am more bayman than townie. i am preferring places like cox’s cove, lark harbour, the port au port peninsula. while i still like the duke, hava java and the bagels from the georgetown bakery, i also like granite coffee, java jacks and the legion.

corner brook has become big enough.

i'll miss sullivan's loop but it seems i was drifting west anyway.

i also thought that the closer to the departure date the more i would focus and my tendency to hedge my bet with too much equipment would be quelled. this hasn’t quite happened yet. i do know that last summer was a bit much. with the digital, i was spending more time trying to guess what i would run into and thus what camera to take than simply heading out.

the plan for the residency is to replicate bonne bay - the deardorff, a box of film a day, pmk pyro, and platinotype materials. when i thought of this it was to put a stop to the automatic picture taking. it was an acknowledgement of being in a small place for a fortnight - too short a time but still no need to race through.

like bonne bay i want to be able to show what i am doing while i am there. taking into account the sea change that has happened in photography that was hinted at by minnesota flats and her time in gros morne and in homage to her, i thought about a hybrid version - film, scanner and printer. this was also insurance as i didn’t know the accommodations and the possibility of a temporary lab.

have gravitated back to the deardorff and the hobo - that diana camera on steroids - and platinotypes partly because it will give me practical experience for the 10x8 class in the autumn, partly because in slowing down i find that the days are longer and i have more time.

the itinerary...

for a complicated summer
racing up to conche and the residency at casey house - no stopping, no gawking, no snaps, unless i get to cape breton with time to spare. likewise heading up western newfoundland 12 hours from the ferry to conche want to get started.

ferry is booked but worry as it is the atlantic vision - the one that caught fire the day before i was to take it.

may on the great northern, it could still be winter. there is a chance of flurries on thursday with a high 2C.

june back to the mainland - via the joey and clara smallwood - to nyc for a graduation. this time i can stop, ding dong ditch, make snaps. plan on going slowly through sackville, and saint john entering the states at calais. want to find a place where i can stash some equipment.

then back up through calais and the ferry again, to pouch cove - supposedly there is a road from the the burgeo highway that heads through buchans - for the sound symposium and the world cup. leaving when the place is invaded by minor cbc presenters.

finally a slow(er) return trip cape breton and bas st-laurent.

somewhere in this time i hope to travel the bay d’espoir highway.

no wonder they have blagojevich and daley...

feeling nostalgic was trolling you tube for a decent version of cidade maravilhosa when i came across the olympic bids for rio de janeiro and chicago.
rio 2016
chicago 2016

i don’t know which is more pathetic.
chicago thinking that a bunch of people passively standing about talking about what they will do in the future is an excellent piece of marketing.

or that they thought that they would become the 2016 summer olympic bid using it.

what i get from these two entries is chicago makes promises rio does.

the proposal...

Casey House Artist's Retreat
Artist in Residence Programme Conche

I am interested in the idea of sense of place and what forms it. this could be because I constantly wonder what would have been if I had stayed in Baltimore Maryland - Colony of Avalon 2 - where I am the fourth generation of my family to have been born there, rather than passively deciding to go to college in the US Midwest, even though away now for 35 years I still see the move as temporary.

For the past decade, I have been visiting and travelling about Newfoundland seeing how others answer the question. At first it was the community created by people thrown together in St. John’s. This community seemed closest to my psyche, the people I met - be they those from off the Avalon or true Comes From Away - seeing themselves defined as exiles awaiting the call back “home”.

The more I have been travelling the island - I had hoped to make it to Labrador but bad planning on my part had me postpone the trip - the more I have become interested in not those who leave but those who decide to stay.

I don’t want this to sound overly romantic, in fact I don’t want it to sound romantic at all, but it is my opinion that in outport Newfoundland one has to concretely decide to stay. Because of this I find not only a strong sense of community but also more self sufficiency than one finds in populations three and four times the size of these communities.

Where the natural choice of moving away - as, it seems has been the policy of the province since the resettlements of Joey Smallwood through the consolidations of government services to more centralised cities to the boom of the Avalon from oil, financial security would warrant - seems the sound choice, I have been interested in what has people staying.

My interest in sense of place has become more intense with the recent resettlements of Great Harbour Deep, a community near Rose Blanche, and now Grand Bruit, but also equally importantly with people now returning - via ATV’s - to places like Chimney Cove for cabins and summer use. As an aside, this idea of place and community had led me to gravel pit camping until it ended this month.

The idea was complicated by deciding to see how remote the Rock is by driving but driving slowly making it to the eastern most piece of land before the waters that separate the mainland - and Cape Breton - and the island - Gaspésie, Île Miscou, East Point P.E.I. and the Cape Breton Highlands.

During the drive I realised that there were parallel senses of place - anglophone and francophone particularly in Acadie. This questioned my idea of Newfoundland, which seemed to be more tied to the English and Irish - as it seems Conche is - than the French and Basque. While I had seen the tricolor terre-neuvien, it was overwhelmed by the pink white and green, the union jack and the new provincial flag. Tuning the radio, I saw that Radio Canada comes from the mainland.

Acadie seems to cross the maritime provincial borders, where it seems that francophonie in Newfoundland is separate and quite hidden even along the French Shore.

My curiosity had me planning on travelling the Port-au-Port Peninsula, researching the idea of sense of place with the added wonder of a parallel - actually two as I saw signs in Mi’kmaq - community.

I did speak to a person at Port-au-Choix questioning him about francophonie and me mentioned Conche but time was limited.

When I was told about the artist retreat in Conche, I have been trying calmly rationally write to apply. This would be ideal for me. While in my official work, I tend to photograph objects as representations of habitation, give and take – human contact has become an important part of my process, being available, showing what I am doing to those where I am in the hopes that I my visual story telling will generate verbal recollections of the area, which then sends me out with a new understanding.


Being able to stay in a place for a length of time, seeing and allowing to be seen is important in my process as I visually work through my prejudices, to the more subtle. I find this exceptionally hard in Newfoundland - perhaps the reason that I keep returning - as I find layers that when left to themselves can be dismissed as, say decay, nostalgia etc, when I am speaking of a continuity and adaptation to preserve community.

Explaining my working method concretely as for the most part photographers unlike other visual artists usually “note-take” while in an area the finished work only being seen once the photographer has access to a studio or lab. It being important that what I do be seen in the place where I am working, traditionally I have brought an exceedingly large camera with me – 10x8 inch negatives – so that I could develop the images and make decent sized prints – using processes that don’t require a darkroom – platinum – so that I can show rushes immediately. While I may modify my working method a bit – still using film but scanning and printing the work via an inkjet printer – it is still imperative that the work influence more work via conversations with those who see it – than somehow editing what I have done when I am no longer in the community.

It is my working method when I am more in transit.

I am obviously interested in the artist’s retreat in Conche but also in Conche specifically being situated at the end of the road some twenty odd kilometres from Roddickton. One doesn’t choose to pass through Conche. Specifically Conche as it has a working harbour, it is centrally - well - located so I can make extended visits to Englee and the towns along route 438 again searching for senses of place.

Thanks in advance for looking over this overly long letter, I apologise for its length.

the rhythm of the crossing signal marking the approach of the 5:59 train into the city has me humming helpless.

and

i am reminded that the .... of the signal is the marconi S plus one (when actually it is an H).

thoughts turn north.