2. orientation

Our first full day, Wednesday 22, we convened in the kitchen of the Center and Jane conducted the morning meeting going over the introductions again and the aims of the symposium, we toured the facility which was a little overwhelming...the cold work room, the drawing/print room, the main work room with the kilns, the hot shop, the glass room ( a big closet which held all the glass), the sandblasting room (another big closet with the blasting cabinet), the model/mold making room.

We were 13 including Jane Bruce (NY) and her assistant Lisa Cerny (Canada). The others of us were, besides myself, Evy Cohen (France), Helen Cowart (Seattle), Susan Cox (NY), Allison Kinnaird (Scotland), Marzena Krzeminska (Poland), Martie Negri (NY), Nancy Nicholson (NY), Purnima Patel (England), Natali Rodrigues (Canada), and Cathryn Shilling (England).

Of the 13, 3 had never been there before...myself, Nancy, and Martie. After our morning meeting and orientation, we were given free time to walk and ramble around the village and to meet for lunch at Waterlines, the little cafe/museum at the harbor where I had had lunch the previous day. Several of us headed down to the harbor to take the path up to the top of the high hill overlooking the harbor.

After lunch was studio time but I dallied down at the harbor taking more pictures 

and eventually wandering back to the studio to find others sitting and sketching and seemingly already at work while I remained directionless and looking over people's shoulders. The schedule for late afternoon and evening was presentations, dinner catered there at the studio in the kitchen, and then more presentations and after, studio time til the Center closed at 10:30.

As you can see, the weather was absolutely gorgeous and it pretty much stayed that way the whole time. While we did have plenty of overcast skies and some rain, it would last only a while and then clear up, the sun breaking through every day. The forecast I had looked at and packed by turned out to be not that accurate but I did have occasion to be glad of the new boots and rain jacket though I never did use my fleece jacket. The other thing that surprised me was how long it stays light and how early the sun rises. Easier to say it is only dark for a few hours and it is something I don't think I ever saw. Deep twilight, perhaps, on the night I was up the latest.

I'm going to publish these one after another so that any one post isn't too long. The series starts with “1. I'm home”. All the pictures can be clicked on for larger versions.