We have landed in VT

Well I really haven't updated this in a while but thought I would tell you all that Mara and I have arrived in one piece and with a lot of our things in Barre, VT. We're currently in the basement of my Uncle Ed and Aunt Lori's house. It's really great of them to host us and we are eager to find our place here in Vermont. Tomorrow morning we have some job interviews and we hope that something good will come of it.

Here is a little taste of what we had on the roads through Canada, and then there is some footage of Mara and I in New York. Maybe some more videos soon. I was driving, and then I was doing other stuff! No time for blog updates. My apologies, but enjoy the video and look forward to some more videos or photos soon. We made it all the way across the country via Canada. crazy

COLLECTED TONES

The 'Collected Tones' exhibition went well on wednesday evening. Mara and I spent some time figuring out technical stuff like streaming live video into the gallery space and getting projectors set up. I added the sound for the evening with some improvised twinkles and rumbles. It was a fun night and also fun to see everyone's reaction to an atypical exhibition space. Visitors entered the gallery and then found me playing music with a couple of projections on the wall: a slideshow featuring the titles of Mara's eight works, and the live 'surveillance' video of her studio down the hall, which had all of her artwork on display, mainly the 'Deep Storage Banff' installation containing photos of all her work. Check it out! 

Last night was Valentines Day and we had a great dinner in Canmore at Crazyweed. On the way home it was so clear that we decided to make a side-trip to Lake Minnewanka and check out the immense starlight sky. It was really amazing. Then we saw a coyote just trotting down the road and later a giant Elk bull right in the middle of Banff, casually licking some drainage grate. How nice!

Lots of photos below. I got Mara a grizzly teddy bear!

 

!!!

bustling NORDEGG

This past Sunday Mara, Virgilio, and myself got into the car and drove north (after driving south accidentally) for 2 1/2 hours to Nordegg, Alberta. It was an amazing drive on the Icefields Parkway just outside of the Rocky Mountains to the slightly abandoned town of Nordegg. Originally a coal mine town for the railroad, We first only met one person, the pastor of the community church who was closing up shop when we arrived. He gave us a little history, mostly of the church and his schedule there, and mentioned we might be able to walk up and see the mine. We trudged through the snow and got pretty cold and wet, but luckily the sun was shining that day and it wasn't half-bad! Weird animal sounds in the woods, hidden train track that we followed, empty sheds by a creek, elk beds, random pipes laying around, and mysterious paw prints in the snow made for a funky jam session. Oh yeah, on the way we made a few small stops and got to watch some big horn sheep snack on some grass in a field. Lakes of ice are incredible and the mountains just always impress here.
    After our little wander through the woods around Nordegg, we got back into the "town" and explored some of the empty buildings left in the old townsite. One of the best parts of the little trip was going to the restaurant at the town lodge on our way out. Such a typical isolated town cafe with an old pump organ, really old pictures on the walls, YA KNOW. Of course we had to inject a little twin peaks into the day so we had some hot pie for dessert. CHECK OUT SOME PICTURES

HAPPA NOTH GROOVE

Well, we haven't put anything up here for a while, sorry! But it's for good reasons. Mara and I have gotten into more of a routine here and I've been working on lots of music while Mara is busy crafting her pieces. Right now I am actually sitting in her studio and we've put together a little video of our trips around here. GoPro! GoToBed! Getting sleepy....

Also, we've decided to have a show here at the Banff Centre in this very building. Mara will be displaying her pieces and will be on hand for extreme discussion while I will get spaced out with some synthesizer and vocal improvisation. I'm excited to do it but of course first I'll have to have a loose plan. Maybe just lots of echo? Usually sounds cool... Here is the flyer we designed for the show:

made some snow sheets

happy day with mara

Here's a little video of some travels. The hot water smells like eggs! And the buildup in these streams is actually Algae, NOT sulphur deposits as many people believe.

ICE MAGIC

Today we took a bus ride (on an actual school bus!) with about 30 people from the Banff Centre to nearby Lake Louise for the ice festival. People were carving ice but you know what that looks like... We had a little snowshoe hike across the frozen lake and paid SOOO much money for a cup of coffee. It was fun, though. Look:

Getting Busy (and hiking a little)

    Hello, hello from Banff again. We had a crazy change in weather this past week. It went from being about -26C to about 6C. That's way cold to above freezing. What does this mean? Well, not too much really except that it is not painful to walk around outside. In fact, it's been pretty nice today especially with the sunshine and little wind. Enough of the weather report!
    What have we been doing? Mara and I have been waking up around 8:30, going to get some breakfast in the big Vistas buffet and then retreating to our workspaces. Mara's is a big studio in the ceramics area, and mine is a little hut with a grand piano inside. We've got some photos below so you can see the spaces and feel the snow! Mara seems to have some solid direction to her project (which you can see a bit of down below) and I'm finally getting some tunes to sound worthy of audience. Of course, I have to figure out how to perform them, too. I'm also putting together a sound portfolio for applying to Concordia University so I think today I'll be playing with a lot of sounds I've recorded, trying to squeeze out some sound design / sound objects / create sculptures with audio! Fun Stuff.

 Mara working on the wall

                                                                          

 Melting wax!

 Mrs Marxt Lewis's studio

 Banff Holiday

 Snowy morning

 Mine hut

 Mara pretending to make music

 More HUTS (I think there are 25 huts or so)

 Spoon in wax

We hope all is well with you and please, leave us a comment! We're way up here in the 'tains!

BELOW FREEZING

After our first week here in Banff it's been cold. I think it was -27C on Thursday, pretty amazing!! Needless to say I think I was somehow made for this weather, it just feels good (with proper coats of course). Here are some clips of our first week here in the mountains. Mara and I just finished a huge load of laundry down in the basement. I think we wore almost all of our clothes and just had this amazing pile of laundry that needed to be washed. DONE. Tomorrow is monday so it's back to the "office" for us. Um, leave us a comment and tell us what's up!