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!

Greeting the mountains in Golden, BC

   We've safely traveled from Seattle up to Vancouver for the changing of the year and stayed with the wonderful Mandy, then east to Kelowna where we met some Lewis relatives for the first time, last night we rolled into the snowy town of Golden, and now we have a bit of relax time to greet the weekend. We'll will be here one more night and then we'll make the final stretch to arrive in Banff Saturday night. I think a gondola ride up to the nearby snow resort might be in order.
   The air sure is cold here but I'm still waiting for it to get REALLY cold..... people keep telling me that it'll happen. Here is a little sample of what the trans-Canada hwy was like...... stay tuned!!
-M & T