Under the Dome and Chihuly and Other Photos - The Catalyst!, 2nd Anniversary of IWSG, ROW80, and Project August

In honour of the two year anniversary of the Insecure Writers' Support Group, I've got lots of photos to share!

Because, of course, what better way to deal with our insecurity than by taking a day off once in a while and, most importantly, not feeling guilty about it!


September's co-hosts for IWSG, along with Ninja Captain Alex, are:

Chemist Ken
SL Hennessey
Michelle Wallace
Joylene Nowell Butler

If you don't already participate and would like to, sign up to the linky-link here so others don't miss your posts!

And now, photos!

Would you believe I had never heard of artist Dale Chihuly before this August? Then I visited his travelling exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts...

I know you can't read this; it's the story of a piece that was lost during trans-Atlantic shipment...

...and here is the recreated piece! Made especially for the Montreal exhibit.
Factoid: Chihuly visited Montreal's Expo back in 1967! 

This piece, which spans the length of a the ceiling in the exhibition room
(and they give you cushions so you can lie down and look up at it), is called Persians

I think I enjoyed the boats best



This guy looks like he's peering at his own reflection



While I was at the museum, I couldn't resist revisiting some of my favourite Canadian painters:

Emily Carr - War Canoe, Alert Bay

Emily Carr, Community House

This one's a short piece about a local group of painters from about the 1920s - one of them, Ethel Seath, used to teach art classes at my high school! (many years before my time, though)

Lawren Harris - Morning, Lake Superior

Sculptures, looking out a window on the west. I love that cow!

Tom Thomson - Northern Lights

He might be a wee bit hard to spot, but this was a cardinal I saw one morning

Sort-of-close-up

And now for something completely different: my first metal show!

The Catalyst are a great local band who've just signed a new singer, and we went to their new-singer-new-album-forthcoming party at the famous Montreal venue Foufounes Electriques:

Spider!


Uh-oh, why's it sideways? Band poster!

Soundcheck!


View from the backstage dressing room

Live!

View, outside, of the church visible from the dressing room

Then there was a lovely weekend trip, in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine:

Entering Cambridge, Mass...

...yes, I got excited by a street sign, because it features in an Amanda Palmer song called Massachusetts Avenue!
Wish we could have stayed in Cambridge long enough for a meet-up with Theresa!

Lake George, NY


A Turkish restaurant at Lake George!
Very yummy, I'd highly recommend the Ali Baba!

Carnival and flags at Lake George

Bridgton, Maine, whose claim to fame is being the setting of Stephen King's Under the Dome

Distances from Bridgton to various cities

Uh-oh, she's sideways!
I snuck a photo of this lady after she told us a story of Stephen King met her twins -
and used them as characters in The Shining!

We drove past this lot while leaving the town and, based on the sign, decided it must be Big Jim Rennie's lot

Bookstore!

King - and Rowling - at the bookstore!

It was a bit scary driving past the town border sign - that's where the edge of the dome came down!

After the scariness, it was time for some real relaxation (though I did get some editing done at this very spot!), at Boothbay Harbor, Maine:


All these views are from our hotel porch!







Darn, sideways!
This was in the morning, looking out the door

I love the honour system at their bookstore/library:
any book off the porch is 25 cents, and if they're closed, you just drop the money into a coin box!


McSeagull's

My first ever shark burger!

Me!

Not sure if you can see the moon in this photo...

An older view... The footbridge was built in 1901


A 19th Century captain's retirement home

There was fog on every road in Vermont and Maine in the mornings!

Red's Eats is a very popular place, with lines going round the block, and traffic backed up for miles!

Love the fact that this sign is so large and that it doesn't even say cemetery or graveyard,
and that the place doesn't even have a name...


This is a lovely bay on Southport Island

Rachel Carson lived on Southport Island for a while in the 1950s...




This house is directly across the road from that lovely bay. It is for sale. I want it.
The problem? It costs a million dollars...

A sign about the New Hampshire White Mountains School of Art. I've seen some of the paintings of this school before, without realising it was all part of the same movement!

View of the White Mountains

Then back home and to catch up with editing!

I've been shifting my ROW80 goals as I go (love this feature of ROW80!) and have completed almost all the short story and essay-writing work so that I'm left with one item:

Type 1,000 words per day to have Captive of the Sea ready for printing and further edits by the time NaNoWriMo comes along.

I'm really excited by the story I hope to draft during this year's NaNo.


Any new stories that you're excited by?

Do you have vacation photos or must-visit blogs for IWSG?

Comments

Jack said…
That bay is beautiful! Editing would be so much less torture feeling if one could do it there every day.

It looks like you had a lovely time traveling! I've always wanted to go back East and travel around this time of the year. I've heard falls there are wonderful.
M Pax said…
I've seen the glass artist's work before, but didn't remember his name. His work is amazing.

My sister just moved to Vermont with a view of hte White mtns. My brother used to live near them in NH. It's beautiful country.
Some amazing photos. The concert looks like it was fun.
I saw one of Chihuly's displays a few years ago. Amazing what he can do with glass.
J.L. Campbell said…
Hey, Deniz,
Love the colourful images at the start. You do take such interesting pics.
Nas said…
Love all your photos Deniz. And I have to open a completely new project to start editing-why am I procrastinating?

Nas
S.P. Bowers said…
I remember going on vacation. sounds lovely, hope you had a good time!
Jemi Fraser said…
That artwork is so cool!! And what a beautiful place. Lovely! :)
Unknown said…
Looks like a great trip!
LR said…
What an awesome trip! :)

Love the pic of the red cardinal too. They're so pretty.

Haven't read Under the Dome yet, but I did just read Joyland. Was great.
Hi Deniz .. so much to see and think about here .. the glass Chihuly - a few other bloggers have posted pics of his work ... incredibly hugeness and colours.

Love the travels - lucky you .. and then the artists et al and Shark Burger - now that sounds delicious!

Cheers Hilary
Denise Covey said…
Deniz, I've been watching Under the Dome every week. Just imagine actually driving through the 'dome' er, town. Glad you didn't smash into it.
Lovely photos you've shared. I'm planning on visiting Vermont, Maine, and Nantucket, Boston and NYC in a year or so. (Long as no domes cut me off!)
Deniz Bevan said…
Thanks Jack! It'd be a lovely place for a writers' retreat.

Ooh, that's lovely, M! Especially now that it's autumn - I love this time of year around here.

Thanks Alex and Joy!

I'm always procrastinating, Nas!

Thanks Sara and Jemi and Lara!

I just finished Joyland too, LR! When King is on, he's really on.

Thanks so much Hilary!

Ooh, hope I can drive down while you're here, Denise! I was a bit skittery the whole time we were in Bridgton. But very surprised that they didn't have a huge Stephen King shelf at the bookstore!
Unknown said…
I really liked the artist's paintings, especially the colors. You took such great pics of your travels I feel like I was there myself. Have good weekend! :-)
Anonymous said…
I'm not even sure where to start! This post was FULL of amazing.

Your pictures are stunning!! That one piece on the ceiling looks like something one of the casinos here has (had?) in their front desk area. The boys and I stretched on out the sofas for a bit to look at it properly.
Anonymous said…
Too much cool stuff! Thanks for sharing. We go to Maine every year for much-needed R&R, and a few years back, we stopped by Stephen King's house for a quick photo of his front gate.
Lydia Kang said…
That glass stuff is so amazing--so organic. So much great stuff on this post today!
Deniz Bevan said…
Thanks Lexa, hope you had a good weekend too!

Aww, thanks Raelyn!

Ooh, I've seen that gate Milo! It was open when we were, for some sort of delivery, but we were too chicken/polite to walk in!

Thanks Lydia!

:-)
Lovely images, Deniz. So glad you got to enjoy some of our "local color" here.
Anonymous said…
I love your pictures.

Thanks so much for posting Chihuly's Persian ceiling. There's more than one and I saw one in Vegas and was wondering what I was looking at.
Deniz Bevan said…
Thanks, Eden!

My mum's seen the Vegas one, Medeia! If it wasn't for her, I'd never have heard of Chihuly!