Sitka Bound - Part I

I've just returned from a glorious week at Sitka on the Oregon Coast with my friend Vicki. Where to begin? Well, from the beginning I imagine. The beginning was getting packed, no easy chore with the plan of being gone for over a week. I didn’t need many clothes since I would be wearing my paint shirt for six of the eight days, but the art supplies, now that was another matter. Oh, and we were also lugging groceries for most of the week – and, of course, I brought along my espresso machine so I could have my two and sometimes three chai soy lattes every day.



The cabin where we stayed was located on Cascade Head right across the street from the Sitka center.



This is emphasized because in year’s past, I’ve stayed in Neskowin, about 15 miles to the north. The other option is staying in Lincoln City, located about the same distance to the south. So to be able to park and walk to class, was a delightful treat. The cabin, owned by our former neighbor Hazel, is a pole house, which means there are four poles running from the ground right up to the third floor loft. The walls were unfinished wood planks and the floors were pine. We weren’t roughing it, however, as there was a bath and a half, a full kitchen, and a washer and dryer. The view to the north was a sweeping vista of the Cascades and to the west was the ocean in the distance. Here are some shots of the pole house:









Vicki and I met up at the cabin and got ourselves settled, lugging in our tool boxes filled with art supplies, bags of papers and ephemera, groceries for a week, our clothes, a bag of movies and reading material, and my espresso machine. We settled into the beginning of a rhythm that would become our life for the next week: visiting, writing, reading, working on our visual journals, reading art magazines (a pile of Somerset Studios I had brought from home), cooking, and watching a movie each evening. The cabin had no TV, just an old VCR, so both of us had brought along a few VHS cassettes and the cabin had a modest library. During our movie sessions, we sometimes worked on our Visual Journals, sometimes snipped and cut out images for use in collages, and for a couple of the movies, we just sat on the couch, ate popcorn, and watched. Our movie selections were:

84 Charing Cross Road
Runaway Bride
Twister
Primal Fear
Billy Elliott
Heaven Knows Mr. Allison
Angel at my Table
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Here we are at our "art station," the eating bar overlooking the living room (and where the TV was located):





Our view to the west:



Coming up, the art workshops!