Brier Island View Cottage

We recently returned from a week’s visit to Nova Scotia where we stayed in a gorgeous house in an idyllic setting. You can see the Airbnb listing here.

In order to join my artistic 8-year-old at the table, spend less time on my screens, and actually get a vacation, I spent many hours drawing a picture of the house that I had taken.

I was inspired by a short film called My Grandfather’s Memory Book to start adding watercolors to my sketchbook.

I finally applied watercolor a few nights ago. It was harder than I thought to wrangle, but as with every aspect of this endeavor, it was satisfying time well spent away from the faster, digitized world.

Brier Island View Cottage Brier Island View Cottage drawing Brier Island View Cottage watercolor

Icy Cinema: July 7, 2018

Darrel and I joined Gray around the baby grand piano again a few Saturdays ago, which Gray had prepared in some interesting ways, as you will hear in a few of these tunes. I am proud of our patience during this session; it is a generally calm, relaxing meditation.

Here are some videos I shot as we warmed up including Darrel with prepared guitar and Gray playing a Steely Dan song called Pearl of the Quarter.

Brier Island Acoustic

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I’m writing from Nova Scotia, Canada, far away from the Texas heat, in a rental house overlooking Brier Island on the Bay of Fundy. The rental said there would be a guitar, but alas, no guitar!

I was about to despair when I looked up to see my mother-in-law—who had wandered down the cove—walking back with a guitar across her chest. She’d met a fisherman named Beau Bobby who spontaneously offered a guitar and threw in three pounds of fresh halibut besides!

So I sat on the porch overlooking the ocean with seabirds singing and composed this acoustic instrumental in honor of Beau Bobby, our seaside paradise, and everyday miracles. I hope it brings you the smell of sea air and the sweet slow pace of a cool summer getaway.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the coast:
Colorful fishing boats

Seaweed in tide pool

Old boat house in the fog

Abandoned house

Bright green seaweed

Colorful kairn

Anais and Maile on rocks

Icy Cinema: June 25, 2018

Several weeks ago Icy Cinema played our first gig, an evening of ambient music called enoscapes1, which was wonderful. The recording didn’t turn out great, so Darrel and I joined Gray in his music room on Monday night to record the three tunes we performed that night. Here they are.

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Enoscapes1 flyer

Here are Darrel and Gray getting sounds as we set up.