Just about 6 weeks left until GAS arrives in Portland. The dull roar no longer seems so distant. What’s up?

E-merge (May 5 – July 25) has been installed and enjoyed its quiet launch yesterday. Live jurying and the awards reception (May 17) are still ahead, but it’s up, looks great and was visited yesterday by almost 100 docents from the Portland Art Museum, many voting for the Popular Prize.
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There’s also food.

The best I’ve ever had is fresh lobster.

Trapped off the coast of Caithness, Scotland. By a guy named Dave, on a boat named the White Rose.

So you won’t be surprised if I nominate as Best Business Idea I’ve Seen This Century a brilliant bunch of guys calling themselves Catch a Piece of Maine.

Imagine: your own trap, your own lobster, your own lobsterman. Dave, where’s your website???

I found North Lands in 2001. Although it’s probably more accurate to say that it found me. I was standing in a nearly empty booth at the SOFA/Chicago fair a month after 9/11 when Dan Klein stopped by. In reply to my musings as to where one could go to escape a world gone mad, he said simply “Come to North Lands”.

Double rainbows are as abundant in Caithness as parking tickets in downtown Portland.

North Lands isn’t actually the name of a specific location – it’s more a state of mind. North Lands Creative Glass is in Caithness, Scotland, the northernmost county of mainland Britain. The school itself is in the village of Lybster. Surrounding Lybster is a landscape that is the most ancient I’ve ever experienced. And one where Doing Art makes uncanny sense.
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