I’ve got stuff to do … a walk to Latheronwheel Harbor

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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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As art fairs go, so went COLLECT. Hours of endless chatter punctuated by moments of high hope crumbling into I’m-just-lookings, or I’ve-spent-a-fortune-alreadys, or call-me-when-you’ve-got-another-in-a-cooler/warmer/darker/ lighter-shade.
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I’m going to fast forward. We’re into our third day of the fair and still standing. Despite my incessant kvetching, we managed to get through set-up, get the lights focused, glass cleaned and all the clutter crammed into our tiny stand closet, before dashing back to the flat to change and return in time for Opening Night.

“Can you focus it 2.5 mm to the left and about 1.5mm up, Steve?” Loughlin obsessive? Yet another misunderstood personality.
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Factory schmactory. I’m on my way to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London to set up Bullseye’s stand at COLLECT, the international art fair for contemporary objects.

Fifteen hours, three airports and a cultural canyon away from Garlic Gulch.
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