#foggynovember

We cleaned the Stanglerhof in preparation for the opening night and fastened the shutters to the metal ceiling girders using invisible thread. It took a while to get the art up but the result was surprisingly pleasing: the shutters were all slightly ajar, which gave them more presence within the space.

The evening was quiet and the artist's talk was conducted by candlelight. We ate some good food and drank a lot of prosecco.

Austrian artist David Moises turned up for the opening with a motorised serving trolley, which was to have its first ride that evening. It was fun to watch the remote-controlled trolley speeding around the yard in the dark, giving off smoke and roaring like a broken racing car.

The next day the trolley rode again and Sky had a great time making it hurtle round the car park, chasing after some of the guests. I was happy that my work was done and discovered elderflower shandy.

I've worked out that my wood burning iron cools down too quickly with heavy use, which means there's much waiting involved while it re-heats. It's becoming an almost Zen work process and I've had to adjust my initial target of 10 panels to a more modest 7. I think 7 is a good number: there are 7 deadly sins and the number 7 crops up often in fairy tales...

Sky lost another tooth and has taken to looking after Luxi, the little black farm dog. He finds it especially amusing to give Tails a ride on Luxi's back and to tie unsuspecting adults onto the dog lead.

We arrived in Bolzano on the afternoon of Saturday November 17th. The train journey from Verona was pretty chilled out and we enjoyed observing the mountains as they increased in size.

Our first port of call was a Carman truck event in Bolzano, where we ate Thai food and Sky got to have his first Thai massage. I kept thinking of Cartman from Southpark and was half expecting to see him trying to burst the bouncy castle outside.

We spent Saturday evening in town and I was told about the legend of the witches of the Schlern. The Schlern is the mountain under which we'll be living for the next few weeks.

On Sunday we drove to the house in the mountains. The landscape is magnificent, the views are fantastic.

Some weeks ago I received an email from Hubertus Mayer inviting two artists to the 'fantastic last minute Foggy November ArtistRESYdency' @ Stanglerhof, Italy.

I let the email wallow in my inbox for a while, but eventually curiosity got the better of me and I decided to respond. Two weeks later I'm writing my first blog entry as my son Sky and I shall be flying to Verona early tomorrow morning, from where we'll take the train to Bolzano.

I don't have all too many details yet, but it seems we'll be staying out of town, near a mountain or two.

We have a silly 20 kg luggage limit, so I'm taking a very pared down art-making kit consisting of some pens, pencils, brushes, paper, a few mini canvases, and 3 tubes of oil paint (titanium white, lamp black and paynes grey)... I'm also taking my wood burning iron, which I've never used, and some cameras. I'm saying cameras as my son will be participating in this project in some capacity and taking his own photos and also doing some drawing.