It's been a little while since I've updated, and I realized the other night that I completely neglected to follow up on writing about the exhibition in Bridgeport. To sum it up in one phrase, it was an awesome opportunity, a really well-curated exhibition, and a great opportunity to meet new people.

Since then, I've been negotiating about a million things: school, quarter-life questions, big emotional questions, and the like. School wrapped up a week ago, I remembered that I need to take things as they come while keeping goals in mind, and decided that comfort isn't something that I should strive for, nor run back to. I got to go to Detroit to visit the Julie Mehretu exhibition at DIA and was blown away. I have a lot of work to do, and it's going to have to be cumulative.

To celebrate the end of a hard-worked semester, I decided to run off to Montreal for a few days... so for five days of relaxation, the opportunity to speak french and to throw myself out of my own element and scope out art, I'm hanging out in la belle province. My friend Mike has been a great host thus far, and I'm looking forward to his personal guided tour of the city tomorrow. with the hopes of visiting the Expo grounds. Today's mission will be to explore the plateau, scope out more art galleries, and enjoy the relatively balmy weather that Montreal is experiencing. There are snowbanks as tall as I, and about three feet of snow on the ground, but I can have my face exposed and not worry about frostbite, which is great. It's nice to experience a Canadian winter again, it's been about five years since I experienced a good snowfall I think.

I'll hopefully pull out my camera over the course of the week and update with some photos.

There are always firsts, and this is probably one of the more exciting firsts of late. Opening November 9, one of my drawings will be hung as part of a curated exhibition about drawing down at the Housatonic Museum of Art in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I'll be driving down for the opening reception (partially because it gives me an excuse to visit the collection at Dia: Beacon as I'll be close by). I can't wait to see what's in the exhibition as most of it is a mystery to me at this stage.

Below is some information about the exhibition pulled from artdaily.org. I think that I'm the honorary mention from Canada.

BRIDGEPORT, CT.-Housatonic Museum of Art is presenting Lineal Investigations featuring artists from Bridgeport, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Alabama, California and Canada. Lineal Investigations opens Friday, November 9 and continues through December 21, 2007. A reception for the artists will be held Friday, November 9, from 5:30 pm until 7pm. This event is free and the public is cordially invited to attend.

Featured works include traditional portraiture but created on a colossal scale by Bridgeport artist Paul Kaiser, floor drawing made with gaffer's tape by Manchester artist David Borawski and three dimensional drawings by Susan Shutan of Hamden , Jane Miller of Guilford and Glenn LaVertu of Providence, Rhode Island .

Lineal Investigations pushes the boundaries of the traditional definition of "drawing" this exhibit but nevertheless features quieter works with detailed drawings by Melissa Tubbs of Alabama and Patricia Smith of East Branch, New York. Artist Richard Deon of Dover Plains , New York uses commercial illustration paired with a linear structure to create his visual narratives while Henry Mandell of Mamaroneck works with digital materials-vector drawings-to explore the dynamic tension between order and disorder within visual systems.

Eric Van Arx of New Jersey creates linear drawings in iron and Kathy Desmond of Massachusetts combines drawing with installation to create environments. All in all, this show redefines "drawing" by mapping new terrain.

Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 8:30 am until 5:30 pm. Saturday, 9-3 pm and Sunday Noon until 4pm.

If I could count the number of kilometers that I have traveled over the course of the past few months, I would undoubtedly be impressed at how far I have gone. I wonder how it would scale in relation to a trip to the moon. I doubt that numerous return journeys to Toronto, a few trips up to Twelve Mile Bay, Grand Bend, Wiarton, London, and even a trip to Quebec City might get me out of the atmosphere.

Summer school finished a month ago and I celebrated it by spending a some time up at Garett's cottage up in Muskoka. It was beautiful, quiet, and the perfect place to sit back, relax, make buttons, and stop. We came back to civilization again to get my gear together for the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition. It was a fun weekend, and after a somewhat stressful setup, a lot of fun. I came out with a lot of positive feedback to encourage me that I'm doing something right, interest from a few interesting people, and two awards. Thanks to everybody who came out to visit. If only all exhibition opportunities were that interactive.

Now, I'm back in Kitchener on a full-time basis until school starts up in the fall. I'm going to try to commute for the year to take advantage of having an awesome space to work in. The studio is in working mode now, with three of us all working in anticipation for our joint exhibition at the end of September. We also have a visiting studio member who is working on a sound installation for the rest of the summer before he runs off to Princeton to complete his PhD with a fantastic fellowship. We all have our work cut out for us, so things will likely become more interesting and animated as the weeks go by.

I think that this space is going to start to turn into that drawing blog and a sort of studio journal as the rest of the summer continues. Stay tuned.

Well, it's been two and half weeks since I landed on Canadian soil, and now I feel like I can officially say that I'm home. After running around like a madcat between London, Kitchener, Toronto, and even Grand Bend I feel like I'm home. I moved into the studio on Monday night after my poor mother dropped me off to see the space was still in a bit of disarray after Gareth had set up his show at the Red Head Gallery last month. I haven't had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in the space as of yet, but the time that I have spent here has been pretty good. I've got the information cave pretty much set up, and am pretty much set to work. I'm still feeling a bit restless but I think that sensation will wear off after a week or two and I start to feel more comfortable.

In the meantime, I'm commuting back and forth between Kitchener and Toronto to do summer school and take advantage of the time to spend with all of the people that I missed so much while I was away. It's been a relatively quiet return, but I'm sure that there will be time to organise a proper homecoming as the summer continues. In the meantime, I'm going to try to focus on summer school (yes, I am a bit of a sucker for punishment... but if it means that my course load for my thesis year will be a bit more relaxed, it's worth it) and try to get some work done in time for the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition the first weekend of July.

As per usual, things don't slow down for this kid. But it's awesome being home.

After getting to the tube station this morning during the brilliant group of prime-time commuters in London, getting my backpack stuck in a closing door and being pulled inside the train by a few random witnesses (the train was packed to the gills), I survived an hour-long commute from Bethnal Green to Heathrow, with luggage in tow. After a delay for boarding, I got eight hours of easy flying, my first opportunity to see Newfoundland from an airplane window and the thrill of seeing the Toronto skyline from my window. I'm home and all that I plan on doing tonight (after tapping this off) is going upstairs and collapsing in one exhausted heap on the futon. London proper to London Ontario in the span of one day. I think that it's a good way to wrap this up. Now it's on to the fun stuff, what we call living.

It's official. The Italian chapter in the life of Sarah is over. Tuesday morning I managed to get myself out of bed at a stupid hour in the morning after finally finding a concert in town worth going to. I discovered that Deerhoof were playing in town and decided that ultimately, I had to go. I've been craving a live concert experience since I got here, and while I've seen a few bands, nothing has amounted to what I've missed. Sure, the 60's cover band were good, and the band playing Brazilian music at Gianni's show were great, but I just wanted to be in a room full of people bopping their heads in time with the music, sweating it out all the same. To a certain extent it kills me know that this venue existed the entire time that I was in town and that they only started advertising in the weekly I pick up recently. C'est la vie, non?

After flying to Stansted, I hopped a flight to Copenhagen to come and visit my friend Gerret, who I haven't seen since his going-away party in New Zealand. We used to work together at Waikato Uni and were both a bit on the odd-side working within the computer science department there. It's been great catching up and hanging out. While he's been at work, I've been exploring Copenhagen on foot and taking in what I can manage to digest within a short visit of five or so days. I visited the State Art Museum, went to visit the Lousiana north of town and got to see some great work there. Their permanent collection is very impressive and had a Sigmar Polke painting that stopped me dead in tracks. Julie Mehretu's exhibition that I visited in Spain was being hung beyong the barricade and I couldn't help but feel like I was in a good place. Copenhagen as a city is beautiful and the weather has been incredible. When Gerret isn't working we've been taking the bikes around town and coming across great architecture, ships returning from expeditions to the North Pole, and vibrant little neighbourhoods. Copenhagen is incredibly bicycle-friendly and bikes have the same amount of power on the roads as cars do. I'd come back just to take advantage of that, but also for the people (the Danes are remarkably friendly).

Tomorrow, I'm on a flight to London where I will get to take advantage of the state museums, a thriving art scene, and a city that is a model for so many others in the world. I'll be meeting up with some friends from Toronto who happen to be in town at the same time (Duffield and Jordan), along with my friend Nick who I also haven't seen since leaving New Zealand. Having friends to take a city by storm with will be amazing as will be catching up. I'm on a transatlantic flight again on Wednesday and coming home. All of this travel has been amazing, but coming home will have the same thrill. I'm looking forward to that.

In the past few days of playing tourist, I've been having a blast. On Friday morning, I hopped on a 7:30 train out to La Spezia to get myself on my way to going on the longest and physically demanding hike that I'd done since doing pieces of the Bruce Trail last summer. La Spezia is the gateway to Cinque Terre, a national park with one of the most beautiful hiking trails that I've been on. It is on par with the parts of the Bruce Trail that were conquered on the Bruce Peninsula and even the Queen Charlotte Track in New Zealand.

After giving two american girls a few pointers on how the system works, I made my way up to Monterosso to start the trip down through the villages. The hike in total should take about 5 hours (if you're in top shape, and don't stop in any of the villages), and from what I was told, the hike between Monterosso and Vernazza was to be the most gruelling, totalling at 2 and a half hours and plenty of fun steep uphill walks around people's vineyards and lemon groves (and even an old man selling his home-made limoncello). When I reached what I thought was the first peak, I could see to the Vernazza and figured that I could gauge my pace by that first hike. I stopped and munched on my picnic lunch on the coast in Vernazza while watching crabs pick away at algae growing on the rocks there and decided to get moving when large groups of school children started sitting along the rocks around me. I was really enjoying the space I was getting on my trail, and being stalled by large groups wasn't on my list of fun things to do. So, I made my way from Vernazza to Corniglia, then Manarola where the trails started to get easier. The last trail going from Manarola to Rio Maggiore (which I had already visited a few weeks ago with my family when they were out to visit) was the easiest. Dubbed "Lover's Lane", it's paved with flat stones, and accessible enough for families with strollers, girls in high heels, and wheelchairs. I celebrated by taking off my sandals and showing off my new birkenstock tan all the way to the next town. I celebrated the hike that ended up taking me six hours (thanks to little stops in each village) by grabbing a bottle of beer and taking it down to the rocks at the edge of the village, dangling my feet off the rocks into the water and taking in the view. It was a beautiful day (I haven't experienced rain or a cloudy day in weeks), and I just wanted to take it in. It was amazing, and will probably end up being on my list of top ten experiences from Italy if I ever end up writing one. I ended up falling asleep on the train coming home, and discovered upon getting in that I'd caught a bit more sun than I'd anticipated, but thankfully nothing too severe. If this is springtime, I have no idea how bright and hot the summers are here.

Today, I decided to keep the exploratory trend, and rented a bike with Lily, one of the girls studying with SACI (an international art school here) to see how far the city actually went on its eastern and western ends. Neither of us were too sure, so after picking up our bright orange bikes from the local cycling outlet, we made our way to find out making a few little stops on the way. I introduced her to the San Ambrogia junk market (a daily flea market and home to some of the coolest vintage furniture that I've ever seen) and navigated our way through the city. We discovered that the west just goes on forever, but found the eastern edge marked by Via Aeronautica, flanked by a bright red modern steel and wire bridge and a sculpture to an Indian Prince who died in Florence over the course of the past century. We maneuvered around the scariest roundabouts that I've ever seen, visited the amusement park, and just enjoyed flying around for five hours. We celebrated by having one last hurrah at Il Vegetariano. After stitching a few photos together from the past few days, I'm thinking that passing out is probably the best idea.

I'm trying to figure out if there's anything out in Florence that I really should visit and am at a bit of a loss. I'm starting to think that hopping on a train to Siena on Monday might be a good idea, but I think that decision will be made after a sturdy packing effort tomorrow. Tuesday morning is going to be an early one, and while being tired isn't necessarily a huge concern for a six-hour layover at Stansted on my way to Copenhagen, packing is always a tedious affair and one that can hours, and sometimes days.

Watch the time slip by.