A Tale of Two Lobsters

Yesterday was one of the first days I felt like I was actually a citizen of Bar Harbor. I had a semi job interview/meeting with a woman who owned a local gallery, met her daughter and a local jewelry artist. Then Joe and I went out on an adventure to find some muscles to cook with the lobsters he had bought for dinner. We found ourselves a small local beach and wandered along the shoreline, collecting muscles that had washed up near the shore. It was approaching high tide, so there weren't many, but we found enough to make a meal. I tried to piece together a bit of a panorama of the scenery to share...It was so beautiful and I'm still so surprised that I actually live here.





Upon returning home, Joe and I checked out our lobsters and chose one for our meal...poor guy didn't even see it coming...





We had ourselves a fantastically fresh and seafood filled meal of steamed muscles, grilled shrimp, and boiled lobster. And I have to admit, with a little of bit of garlic butter--homemade by me I might add--it was all pretty tasty. I think I'm actually going to be able to get used to the "island cuisine". Who would have thought? Certainly not me!





After dinner, we attempted a bike ride. Well I suppose I should say that I attempted and Joe went. I have to say that I have never felt so out of shape in my life. Apparently my body is not built for bike riding. I have a lot of training to do in order to master this hilly terrain. Baby steps...

Not much else to chat about at the moment. I'm playing housewife for the day and trying to clean up the homestead. Mostly I've got boxes and boxes of art supplies that need to be unpacked and I've been putting it off for far too long. Well today is the day!

At Last...A Real Fire!

I don't have any new pictures yet since I just woke up a few hours ago and my last post was pretty close to my last activity for the evening, but I do have this picture of my fireplace in action! I have to admit that having a fireplace was one of the things that I was most excited for in having a real home. I say real home because in Ann Arbor, the homes aren't quite "real". You rent them, and along with that renting comes certain rules and restrictions...one of which is always: no fires in the fireplace! Coming from a family that always utilized their fireplace to the max, I find it a cruel punishment to sit across from an empty fireplace on a cold evening. But now that I've entered the real world, I'm able to have a fire! And we've already had about three! It's the beginning of spring here so it's still a bit chilly from time to time and the nights can be kinda cold as well. And luckily, this area is not without a surplus of firewood. So last night this is what I got to lounge to...


Living on the northern end of the east coast comes with a few changes I've noticed over the past week. First and foremost, we get the first morning light before anyone else in the United States. Sounds kinda cool. However, since it's the first light, that means it occurs at about 4:30/4:45 in the morning. So while I wish I could be awake to experience this early morning sunrise, I have yet to roll myself out of bed at that time. I'm still allowing myself to treat this period as a sort of vacation...a break from the hectic schedule I kept for my few months of college-or even my entire college career I suppose. But one day I will manage to get up at that time and enjoy the first light of our nation.

I'm also not used the ocean breeze. Not only am I living on the coast, but I'm living on an island...and a small one at that. So the coastal breeze is pretty much inescapable. You can experience its effects just about anywhere you go on the island. So when the day appears warm and sunny, there's still that crisp breeze that forces you to bring a jacket, just in case. I'm typically sensitive to the cold, and this is going to take a bit of getting used to. I think my nose is going to have the most difficult time. It seems to be cold all the time here unless I'm basking in the direct sunlight. But it will adapt, as will the rest of my body to any other changes I notice.

I suppose the last big difference I want to mention is the seafood. As one could imagine, Maine is chop full of lobster and muscles and clams and all sorts of other fish and creatures. I live right down the street from Parson's lobster pound which actually has the cheapest lobster on all the island: 6.50 per pound. Not bad if you ask me. Now if only I was a seafood nut. Yep, I'm not. It's been growing on me in recent years, but I'm still not crazy about it. I sometimes think this location is wasted on me, but I'm determined to grow to love the local cuisine. Joe and I will be boiling up a fresh lobster this evening for a bit of a "mother's day feast". Should be interesting...A r

New Beginnings in New Places

I have officially graduated and moved away from home...far away from home. I am now sitting in my armchair in front of a fire, with a slightly cold nose, in a small house on a hill, in the small little island town of Bar Harbor, Maine. I have no job and no plans. And although I'm slightly nervous about the first of those two facts, I am extremely content with the second. I moved out here with my boyfriend, who got a job at the local research lab: Jackson Laboratory. I had wanted some time off, and a year or two on an island in Maine sounded like a fantastic way to take some time off.

So here I am. Our house is slowly beginning to look like that of a real person, and I've managed to drop off my resume at a number of businesses and have already gotten a response back from one of the local galleries that could use some help. Things seem to be falling into place. Apart from some snags with broken washing machines and a bad cable connection, things seem to be going pretty well. I have to go take care of a few odds and ends, but I'll leave you with a few pictures of the house (the clean rooms anyway) and the water line near a lighthouse we visited on the other side of the island this afternoon. It was a little gloomy out, but the scenery is still gorgeous. Enjoy!

More pictures!

I took some more images in the warehouse yesterday...thought I'd share them. Our closing reception is tonight and then sunday it's all coming down...

A slice of success!

So my thesis is finally done! Yay!
16 seniors-myself included- renovated a 19,000sq ft warehouse into a gallery space for our exhibition. It looked amazing! and our opening was FANTASTIC!!! We had over 600 people! That's far more than your typical exhibition opening here. Everyone was really thrilled to see what we had done and we received a lot of positive feedback.
and on another side note...i finally have a website up and running! And I even went through the trouble of becoming a real person and buying a domain name!!! so now you can check out all my work if you like... mkpanars.com

Here's some overdue pictures of the work I had in the show...This set is from the installations in the warehouse.









These next ones are simply documentation from before the opening...







i'll add some more pictures of the actual space soon...but that's it for now!

It's all coming together...

Been a while...yet again. But good news is, things are looking up. Waaaay up. We now have a space to show work in--16 of us in a big, awesome warehouse. We got funding for it, so our costs are way down from our original estimates. And to top it off, My work is finally starting to take shape..and in a cohesive way!!! yay!!! I've got 4 pieces planned out and well on their way to being finished. I've also got a few others that are still up for debate and possibly joining that list as well. And best of all, they're all fitting together really nicely, both visually and conceptually!!! woo hoo!!! Now i just need to get all of them finished..ha
Here are some photos of two of the pieces I'm working with: The one will simply be the arched pencil and the other will be a section of about 200-300 split pencils trailing down the wall and onto the floor.

Sliced and Diced

So the other day I went into the woodshop to ask about cutting cross sections of pencils. I was thinking I would wind up with a saw recommendation since the pencil would be really difficult to cut with any of the large machines. I wound up situated in the corner with a tiny radial arm saw. It's this little, plastic, orange and gray saw that cuts my pencils perfectly!!! I was so excited! The pieces look rather beautiful when they're all lined up or organized in some fashion. I'm really pleased with the results. I'm actually going to go out and attempt to buy a saw on my own this weekend so that I can cut as many pencils as I want whenever I want. The saw was only $20, so I figure that's within my budget :)











The other images are of shavings I have collected from the pencil. I'm interested in re-constructing the pencil in not only the cross-sections, but also in shaving form. I'm playing with different ways of orienting the components of a single pencil.