Letters fall like leaves in a never ending autumn
settling into the winter of the mind

Only two weeks to go now and I will be moving into my new studio, to begin a whole new realm of amazing art, from the idea to the canvas and into the virtual world. My avatar in Second Life, Starfarer, with an image of my oil painting on the wall 'Moss Forest' set in the moss forest above Eaglehawk Neck in Tasmania.

Ross Bridge in Ross, Tasmania

We sailed south from Queensland's Sunshine Coast last September, from Mountain Creek with a barbed wire canoe, by car and ferry across Bass Straight to a small town in the heart of Tasmania, once known as Van Dieman's Land, a town called Ross. It was spring and the elm seeds were falling like snow. The house had been bliss-bombed with colourful decorations by a friend from further south, to welcome us on our arrival on 2 October. The new neighbours were a little stunned. Jack, the town dog was there to say woof and be friendly, as is the role of a town dog who loves posing for photos with the tourists. Ross is a tourist town founded in 1821, with a stone bridge that was opened in 1836, after much turbulence and skullduggery. One of our first tasks in town was to submit the Ross Bridge for nomination to the National Heritage list, which was quite a little adventure on an ocean of paper and now we wait to hear if the bridge sails safely into a higher heritage port. That's out of our hands now. 

Our main work is with Space Pioneers and of that I will say more later, from a pioneer town where the sounds of chisels on stone still echo along the tree-lined streets and over the fields of Ross.