Heading to Greenland to paint with walrus researcher Dr. Erik Born, I packed light to avoid baggage fees. Somehow I squeezed everything into the following three bags.

Getting to Greenland is a bit of a project in and of itself, and it took several days of travel to reach. From Seattle I headed to Copenhagen, where I had a layover of one night and took some time to explore and sketch.

The following day, I finally met up with the other members of the walrus project team. It was great to finally have faces for everyone’s names!

All together we flew from Copenhagen to Iceland (where we spent a night) and finally on to East Greenland.

Our destination was Daneborg, which is located at about 74 degrees N within the NE Greenland National Park (world’s largest park). It’s a base for the Danish Sirius Sled Dog Patrol as well scientific research. Flying in, I had my first glimpse of Sand Island, where we were planning to camp for two weeks for the walrus research.

It’s that tiny island there.

But before we were able to head to Sand Island, we had some preparations to do in Daneborg, and I also had time to explore and paint.

17" x 11" Field Sketch, Daneborg at Midnight, Greenland

To be continued in my upcoming post, “Daneborg, Base of Operations”

This Saturday I had a lovely time painting a ceramic bowl that will be glazed and auctioned off as part of a fundraiser for Room One, a non-profit wellness and health center in the Methow Valley. My bowl and others by local artists will be on exhibit in Winthrop and Twisp for preliminary bidding and the final bidding will happen Saturday, October 9th at the Soup Dinner in Winthrop’s Red Barn. Should be a great event! I’m excited to see my bowl glazed— I’ve never painted pottery before. When I was contemplating what to paint, my husband Darin said, “paint what you know…” so the bowl has penguins all around it and a blue interior with one little penguin in the very bottom. I hope it holds many tasty meals for whomever wins it.

If you’re visiting Twisp in the Methow Valley, you’ve got two opportunities to see my art! I’m delighted to be exhibiting three of my iceberg watercolors as part of the “Weathering Change” show at the Confluence Gallery and I also recently hung a series of my North Cascades and Methow watercolors in the Cinnamon Twisp Bakery (next block down from the gallery). “Weathering Change” will continue through September 18th and the Bakery show through the new year. I hope you have the chance to stop by! If you visit the Confluence Gallery, you’ll also have the opportunity to see beautiful photos by my good friends Benj Drummond and Sara Steele. They are a documentary team that specializes in stories about people, nature, and climate change.

As the wind has picked up, ice blowing in from open water has begun freezing the bay around Sand Island. The team will be on the island for a couple more days before moving camp. Hopefully, Maria will have the opportunity to explore more of the mainland by helicopter.

Stay tuned for more news from the field.

–Darin

–Darin

Sand Island, Greenland. Approx. 500×300 meters (zoom out for context):

View Maria High Latitudes Expedition in a larger map

Opportunities for communication may be few and far between, but I will try to get news of our expedition to my husband Darin, so he can post on my blog until I return the week of August 16th.

Wish me luck!

I am honored that my High Latitudes project is now recognized as a Wings WorldQuest Flag Expedition! WINGS is an international organization based in New York that is dedicated to the supporting women involved in environmental conservation and field science. I just received flag #24 in the mail which I will carry to Greenland and I look forward to becoming involved with WINGS’ programs to promote scientific literacy and positive role models.