Seems like years, but it's only two weeks ago I was in Kingston, enjoying some local hospitality.
My first night's host, Peter Coffman, was also my partner-in-crime for the weekend's Chapters event. If you don't know Peter's work, find out about it. Three years ago, Peter walked the Camino with Canadian violinist extraordinaire Oliver Schroer. Along the way, Oliver composed and recorded the haunting melodies that are collected on his 2006 album, Camino. The recordings were made in acoustically perfect churches, giving the music a sublime resonance and brightness.
Peter, formerly a commercial photographer, chronicled the journey in powerful black-and-white images. These are featured on the album cover and notes, and won Peter the 2007 Independent Music Awards prize for Album Photography. You can see a few of these images in the Camino gallery on Oliver's website. For the rest, you'll have to be patient till the long-awaited petercoffman.com site is finally launched. (Keep checking; Peter promises it's coming soon.)
As for my second night's hosts, well they don't really have anything to do with the Camino (though they crossed its path a few times on a trip to Spain earlier this year) but they're disgustingly talented too: Lise Carruthers, a landscape artist and painter whose tornado-and-wind funnel series make for a unique guest bedroom experience, and Rob Gonsalves, a Governor-General's award-winner for his whimsical, perspective-shifting paintings (see the children's books Imagine a Night and Imagine a Day (Atheneum)). And though Rob doesn't know it yet, he's going to do the cover for the reissue of Virgin Trails, whenever that happens.
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