A wonderful way to get here!

Every time we get chatting to people we like to ask where they're from and if they're on holiday. We always hope for an interesting tale. And the other day we heard a truly fantastic story!

Our friend Will was talking to a lovely couple from Brooklyn, New York. When asked if they were on holiday they told him this:

One day they moved apartment. On the fridge of their new apartment was a photograph of people on the edge of Western Brook Pond. Here's some photos Liv took of Western Brook Pond, just so you can imagine finding one on your new fridge! She's a snap happy kind of girl.

So, back to the story. These people thought the photo was so beautiful that they started researching, found it was in Newfoundland and decided to visit! They also looked up other places to see and ended up right here in Woody Point!

We might start posting photographs to random addresses around the world!

Holidays!

After our super hectic Writers Festival week we took some time off! The Galliott Studios girls took some time to go to the beach! Sadly we chose to go on a rainy day. Here's some photos of us having a good but soggy time!

But we're back at work now! It's been a rainy day again today and it felt like a perfect day for tea and slippers! Here we are just as the sun broke through the cloud!

Why not drop in and join us for tea?

VOBB at Galliott Studios

Galliott Studios is located in Woody Point, which sits on the beautiful Bonne Bay. We like it here a lot! We also like that there's a local radio station here, and that it's great. Voice of Bonne Bay always has lots of interesting shows with music from all over the world. You can listen live on the website http://www.vobb.org/

And today, as a special treat, we have VOBB broadcasting from right here in the Studio! The  wonderful Anita Best is playing lots of music and interviewing a whole host of interesting guests. Here's a photo!

We stole this picture from the Writers at Woody Point facebook page, which you could look at here http://www.facebook.com/writersatwoodypoint

The picture shows Anita interviewing Stephen Brunt. The writer's festival is his baby and it's always amazing hearing him talk about everything that's going on!

In similar news, the Galliott Studios girls will be on VOBB this Thursday at 6.30pm. We'd like it if you listened!

Impromptu music

We've just found a photo of one of our Writers at Woody Point highlights! On Thursday Steve Maloney and Katie Baggs dropped in and had an impromptu show here in the Studio! We loved it! For those of you who might not know the name, Steve is a St John's musician. He's top. Here's a link to a video, it's definitely worth a listen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNNZ7gXIMI0 We're huge fans!

Here's the photo!

Katie plays with an awesome band called All the Wiles. She also has one of the most beautiful voices we've ever heard! Check out the website http://allthewiles.com/

If you get the chance to go see All the Wiles or Steve Maloney, you definitely should. Chances are we'd see you there!

Writers festival!

Well, we've had a brilliant week! There have been lots of readings from incredible writers; tons of music and so many good times it's hard to remember them all! We're sorry we haven't been blogging, we've been super busy. But we're back on it now!

We were lucky enough to have a series of free readings here at Galliott Studios. On Friday Linda Spalding was reading here; then on Saturday we were joined by Lisa Moore and yesterday saw a reading from Jamie Fitzpatrick. All three writers were great, and our book wish list has expanded massively!

Here's a photo of Jamie Fitzpatrick's reading

We stole this picture from the Writers at Woody Point facebook page. It's great and includes lots of information and awesome photos. Check it out herehttp://www.facebook.com/writersatwoodypoint

Thanks to Linda, Lisa and Jamie. And thanks to everyone that came out to hear them read. We hope you all enjoyed it!

The Count

Today we heard the sad news that Jerry Nelson has passed away. Jerry was the voice of The Count on Sesame Street. We love The Count and are really sad to have heard the news. Here's a picture we found of Jerry and The Count.

Jerry Nelson was a legendary puppeteer and we're sure he'll be fondly remembered by kids all over the world.

Swimming...and JAWS!!!

Tomorrow will be the fourth annual swim across the bay! A hardy group of us will swim the mile across Bonne Bay. It's sure to be great, but possibly a wee bit chilly.

To celebrate our successful swim we'll be showing Jaws on the wharf tomorrow evening. The showing will be at 11pm and the film will be shown on a projection screen on the wharf! We're very excited about it! Our friend Ryan will be swimming and watching with us. He made us a poster!

If you'd like to join us for the swim across the bay, come over to Galliott Studios by 10.30am tomorrow. That's straight after our free reading by Douglas Walbourne-Gough, so why not come for both?

For the swim we implement a buddy system and have support boats to make sure everyone's safe. Don't worry if you're not the strongest swimmer, you'll be able to ride the rest of the way in a boat if you get tired. If you don't have a buddy in mind, that's fine too. You could make a new friend during the swim!

We'd also like to point out that it's not a race. If you're uber competitive you might need to reign yourself in a bit, we like everyone to swim together. It's more fun that way!

Jaws is a free showing, but we can only fit a limited number of people onto the wharf so make sure you're here around 11pm. It's going to be great!

Check back Friday for photos!

Project Bookmark

Our friend Miranda Hill arrived in Woody Point today! Miranda is a wonderful writer and is here to read from her new book, Sleeping Funny at Writers at Woody Point. We're really excited to read the book and looking forward to having a sneaky preview at this weeks reading!

Here's a picture of Miranda looking lovely here at Galliott Studios

And here's a link to her website. It's great! http://mirandahill.com/

Miranda is also the founder and executive director of Project Bookmark. We LOVE this project and think you would too. Project Bookmark Canada installs plaques (called “Bookmarks”) bearing text from stories and poems in the exact physical locations where literary scenes are set. The nationally registered charitable organization is building a cross-Canada network of site-specific literary installations that will allow Canadians and visitors to read their way right across the country.

We stole that explanation from their website, which you can see here http://projectbookmarkcanada.ca/

Woody Point will be graced with the first Bookmark outside of Ontario, and the eleventh Bookmark overall. This Bookmark will be for Al Pittman's poem 'The Sea Breeze Lounge' and will be unveiled as part of Writers at Woody Point on Thursday 23rd August at 12.30pm on the Woody Point waterfront. More information at http://www.writersatwoodypoint.com/hold-wp-schedule.html

We hope to see you there!

Douglas Walbourne-Gough at Galliott Studios

We're very excited! Why? Because Douglas Walbourne-Gough is coming to read here at Galliott Studios! Doug's our favourite poet. He's lots of other people's favourite too and has won lots of awards like an Arts and Letters Award in the Senior Poetry category and the 2011 SPARKS Literary Festival Haiku Contest! He's also an editor and arts organiser. Very impressive!

Here's a picture of Doug reading at the April Rabbit

Doug was recently awarded a second NLAC Professional Project Grant for his current project, The Crow Gulch Poems, a research based manuscript of poetry exploring the now-defunct community of Crow Gulch.

He'll be reading from both Humber Mouths 2: Voices from the West Coast of Newfoundland (Scop2), which he co-edited with Dr. Stephanie Mckenzie, as well as exerpts from The Crow Gulch Poems.

Sounds pretty top eh? Doug will be reading here at Galliott Studios this Thursday, 23rd August at 9.30am. It'll be a small reading and a great opportunity to meet Doug himself. So why not come along? It's a free reading and everyone is welcome!

Sunday night's Sherman show!

Another great Sunday night here at Galliott Studios! Sherman Downey entertained us and a jam packed studio with a solo set. Poor lad had a bit of a croaky throat, but powered through and delivered a great show. Quite the trooper it seems!

Here's a photo!

Liv got all embarrassed when Sherman thought her posters were made by a child. But he took one for his band room and signed one for our wall of fame. Looking good so far!

  

Hopfully we'll be adding some more to the wall pretty soon, but this week is the writers festival, so no music from us. We'll be having lots of art, music and wonderful writing going on in town though, so we'll keep you posted!

Thanks to everyone who came out to party with us last night. And a big thank you hug to Sherman himself for putting on such a great show even when he was feeling under the weather.

Get well soon Sherman!

Espresso!

It's been a few days since our last blog post and we're sorry! We've been super busy getting ready for tonight's Sherman Downery show and the Writer's at Woody Point festival. It's our favourite week of the year!

A few posts back we showed a lovely picture of Jenn making espresso cups for the goody bags that all of the performers get at Writers at Woody Point. And now they're finished! We like them so much we thought we'd share another photo. So here it is!

Pretty great, we're sure you'll agree! Hopefully all those writers and musicians will come down for an espresso, so we can be suitably star struck!

Sherman Downey portrait posters

We loved the portrait posters we made for Matt Hornell. And Sherman Downey is playing here on Sunday. So guess what!

Liv did both of these. She's really glad she spent 3 years at art school.

Check out the information, Sherman and some of the boys will be here on Sunday at 8.30. Tickets $10 advance, $15 on the door, but it's looking less and less likely there'll be any left for the door. So get them now!

Gros Morne photo times

We've got lots of art friends at Galliott Studios, but one of our newest is Jacqueline Bradley. You might have read about her a few posts back, but we think she's worth a double shot.

She's from Australia, she's fun and she makes great art. And great art is our favourite kind. Have a look here http://www.jacquelinebradley.com.au/

Today we Galliott Studios girls and a few friends hiked up Gros Morne mountain to take some photos of some of Jacqueline's new artwork. For those of you from away, here's a photo of the mountain

And here's a photo of us all hiking with our backpacks full of arty things

And here's a photo of Genna having a little relax after lots of hiking

We can't show you any photos of the wonderful art, even though we're very excited about it. That would just be mean! But take our word for it, it's amazing! We'll post links when everything's finished up and published.

Sherman Downey at Galliott Studios

Guess what! Sherman Downey's playing at Galliott Studios!

Here's a picture. We're not sure if they always use the washroom together, but we like to think so!

You should probably check out their website. It's nice. http://shermandowney.ca/

Sadly we won't be having the whole band playing here. It's a shame but we're just too small of a venue. And we'd quite like it if some of you could fit in too!

The show will be this Sunday at 8.30pm. That's our favourite show time it seems. Advance tickets are $10, standing room only. We can only fit 50 people in, so make sure to get your tickets good and early!

See you Sunday!

Arty presents? We like those!

We've just noticed that we've been blogging lots about music. We love music, it's great. And we love having awesome musicians coming to play in the Studio, and we feel really special when we get to hang out with them! Happy Galliott girls!

However, we also love art. So here's some news about what we've been up to!

Very shortly the amazing Writers at Woody Point festival will hit town. We're excited. Very excited. It's a week where we get to listen to lots of incredible authors reading extracts from their books. We also get to listen to some great musicians and even have a bit of a dance. More things that we like! Here's a link to the Writers at Woody Point website http://writersatwoodypoint.com/

And here's a video our friend Jim made about last years festival http://vimeo.com/30727384

Anyway, back to the art. Every year, the authors and musicians receive a goody bag. Every one loves a goody bag, and we love giving presents. Perfect match! This year we decided that hand made espresso cups were the order of the day. Here's a lovely photo of Jenn making some!

We'll let you see more pictures soon, when they're all finished and pretty.

There's lots of love in this post. But we're just that type I suppose!

A good old Newfoundland time!

Last night we were lucky enough to have a time with Mike Madigan! For those of you not in the know, a time is the traditional Newfoundland word for a gathering or party. Fun times!

Mike's a traditional musician and entertained the crowd with tales and tunes. Lots of locals got to sing along and reminisce, whilst our new friends from all different countries and provinces learned something about traditional Newfoundland culture. Great stuff, eh?

Here's a nice photo of Mike looking all outdoorsy

Mike also plays for a band called The Sharecroppers. We borrowed the photo from their website, which you can check out here http://www.thesharecroppers.net/

A particular highlight for us was when the whole studio was filled with a gang of spooners! They were playing the spoons, not just snuggling.

Check back later for more on this weeks musical offerings!

Sunday night Studio times!

Last night we had our first live music show here at Galliott Studios! Matthew Hornell played to a packed house. Matt put on an incredible show as usual, and his friend Pat Coleman showed us what great drumming really is!

For those of you didn't make it, Matt's a fantastic musician from Grand Falls. He always puts on a great show and he's a really nice guy! His website's pretty great too. We like anyone who includes photos of themselves in a bathrobe! Have a peek http://www.matthewhornell.com/

Here's some photos from last night's show

Papa Galliott even got up for a song!

Thanks to everyone that turned out to enjoy the evening with us. We were very busy but very happy ladies!

And a massive great big thanks to Matt and Pat for such a fantastic show. We owe you a big squeezy hug each! They're yours to collect whenever you're back in the area!

cheers!

We Galliott Studios ladies are pleased to announce that we're the proud owners of a brand shiny new liquor licence! We did a small dance when it arrived!

Here's a photo of a happy Jenn with Maisie, who is enjoying Galliott Studios first glass of wine along with some delicious cheese!

We now have a range of red and white wines and local Newfoundland beer. Why not come over and have a celebratory drink with us?

Cheers!

The Great Matt Hornell Poster Portrait Competition!

As many of you know, Matthew Hornell is playing a show here at Galliott Studios on Sunday. We thought we'd like to advertise with posters so we decided to get creative with a head to head poster battle! Here's a couple of photos of our new posters

Our posters include two pretty different portraits of Matt himself! The top poster was made by our master baker and general foodie extraordinaire Andrew. Turns out he's pretty nifty with a pen too. Jennifer also had a bash at it, with the bottom poster. Liv's got a sore wrist so no posters from her. Cop out!

So, whichever poster you prefer, the information's the same. Matt and his friend Pat will be playing a show here, at Galliott Studios. The fun will start at 8.30pm, but you're welcome to come along at 8.00 as per Andrew's poster! Tickets cost $10. Space is filling up fast, so if you're hoping to come along let us know! 1 709 453 2142

A Smack of Jellyfish!

Did you know that the collective noun for a group of jellyfish is a smack? We didn't, but we're glad we do now! It's our favourite fact of the day!

And here's our very own smack

They're a lot like the ones in the bay, just more fun!

The struggle

The Galliott Studios girls are in awe of our friends Andrew and Will. They got up early this morning and attempted the struggle on their bikes.

For those of you who aren't in the know, the struggle is a HUGE hill. It's enough of a hill that Liv thinks it deserves capitals. The Struggle. That's better. Anyway, today is a very hot and very windy day. Not the best for cycling. The boys were beaten by the wind, but we're sure they'll be at the top very soon.

We reckon that more tea might help them build up to the next attempt!

If you manage the struggle, come in for a celebratory cuppa. We'd love to hear about it!

Matt Hornell at Galliott Studios

Well, we're very excited! Why? Because we're planning a bit of a do!

Matt Hornell will be playing here at Galliott Studios on Sunday 12th August. Matt is a fantastic singer songwriter from Grand Falls. He's also lots of fun and always puts on a great show. We've been big fans since we heard him supporting Hey Rosetta! at last years' Writers at Woody Point!

Here's a picture.

We swiped it from Matt's website, have a look at that too! http://www.matthewhornell.com/

We're very excited about having a show here in the studio. Come along and party with us, it's sure to be a great night! Tickets cost $10 and are available now!

Oh, and we'll be celebrating something very exciting that night. More info to come soon, but we're sure you'll like it!

We heart coffee!

Ever been to a coffee shop and had a fancy design drawn in the top of your cappuccino? Well, Jenn can do that! She's been trying to teach Liv. Here's her best attempt yet. She definitely didn't cheat and use a spoon!

Why not come down and try one? Liv might not be great with hearts but she can make you a delicious coffee with a cloud on top. Or an iceberg. She thinks they're better than hearts anyway!

Oh, and we heart tea too.

Happy Yorkshire Day!

Today is Yorkshire Day! Liv is from Yorkshire and is feeling very proud of the motherland. She's making roast beef and Yorkshire puddings for supper for the whole Galliott Studios gang tonight.

Before that, we'll all be heading to the discovery centre to hear the artist talk by our new friend, Jacqueline Bradley. Here's a link to her website http://www.jacquelinebradley.com.au/ You should definitely go too, she's a very interesting lady with some wonderful arty ideas! 7pm at the discovery centre.

Why not try making some Yorkshire puddings tonight? They're super tasty, even in today's 30 degree heat! Here's a link to a recipe. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/yorkshire_pudding Liv reckons her's are the best in the world. And she's willing to enter into a Yorkshire off to prove it!

Once again, Happy Yorkshire Day everyone!!