I am currently at Ricklundgarden , an artist residency in Southern Lapland, Sweden where I am co-teaching a painting workshop with Rebecca Crowell . This is the view out my studio window: Kultsjon Lake with snow-covered mountains behind it. It was a journey to get here--a long flight from Toronto, a layover in Munich, overnight in Stockholm, a 90 min flight up to Vilhelmina and an hour long bus ride to the tiny village of Saxnas. We are only one hour south of the Arctic Circle here, so the days right now are about 18 hours long. But it is twilight until long past midnight. There are five artists in the workshop, three from Canada and two from Sweden who are working together in the bright studio of the main building. I'm ensconced in the cozy Annex next door to the main building where I have a beautiful studio overlooking the lake and the mountains beyond. Paradise. There is much more snow here than we expected to find. There...