My work in the past few years has been as much about fan subcultures and audiences as about the films they love. Fan fiction - where fans create new scenarios from familiar narratives, thus subverting them - captivates me.

I had dinner with friend and performance artist Carrie Dashow the other night and she slipped me a DVD that said “Play Me” (Alice in Wonderland style)- very sneakily I might add. I dropped it into my computer the next morning to find a fabulous surprise. One of her Purchase students, Mike Peters, made a video response to my work Screen Kiss following a recent lecture I gave. It is quite wonderful. What’s that quote about imitation and flattery?

Above is a still from Steal a Kiss. You can see a few more stills on his website - click on “Projects”, but sadly not the video itself. I laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair. Mike if you’re reading this - put the video online!

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Update: Dec 20,
(originally posted as a comment from Mike Peters)

“Thank you, Jillian. I’m glad you liked it. Steal a Kiss is now online. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the server hosting my original site, but the video is on youtube. I’ll be working on a new web page in the near future. Until then…. for your fans:

Thanks again. Love your work.”

Upper Island Cove, Newfoundland

I watched The Mist a few nights ago on fast forward. Even Marcia Gay Harden’s apocalypse-hungry character could not save this film. SPOILER ALERT: The acting was so poor that at the end when our “hero” shoots four survivors including his own wide-eyed child to spare them from a fate torn apart by massive mist-dwelling CGI-tentacled critters only minutes before tanks pour in to the rescue, his grief is so shallowly performed the viewer can’t possibly care.

Speaking of mist, the California version blotted out the sun, and the entire landscape yesterday (hint: in the white is a beach, a lagoon, and hills):

This non-tentacled critter staggered out, but luckily didn’t see me, probably due to weather:

The fog is sneaky tonight, definitely not merely mist - the visibility well below one kilometer. Above, a view from my studio; Below, the same scene with “reveal particles” setting.

I wish you could hear the fog horns which are now about 20 seconds apart.

Fellow artist-in-residence Scot Kaplan told me last night that he just learned the two foggiest land masses in the world are Point Reyes, California (a little north of where we are in The Marin Headlands) and Argentia, Newfoundland (a little south of Conception Bay where I was in mid-July). No wonder I am dreaming of fog - I’ve been ensconced for weeks and it’s in my Newfoundland blood.

I can’t wait for The Fog and The Mist - a double feature coming from Netflix.

This is the view from my studio over the foggy hills of The Headlands. I’ve been sleeping inordinate amounts of time here, heavy as a fog, with no dreams.

If I thought Newfoundland was foggy, I should have held my breath until arriving at The Marin Headlands in California. For five weeks I’ll be at The Headlands Center for the Arts, and the landscape already has my jaw dropping. The rock is softer, more crumbly than on the east coast. The Headlands is at a former military camp nestled in National Park hills dotted with crumbling bunkers and sparsely covered in fragrant flora. In less than two days I’ve seen several deer, most of which were within twenty-five feet of me, a bobcat, wild turkeys, small unidentified red birds, and today a grey-blue rotting seal which washed up on the beach when I wasn’t looking - sneaky that Death character. Poison oak is everywhere, which is the only drawback. That and the ghosts. I’ve seen plenty of the former but none of the latter, so far.

The ocean is close and cold, when you can see it through the wall of fog.

I’m probably the only artist in residence who is wishing and hoping, though not yet praying lest the others lynch me, that the fog won’t lift.

Newfoundland is stunning: sheep lined up on the narrowest footpath with a view of the ocean and co-mingling with the seagulls; urchins wiggling their green spines and baring their teeth; minke whales diving in schools of black caplin; imported moose like brown tankers waiting at the sides of roads; bald eagles overhead, puffins too fat to fly; mussels and micro-starfish as tiny as my baby finger nail - all within walking distance of our home base. Kayaking and hiking along the frigid Atlantic were highlights for these Brooklynites.

Newfoundlanders refer both affectionately and disparagingly to their island as “The Rock”. A tremendous force carved these rocks, jutting from the bay:

Beckley and I just returned from visiting my family on the East Coast of Newfoundland. We had a restful and fun vacation, but the landscapes are stark, harsh, and magical. Horror-film worthy to say the least.

Don’t go in the Water!

The Howling

The Mist

The House that Sank into the Hill

Careful where you swim, my sweet

The House of Horrors

House on the Hill

The Fog

The Danger

I Know What You Did Last Summer

The Cellar

The Rocks

Incident at the Old Pig Farm *

*Special Thanks to Cara Kansala and Pam Dorey of Cara’s Joy who happily told me about the abandoned Pig Farm and showed me their zombie cats paintings.

I’m already half-planning the next trip: the icebergs and grey skies of Winter may be muses calling my name.