From Longyearbyen we crossed the big fjord, called Isfjorden, to a little fjord on the other side. We could look back and see the lights of Longyearbyen low on the horizon, but it was cloudy and windy and hard to stay on deck for long. I also felt like I was still getting used to how many layers of clothes I needed to keep warm – temps around freezing in New England generally have sunshine at noon, temps around freezing feels entirely different. I am grateful for my new puffy down coat (I bought it in Longyearbyen, realizing I needed it!) and all the layers of long underwear I packed thinking I wouldn’t need them all. We slept that first night in the fjord, and woke to find sea ice beginning to form all around the ship. It was thin and slushy, and made shushing noises against the hull.

We practiced our first landing, all the parts we need to know. How to get into the zodiac, what to hold onto, how to get out on the beach (the big waterproof boots make so much sense – we always wade ashore in relatively shallow water, no stepping dryfooted onto the beach), where to go and not go (do not get between the guides, stay inside the perimeter, so they can keep us safe) and then how to get back into the zodiacs and back on board Antigua safely.

We were relayed ashore in groups of eight, stomping and splashing ashore, and then separating to see how hard it would be to accomplish our personal pursuits. I tried drawing some of the landscape in my sketchbook, and couldn’t hold the pencil for very long. I put everything away and just walked along the beach, and then up over the small headland, looking at the geology (layers of very fine dark sandstone, tipped entirely vertically, easy to break along bedding planes). The big waterproof boots are also valuable for marching through snow, and supporting one’s ankles when tripping on things.

We were in the end of a small fjord, and ice was forming on the surface of the ocean, and the zodiacs had to do a tiny bit of ice breaking, and the sound it made was delightful. A sort of shushing over the surface. Over the course of the morning, the ice built up some and we had to do more ice breaking to get back to the ship. That was more crackling and crunching, as we’d smash through the thicker ice, or brush through the thicker pieces already broken up by the previous zodiac.

After returning to the ship, I think everyone had to reassess what they would be doing for the trip. So many of us came with large plans for work to do on land, or with snow or ice. I feel relieved that my plan for recording what I see and taking it home for notes for later work will work nicely, as will my plan to stitch a small piece about each day.

I continue to be amazed by the geology that is visible everywhere I look. There are the visible layers of depostion, there are places where faults can be clearly seen, and the edges of so many of the mountains are the edges of the bids, curved and tilted to form great swoops of rock, dusted with snow to emphasize the curves, and the darkness of the underlying rocks.

We headed out of Isfjorden completely, and north along the western edge of the main island, and found a small fjord further up. That was a night’s travel to arrive there.

We woke to endless floating bits of ice – bergy bits. They ranged from the size of an ice cube to the size of the zodiac (about 6m (18 ft) long and about 2m (6 ft) wide) and were all shades of blue, and from glass clear to white with bubbles. There is a distinctive noise around floating ice, the steady lapping of water at the waterline. I stayed on the ship in the morning, while others went ashore to admire what we dubbed Diamond Point. There were blocks if ice grounded there from the glacier further up the fjord, and they gleamed in the intermittent sun. I did go ashore in the afternoon, and after a quick sketch of the surroundings I wandered along the shore, throwing rocks into the ocean and practicing skipping stones.

We moved again in the night, further north, to a fjord with two arms of glacier separated by a big medial moraine and possibly some bedrock. Here I joined a zodiac cruise around the ice, both the big ice that was grounded near the front of the glacier and the big and small pieces of ice floating about in the bay in front of the glacier. I was in the boat with the people who were trying to video, and we were trying to be quiet, and my camera and my phone were both making a lot of little peeps and beeps that were making me feel extremely self concious, but two of us were both just faffing about while people like Paola were actually trying to do things like record and Josh had a camera on a stick that could go into the water – he unfolded the stick and poked it firmly into the water near the coolest of the grounded ice. I remembered my orange camera is waterproof and stuck it into the water until my hand was too cold to feel. It recorded water that was thick with rock flour from the glaciers, and hard to see anything through, but it was at least an interesting color.

After lunch Antigua upped anchor and we cruised along the face of the glacier, at a respectful distance, and peered at it through the snow, flakes falling over us, and on the deck and the floating ice, and in between us and the glacier. Steph and I were hanging over the rail staring at (and photographing) the ice in the water and the glacier across the water through the snow, and thinking about how to paint it or portray it in fabric. I feel like I packed exactly the right fabrics for this trip, heavily skewed towards all the blues and greens.

We arrived on the ship on Thursday afternoon, and after a quick orientation, everyone settled into their staterooms (we have staterooms – and in fact we have beds, with legs on the floor, and space under them to hide extra gear) and stow their gear. My bunkmate and I both had the same emotional moment standing there in our little room, realizing we are really here, in the arctic, on the boat, setting out on this enormous adventure.

We left Longyearbyen just before supper, so we ate underway and talked about how the trip would go.

We have four guides, and we are not allowed ashore without them. They have rifles and flare guns to protect us hapless artists from encroaching wildlife, mostly polar bears, and walkue-talkies to talk with each other and the ship, and backpacks full of emergency supplies and extra warmth and goodness knows what else. Our fearless leader is Sarah, and possibly the most frequently said words on the ship are “Sarah says…” We joke about her being a professional badass, an arctic superwoman, but as the trip has gone on, those jokes feel closer and closer to the truth. She is assisted by Tuomas, Lars and Sanna. Together they scout landings, set up perimeters, and oversee us working, or they accompany small groups of us as we move about. A substantial portion of the participants are able hikers, and looking forward to walking in the arctic landscape.

For artists, we have a broad array. A handful of people are collecting sounds for different reasons – to builds sounds for synthesizers, for manipulating into music, or as part of performance work. There are a couple of people painting, one composer, and then the photographers. No one is not taking pictures. Cameras range from very large, with gimbals and stabilizers, to DSLRs with extravagant lenses to everyone else taking pictures with point-and-shoot or phones. I am the only person stitching, but there are a lot of people knitting, including two of the guides and one of the mates. We have thirty artists, our guides and the ship’s staff.

The ship, Antigua, has as many people running the ship as there are people looking after us, which surprised me. We are very much passengers, fed and looked after by a capable crew of four – one cook, and three “service” staff. Four more people make the boat go; a captain, and three mates. There is no chance to take the helm, because we run mostly by autopilot, but we can, and are encouraged to, help with sail handling. The mates are the people running the zodiacs (we have two) between the ship and the landing sites, and stand watch when we are underway at night, as well as doing the ongoing boat maintenance. When I wake up at 3am to check on stars and auroras, I can hang out in the wheelhouse with First Mate Hans. We don’t talk much, but it is nice to be close to the mapper and see what is out there on the radar and the depth sounder.