Baltimore

The Compound /  by Liesl Pfeffer

Smoke Bellow

Smoke Bellow

The Compound, Baltimore, MD
July 2014

I spent an afternoon reading on the couch at the Compound in Baltimore while Smoke Bellow rehearsed for their upcoming tour. I don't know if it's an official name or just what everyone calls it, but the Compound is a farm, a home, a venue, artists studios and rehearsal space. While I was reading and listening to the distant sounds of Smoke Bellow practicing, a beautiful girl was weaving fabric on a large loom upstairs, and a sculptor was working on a tree trunk with a chainsaw outside. 

Swimming /  by Liesl Pfeffer

Outside Baltimore, MA
July 2014

When winter finally ended this year I made a resolution to swim as much as I could once the weather warmed. Coming from a city in Australia with a subtropical climate, where I had a backyard pool as a kid and escaped to the beach with my sister many weekends, winters in the northeastern USA have not been easy. I never appreciated how lucky we were that in winter we would sometimes need to slip on a light sweater or a thin scarf at night.  

So this year, I managed a few trips to the Rockaways, and some creek swims in the Hudson Valley, and this very cold swim with some very good people outside Baltimore in late July.