I could talk at length about isolation, coming from Manitoba.  Working in the hinterland, I do not seem to have been included comfortably within any particular glass community in Canada (Alberta, Quebec, Ontario, the West Coast).  As you know I come out of the early days of the Canadian studio glass movement which I suppose itself was a hinterland of the earlier American movement.  So many of the people who brought hot glass here were American (Robert Held, Karl Schantz, Dan Crichton, Mel Munsen, Marty Demaine and the rest).  So I suppose I work in a hinterland of a hinterland.  How much solitude is that?  Whenever I do get a chance to compare notes, I find the way I have learned to do things is at times technically unorthodox/nonstandard.... Developing the technical side is much easier now - if only there had been an internet in 1973.... On the upside, this isolation has allowed me great creative space.  I have never had a problem coming up with ideas, but I always have had a problem being visible.                                                                                                                       - correspondence with Irene Frolic, 2009

A volume could be written on artisanal survival strategies alone.... Or the huge problem of invisibility for artisans operating in the hinterland of a country with cultural imperial centre(s).                                                            - from Jean A. Chalmers proposal, 2011