Forced
To lie in bed,
Gnawing with wrath at weakness,
She ravened up
And wandered in the wilds.
Bold and insolent,
Able to bear shame and anguish no longer
Fierce
Brave
and stubborn
Forced to fly
White with great age
And the calmness of deep learning
While I am tucked away in the studio building The Academy for the fall, I am taking little breaks to nourish and express my creative spirit. I have a love of poetry and have been delighting in creating little found poems from an old book.
With the seasonal approach of the studio, one of my plans has always been to take time off between seasons. So far I have often found myself right into the next, plotting and planning, designing and creating behind the scenes. This month, however, it looks like there will be time for me to meander the boardwalk, journal in coffee shops and catch up on my sleep. In anticipation, I find myself walking slowly through my neighbourhood, enjoying the beauty this time of year holds.
It’s already a bit late in the season to be getting to the garden centre but there was still plenty of beauty! I always put some annuals out front, usually some dark red geraniums and some purple wave petunias, neither of which were available so I made some new choices. What’s funny is that I didn’t even notice that I had picked the same colour scheme! I guess I just like it, especially against the green of our house.
Verbena Hybrid – Lanai Dark Red Verbena (annual)
Salvia longispicata x farinacea – Mystic Spires, Blue Salvia (perennial)
Euphorbia Hybrid – ‘Star Dust Super Flash” Euphorbia (annual)
Delphinium elatum – “Guardian Lavender” Delphinium (perennial)
Pieris japonica – ‘Brouwer’s Beauty’ Japanese Pieris (shrub)
These give me a sense of serenity and sanctuary just looking at them. Tomorrow I’ll get them in the ground and let them start the process of making our garden home.
Some days fill you with a deep sense of gratitude for your life. For me, today was such a day.
Justin is home after a week visiting his father in Curacao (who is there staying with a friend). It was so good for him to go and so weird for us to be apart. We Skyped every day and throughout the week Justin would send me fun pictures of his adventures, from the surprise of iguanas to grocery shopping with his dad.
My fear of flying made the beginning and the end the hardest part of the trip, even though it wasn’t me that was getting on the plane! On each travel day, I loaded Justin’s airline number into a tracker and watched its progress with anticipation, sending love to the flight and everyone on it. I am so thankful he arrived and returned safe and sound.
Today we went on a wonderful Saturday adventure to the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario. This year I decided to become a member and I am so thrilled I did. There is such joy in not only being able to go whenever I like but also in being able to share. I went to the Mystical Landscapes exhibit three times, once by myself, once with Justin and once with Shannon. Plus, I’m surprised by how much I feel like (and like feeling like) a part of the gallery.
I knew I would enjoy this exhibit and I did, especially the abstract pieces and yes, of course, the flowers. I was captivated again and again not only by colour but also by composition.
But even more than the art, I was fascinated by the artist. I searched through the gallery’s write-ups for clues about who she was as a creative and as a person. I was struck by her strength and her presence. I wanted to sit with her at a table under the night’s sky with a glass of wine or a cup of tea and listen to her talk about her life and her work for hours.
After our visit to the gallery, Justin and I kept with our tradition of going out for a bite and chatting about what we had seen. Of course, we also stuck with our tradition of taking a while to choose a place to eat! It didn’t matter. The sky was blue, the sun was shining and the temperature was idyllic. We walked by our old apartment building right behind the Art Gallery and meandered through the familiar Queen West neighbourhood. We remembered Justin’s late night walks and remarked on how so many of the stores and restaurants on the street had changed. We reminisced about Taro, The Tequila Bookworm (still there but much changed) and Velvet Underground. (The photo is of the door to that club.)
We stopped for a coffee and perused Yelp for a good spot for a bite. We decided on Beast and it looked like a treat but by the time we arrived they were wrapping up lunch service. We put it on our list for another day. In fact, it inspired a fun idea. Perhaps you’ve seen people create their 40 in 40 lists – 40 things they want to do in their 40th year (or 30 in 30, 50 in 50 etc.) Justin and I have decided to do a similar list based on the years we’ve been married – our 15 in 15! So far we’ll be making homemade gnocchi and going to the Scarborough Bluffs.
For today, we ended up at Canteen on King Street, sitting on the patio with a view of the CN Tower and having a lovely meal. It was so good to be together, chatting about art, eating lovely food, having walked 10,000 steps in downtown Toronto, through old haunts and new finds, doing it all together.
A couple of years ago, I braved registering for a collage course at the Toronto School of Art, facing my creative desires and working through my fears and negative experiences with this kind of an environment. I learned a lot about collage, about myself and about the stories I had about art school. This summer I am returning for a second class: paper-cutting and collage. I feel free, inspired and at home. It helps that I’m working with the same teacher. Let me share with you a little of what I’m learning.
The first exercise we did was adding collage materials to abandoned paintings. Our focus was the face. It is admittedly a rather unnerving experience to cut the face down into component parts. (I talked about this a bit on stART.) It had me thinking about the nature of collage, the messages of deconstruction that are inherent in using this art form.
Then we created another portrait, this time using the offcuts, making use of negative space. It was magical to see characters come to life as we built them up from scraps that might have been left behind, papers that would normally have been be put into recycling.
Next we created geometric collages. I made this one based on the Three-Part Harmony Quilt taught by Anna Maria Horner on Creativebug. I loved its strategy of creating with a tonal palette of lights, mids and darks. I completed two collages, one with the darks being predominant and this one, where the lights are.
Our next assignment was paper weaving. We chose two images, making slits in one and strips out of the other and then brought them together with weaving. This process takes patience and a bit of dexterity but it is fascinating to discover what emerges when the piece is complete. I experimented with a gradual expanding of both the width of the strips and the the amount of space between them. I wondered if this would create a sense of growing expansion.
My favourite unofficial activity during class is scanning the room for found art. You won’t believe what this piece is. Take a moment and see if you can guess…. It’s the art school sink after a good cleaning and scrubbing.
Some beautiful boards tucked away for student use.
And my favourite: the well-used tabletop.
The return of open windows is one of the gifts of spring. As the kittens enjoyed the fresh air, I followed their gaze into the backyard.
While they watched for birds and squirrels, my eyes caught sight of green!
I rushed outside to free the sprouting bulbs from their protective winter covering of leaves and chicken wire.
Oh, the joy of discovery!
I love this tender stage of the garden – the sweet shapes, the fresh colours.
As if that wasn’t joy enough, the sun came out just as I freed these new shoots.
That is the magic of the garden. As I clear the way and discover new life, I feel close to myself, to the Earth and to my mom.
From a distance, it looks like a big mess and a patch of dirt.
But when you look closely, there is beauty to be found.
It’s fall and I’ve been feeling badly about neglecting my garden this year. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the intense work going on in the studio. I hardly got out there at all. Weeds grew to a massive height. Grass pushed the boundaries, establishing dominance over the garden borders. Stray morning glories wound their way tightly around phlox and roses, intertwining their fates for the season. When I saw my peonies covered in powdery mildew, I wanted to go back inside.
Instead. I looked a little closer. Here’s what I saw.
The beauty of life always and always finds a way and that always and always gives me hope.
