When in doubt, skate it out
I knew it would happen!I knew if I came to the Cariboo I better drive around with skates in the car because eventually, I'll come to a frozen, snow-free lake.
And then it happened.Driving past Williams Lake I noticed people walking and skating around.So I found the right street to the city park and parked up and laced my skates up.
And then I jumped tenderly skated right in!
So it took me a while to adjust to the wobbliness and the melt, freeze, melt patches of lake ice, but once I decided I'd just have to bulldoze skate over the frozen waves at a good speed, it was the most amazing thing in the world.Cracks and all.
I took a good hour around that lake. I skated to the middle, I skated back and forth along the shore, I skated over thin ice and thick. Over cracks and thru slush.It was the best, most glorious feeling.My advice is to skate every day!
The Last Supper
It's been some time, huh?It's been an age.
There's never a good place to start blogging again, is there?I've got six months of adventures and art and general goings-on to catch you up on, but I thought that maybe the best place to start is today. Right here. Right now.I was just at The Ashmolean Museum to see a special exhibition: The Last Supper in Pompeii.
In this exhibition were about 400 artefacts from the tragic city. There were pieces of homes, mosaics, practical everyday objects, and the charred remains of food; including stuffed dormice, roasted flamingos and fermented fish sauce.Oh, and 200 yr old ketchup.
What struck me so much about this exhibit was its narrow focus.Not the all expansive life of the Napa Valley of its day, not the crowded narrow double streets or the pumice tombs which encased so many people, but the intimacy of everyday dishes, glasses, kitchen pots.
We see a mosaic of ocean life which once was the floor of a house.
There's artwork on walls, statues and altars to garnish favour with gods.And everywhere there are reminders of the leading moto of that time:Carpe Diem.
Carpe Diem because you can just hear Vesuvius rumbling in the background.
Carpe Diem because in a brief moment life could be over.
So Carpe the hell out of your Diem everyone.
Every day.
PS: I'm just going to quietly backdate posts, publish them, be calm, and carry on.
Finding the footsteps of the those who came before
I've made friends with the Timbisha Shoshone people who've called this amazing place home for centuries. One of their elders told me stories of underground cities, of giants, of animal spirits who show the way to water if they accept you as one with the land.But before the Shoshone, there were ancients. Elders who came before them. The giants.I had it in mind to trace the footsteps of the prehistoric people who called this amazing place home.
Now, there are a couple places in the valley which are publically advertised as areas of hyrogliphs, but I was interested in areas which are secret, hidden.In all these cases I needed my 4 wheel drive to get me over flood beds and boulders, and then, when I drove as far as possible, I had to hike another two miles or so.If you want to do this then remember you are on your own. I probably don't have to tell you, but be smart. Leave word with someone where and when, take plenty of water, know how to use a compass, bring a small emergency pack and know your limits.
The trouble with finding areas like these is that sometimes idiots also find them, and these sacred areas end up defaced by the undying love of Kyla who hearts Zac.Tragic and devastating. How can people be so stupid?Unreparable, irreplaceable national treasure!
So the only way to actually see one of these places is to make friends, do research, puzzle out clues, map the trail yourself, and hope for the best.Following these rules, I will show you what I found but will not tell you where, and will leave that to you to puzzle out.
All the hierogliphs I found are chizled into highly polished granite.So I went to look for granite canyons.
In one case, the clue led me to an Indiana Jones boulder completely blocking the way, and there was some bouldering.
But mostly where were some small paths to follow.
And then, the treasure!In this case there is graffiti here. Turn of the century, but graffiti none the less.Most of the permanent marks were made by hitting a sharp object to make a dot, and to chisel the image into the granite. You can see someone defaced this site with a scratched X and a huge J B.
Here is one public hyroglyph. One of the repeating symbols is this "sun".
Here are some more.
No one knows what they mean, or, often, what they are meant to be.
Some are possibly bighorn sheep, arrows, possibly human forms, snakes?Or just the markings of time.
Many are on granite shot thru with beautiful quartz designs.Maybe this was somehow sacred.
So go. I've spent three days already hiking and finding them and painting.And if you do go, admire them, take only photographs, leave only footsteps.
And return to the floor of the valley.
Attempted crisis management: hunkering down in the desert
On an impulse I drove south.South for days.I came to the lowest place I could think of: Death Valley.After all, if one is at the lowest place, any move one makes has to be up! There's just nowhere lower to go.So I've come here to stay for a few days and sort myself out.
The soundlessness is huge. It's heavy.So is the air at 282ft below sea level, and that heaviness rushes into my lungs.I can finally take a deep breath. All the way without that horrible feeling of not being able to breathe.
The enormity of Death Valley is overwhelming.Miles and miles of sedimentary deposits, huge granite canyons, sandstone, sand, salt...
The sensation here is unlike anything in the forest.Some sort of power eminates from this harsh, unforgiving vastness.
Hiking here is nothing like the plodding down a green and wet forest path that I'm used to.Here the danger of being out of cell range and trapped by the heat without adequate supplies is very real.But the rhythmic dry crunch of the grit and sand and salt underfoot is comforting.
I'm going to stay here for a while.
I'm happy in this silence.
Read: The Wisdom of Donkeys by Andy MerrifieldListened to: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Crisis
Brief explanation:There is no art and there hasn't been in quite a while.I can't make myself "do" art. I end up staring at a piece of paper, tools, lino...whatever, spend four hours trying to "do" art, and end up throwing the thing away.The regimented push-pull of my days have become so extreme (with mom's recovery from her broken hip, with my relationship with Robert and my children, with my must-do-art-and-not-just-any-old-art-meaningful-art mindset, with finances, cats, housesitter, house, Trump, a burning planet, isolation, disillusionment) that I was just managing to hold it together without tearing myself apart.And then, a routine mammogram revealed a shadow.One more week of tension while I waited for further testing, a couple more days of tension while I waited for results.Turns out the shadow is a fibroid which attached itself to some tissue.Then, relief, tears, a crisis of the soul.I tried to keep it together. I tried just to pick up the broken pieces of my soul and carry on.
So here at the cabin in my fortress of solitude, (read: no electricity, no phone signal, no landline), I stare into my eyes rimmed red and blue, and grey with undereye bags.
I've felt disconnected to art for the past year - indifferent and empty around it. I did not care what I painted or printed or drew. It was like being out of love.But there's a deeper problem which underpins all of that and it has to do with subjugation.I walk for miles along the railroad tracks thinking about how to take care of myself in the pursuit of freedom. I bemoan the long labour littered with incremental successes and failures. The freedom I'm imagining has no form, no prescriptive path. I can't get it if I'm better at art, smarter with my money, get a job, quit a job, lose weight. People think about freedom as lightness, liberation, but I think it's really quite heavy. The heft of absolute personal responsibility.So many of life's choices are simulated for us. Encoded in the shimmering illusion of choosing from the complex bastions of culture; fashion, religion, politics, the wellness industry...These forms tell us what to look like, what to believe, who to vote for, etc, and it's a lighter way to be in the world. And it feels safe, tribal, comforting.Real freedom is terrifying and dangerous because it opens a chasm into unlimited potential repercussions.Also, it turns out that knowing what one wants and choosing for oneself is quite hard.
Time passing is the only way to sort it out.
As I write now, (days later), I see where I want to go. I think about the power of solitary, of ambiguity, of limitlessness. This is supposed to be the way to soul healing, but it's hard to talk about. It's a slippery fish.Book read: The Book of Help: A Memoir in Remedies by Megan GriswoldAudiobook: Practical Deamonkeeping by Christopher Moore
Happy New Year and new art inspiration
Happy New Year everyone!I arrived home a couple days ago to a very quiet house.Too quiet, especially after the last few days!But it was also a really good time for me to do some reflecting and make some decisions about what I would like my life to look like in 2019.
And so, with the final sunset of 2018,
I lit my candles and made a list. Came up with a plan. Well, not a plan as plans go, just a bunch of random ideas expressed as words on said list.
Then, this new year, this new morning, I began putting some of my ideas into action.
I think that I would like to keep this blog going and with greater regularity.I also am committing to more art, more inspiration, more of and a better Instagram presence, also, more time to answer all you dear friends who leave me comments, and come visit you. Just be more around.
So, one of my ideas, more isnpiration, that was easy.I went to the beach and wandered around.
Right now I'm loving these winter beachy colours.
And I'm also loving the way the winter storms beat up the tree bark.
I collected a bunch of beach finds and brought them home.Then, after a few trial and Edison moments, I made some lovely monotypes with the beaten up bark.
Happy New Year dear friends. I wish you all a year of abundance, joy and treasured moments.
June catch-up, oh yeah, we have a dog!
This is Ruby the red bone coon hound.Our littles named her.She's not exactly my dog, or Chloe's or Kerstin's (whose inspiration is the reason for Ruby), she is a collective family dog.
She's a puppy. A bit wild, a bit uncontrollable, a chaser, tree-er and a loud bayer, a swimmer, a destroyer of dog toys, a snaffler of cat food, a beggar, a digger, and a big snuggler, and, we love her to death. With solutions offered at www.ipetcompanion.net she will never be left at home alone.
She wants to be in the middle of everything we do.
Especially in the middle of beds.
We now have a new tradition of mornings at the dog park where we've met a bunch of new, lovely people and their dogs.We are also really guilty of getting to know our new friends as, Bill, Veronica, "Shadow's owner", "Bella's owner" "Tamaku's owner...
Now I'm not capable of committing to owning a dog because of my commitment to this lifestyle, but I'm happy to say that as a collective family dog, Ruby fits right in.Best of both worlds.
Bluebell heaven
You know, it's pretty rare for me to get here at the turning point of the seasons, but this year I managed just that.Four weeks ago, the trees were bare and the ground covered with frost, and today suddenly it's practically summer!One thing about a warm British spring are bluebell woods.Do you guys know about British bluebells?They're slightly more delicate than the typical Spanish garden variety and must be protected in the woods because the Spanish variety is invasive.Anyway, I asked Robert for a day out wherever there are bluebell woods and he took me to his childhood village Stoke Row.
We set off in my TVR, I drove there and got to Stoke Row just in time for lunch.We found the Cherry Tree pub and parked up.
Pretty car!
Robert was really happy to be back in Stoke Row and I loved that he kept telling me stories of his childhood and of the people who lived there.
After lunch, we parked up the TVR on the village green and got on our walking shoes.
This is R's childhood home, The Oak. He stripped back the paint on the Tudor beams himself and that dark building beside The Oak was his father's surgery.
So we walked past The Oak and into the beech woods.
The beech woods are so amazing. It feels like Robin Hood and his band of merry men could come out from behind any tree.
Or possibly fairies and goblins and elves could be living in any little nook.
Soon we got to a greener part of the forest and I was starting to get more excited about bluebells.
All around us bracken was just starting to unfurl.Bracken is so huge and so beautiful when fully grown.
And then, we came upon the first little clump under a beech tree.
And then a few more.
And then great swathes of them!I've never seen anything like that!The whole forest floor covered in bluebells!
I was in bluebell heaven.
Too soon it was time to go.Actually, R did ask if he should leave me there and head off to our friend's alone...lol.
Alright, alright, I'm coming.We jumped in my TVR and hooned out of Stoke Row, past the bluebell woods and off into the afternoon.
Happy winter solstice from the stone henge next door, and let the optimism begin.
Today is such a liminal day, isn't it?On the threshold of the turning of the daylight, I can almost feel the coming spring.In amongst the bare trees are huge balls of bright green mistletoe reminding us that even in the bleak mid-winter, there is life.
Here in the neighbouring village of Stanton Harcourt, at the little lake beside the henge called The Devil's Quoits, everything feels so exposed.
The harsh, cold and low sunlight exposes everything.Each branch is laid bare.
I saw a kite spread his wings and hover over the meadow. There is no cover right now.
On the little lake, the birds huddle in small, mismatched flocks.
I walk the mile or so down the little path and come to the henge.This is not THE STONE HENGE, but it is a Neolithic stone henge some 5000yrs old and vibrates with magic and the spirit of the priestess who was buried in the center.
What magic and mystery lies underneath the ground only the rabbits know as they burrow into the heart of the henge all around the 120 meter perimiter ditch.
I come here as often as I can.I feel connected to this henge and to the light of the priestess underground.I don't feel compelled to visit Wiltshire and the very public henge on this day and join in the massive pegan celebration. I'm content to walk this ground in quiet contemplation.
I walk around touching each stone feeling happy and at peace.
I stay to watch the sun set behind the East stone, say goodbye to the dark, and begin to look forward to the light reclaiming the night minute by minute.
Have a blessed winter solstice everyone.
A September roundup
Hi again,I've just been looking thru my photos of the past week and, oh my word, we've done a lot.Also, because we've been so busy, I haven't been keeping up with my posts, so now that we're into October, I thought it was time for a roundup round here.
Robbie is still in Vancouver, which is lovely for us,
and, with his help, I've been managing to work thru some tough decisions I have to make.
One easier decision is guessing the right time to return my indoor plants indoors.I love letting them have an outdoor holiday over the summer, and I think they thrive more when they come back inside for the winter.
I'm also trying to gauge the right time to protect some less hardy plants which have to stay outside, like this phormium, a few scented geraniums, and two red bananas.
Last Friday was the last Shipyards Market for the season.
Not being here for the prime three months of the market season, we only really got a few Fridays in, but they were fun to the max.
We came down for supper.We'd walk around all the food trucks and usually pick our favourite fish and chips.
Then a little ice cream or a sweet treat for dessert.
And then we would stay till closing, watching the city sparkle, listening to the band and having a little dance.
There hasn't been much time for art lately, which I know is bad, but my therapy journal workshops have started again and it's so lovely to see all my old friends who love to come journal with me and some new friend who can benefit from my approach.In other news, I prepared several wood panel paintings for a demonstration and practical class for Culture Days at the Arts Council.I love supporting my local arts council, and, face it guys, if you don't support your local arts culture in your town, what will you have?
I had a full class with 20 people signed up and several more on the waitlist.
I taught them some collage and painting and transfer techniques which they can apply to wood panels and possibly enter the anonymous show at the Arts Council, which will be held at the end of October.If you'd like to enter this show, (and there's plenty of time), then the info is here. My last year's post about this show is here.
I supplied some ephemera, prints of my bird sketches, transparent paper and matte medium, and the council supplied the rest.We only had an hour and half together, but everyone did a brilliant job!
The other news in our world is that we have been seriously contemplating a move out of North Vancouver into the country, but we're not sure where.
Somewhere where there is a bit of land, not too far out of the city, not on a busy road, in the sunshine, with some trees, barns, a pond or stream or waterway...
...oh, and did I meantion that I want to take the hosue with me?Crazy as it seems, I'm contemplating moving not just us, but the whole house and garden because I know full well that my beautiful Craftsman house will be bulldozed down to make way for a modern duplex on this lot the minute I sell it. Furthermore, all the garden plants, which I've saved from local construction sites in the first place, will be lost to the bulldozer too! I just can't bring myself to allow that.So as crazy at it seems, we might be in for a new adventure.
But then, there's nothing new about that with us, is there? :D