Marja-Leena Rathje

by Marja-Leena

month to Christmas

– a locally made replica of a Viking boat in front of the Scandinavian Centre

– the gorgeous stone fireplace in the grand room – note the old wooden skis…

A sunny Sunday! Today we went with two daughters and two granddaughters to one of several popular annual Christmas Craft Fairs at the Scandinavian Center, this one organized by the Finns. Husband bought some pulla and lots of Karelian piirakkas, we even enjoyed some there. We bought hand-made straw ornaments for our trees. I found an exquisite Finnish linen table runner for a dear friend, and some wildly colourful hand knit slipper socks for myself for when insomnia strikes and I wander about at night, read and have sleepytime tea.

Back at home and with the light still good, I took several photos of our granddaughters’ hands holding some of those straw ornaments. I’m going to try making Christmas cards with one of them – wish me luck. I can’t believe it’s a month to Christmas… what a procrastinator am I, every year.

November 25, 2012 in Being an Artist, Culture, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric 12 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

scrunched 2

More explorations with torn and scrunched papers, this time from magazines. Quite different from the scrunched print I did recently. Wonder where these are going?

November 21, 2012 in Being an Artist, Photoworks, Textures 18 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

fog and sun

8:12 a.m., November 15th, 2012

In a very wet month,
a rare moment of brilliant light
mirrored in water
softened by fog

(Compare to November 19th, 2008)

November 19, 2012 in Home, Nature, Photoworks 9 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

ancient doors

I’ve been off on a tangent today starting with reading blogs, as often happens. I’d been visiting my friend Mouse where curiousity sent me exploring the site of a commenter. Her photos of ancient doors in Provence are so beautiful and compelling that I began to wonder whether I had taken anything similar in my relatively limited travels.

I pulled out our Italy 1993 photo album (pre-digital days!) and got lost in there for a while. I found numerous images of arches, which I love, and ornate doors in grand cathedrals such as in Florence. But really none are of very old doors in homes, except for a glimpse of the ones in a beautiful old stone house in the Appennines. Below is my favourite one, a bricked-in door in a wall (not a home) by the Etruscan castle in San Severa. It was used it in my Meta-morphosis VI prints.

I often wonder why I have this love for the very old and weathered, yet I would not tolerate our home looking like that. I know it is partly about the setting for we live in a very young part of North America. If we let our house get this rundown, our neighbours would have it condemned! But there are a few historic sites even here, such as the old Britannia shipyards in Steveston, where I found some locked doors.

Doors are so everyday, yet they can have a mystery, even hold hidden fears in dreams and tales. When they are weathered and ancient, their history calls out. Who lived here? What stories happened behind these doors?

November 18, 2012 in History, Photoworks, Textures 16 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

rosemary

dew of the sea
woody herb in my garden
evergreen hemlock-like needles
greens for fall and winter bouquets
overly strong fragrant oils on my fingers
name of a childhood friend

Added Nov.15th:
The phrase ‘rosemary for remembrance’ has been playing in my head.
Just now, I’ve found the source, dear Will Shakespeare, of course:

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

– Hamlet (1601) act 4, scene 5
(from The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations)

November 14, 2012 in Nature, Photoworks 13 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

fallen phal

This particular phaleonopsis or moth orchid in my collection has been blooming for several months. Today two flowers fell off and I felt the urge to scan them. I love seeing closely the fine textures and patterns – imagine them larger on a full screen.

Compare this to some earlier scanned phals: papery and freshly fallen.

November 7, 2012 in Nature, Photoworks 11 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

in progress

Here’s a peek at some of my work that is in progress in the printmaking studio. These are early trial proofs. More about these later when the series is a bit more finished.

I must get outside to work in the garden! It is a rare day when it is not pouring rain, the morning fog is burning off and it is sunny on a day that I don’t have other pressing commitments. See you later…

November 5, 2012 in Being an Artist, Digital printmaking, Hands, Printworks 7 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

scrunched

…. some play with torn and crumpled printed paper

And, wishing a spooky yet safe Halloween, weather and storms permitting. The link has my favourite image for this day.

October 31, 2012 in Being an Artist, Photoworks, Textures 11 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

deer, oh dear

Some of us were out this morning at violin lessons and running errands. During our last stop, a message came from home with an image of deer in our backyard!

At home, we heard about how they had come in the yard, sniffing around and feeding on berries. Younger granddaughter had been excited and gone outside the back door but they were not alarmed. The two deer rested and chewed cud on the grass most of the afternoon, keeping an eye on us quite calmly whenever we looked out or stepped out for photos. Eventually one of them finally got up to feed some more under the berry bushes. After a little affectionate snuffling and licking of each other they quietly walked into the bushes in the corner of our garden and off through the neighbourhood.

We’ve seen deer and warning signs in areas farther from us for all the years we’ve lived in the area. This is the first time we’ve seen them right in our neighbourhood. Such beautiful, gentle creatures, I think these may be black-tailed deer. Yet we know how damaging they can be to gardens. Oh dear!

October 27, 2012 in Canada and BC, Home, Neat stuff 14 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

elsewhere

With low energy and needing to catch up with other things, I want to just quickly share several exciting-to-me links I’ve been enjoying this week, on the subjects of archaeology, art and story writing:

1. Lascaux’s Picassos – What prehistoric art tells us about the evolution of the human brain. A gorgeous slide show and many great links on a favourite subject of mine, and something I’ve written about a few times before.

2. Cuts that heal: Barbara Hepworth’s hospital drawings. I love her sculpture. Now seeing her fantastic drawings in the provided slide show puts her in the class of the Renaissance artists in my book! The second work Concentration of Hands II is my favourite. I had many of the same thoughts as Jonathan Jones mentions in his review (link on the side). How I wish I could go see this exhibition.

3. Margaret Atwood joins the zombie craze:

Just in time for Halloween, Canada’s most decorated literary doyenne – Margaret Atwood – has co-written a serialized zombie novel with a promising British author that will be posted chapter by chapter at the Canadian-based story-sharing website Wattpad.

I’m not into zombies but curiousity sent me to check out Wattpad and The Happy Zombie Sunrise Home where the first three parts are up. I read, I laughed, I will be back.

October 24, 2012 in Art Exhibitions, Books, Other artists, Rock Art & Archaeology 8 Comments »

« Previous 1 … 27 28 29 30 31 … 199 Next »

PRINTWORKS

PHOTOWORKS

RSS Feeds

month to Christmas

scrunched 2

fog and sun

ancient doors

rosemary

fallen phal

in progress

scrunched

deer, oh dear

elsewhere

RECENTLY

THEMES