by Marja-Leena

appleturnovers

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Getting ready for a special teatime on the deck, one summer afternoon a few weeks ago, after daughter Elisa came home from an unusual visit to her favourite Italian bakery in Vancouver. How excited and round-eyed the grandgirls were, as were we adults! Please read and enjoy the very special story behind the significance of the appleturnovers, pictured below, and why she chose it as the name of her blog.

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I forget the name of the amazing cake below so I’m calling it profiterole cake, for the round chocolate-covered custard-filled minicakes on top of the big cake. Oh my!

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Happy first blog anniversary to appleturnover!

September 7, 2011 in Blogging, Home 12 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Figaro on the beach

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Yesterday afternoon, a Labour Day holiday here in Canada, we had the pleasure of seeing and hearing a delightful and well-done performance of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro on the mainstage of Bard on the Beach. The energetic young stars of the UBC Opera Ensemble, from University of British Columbia’s Music School impressed us with their professionalism, well-trained and beautiful voices, their acting skills and the lovely costumes on this small stage with minimal props, shared with the Vancouver Opera orchestra.

Over the years, we’ve attended some of the Shakespearean plays here. The mainstage tent has an opening behind the stage overlooking English Bay and the North Shore mountains and sky. The Bard on the Beach Shakespearean Festival has become a well-loved and attended Vancouver cultural site every summer since it’s founding in 1990, by the amazing actor and director Christopher Gaze. This time Gaze was the host for Figaro, stepping in between scenes with quick, entertaining and helpful synopses of each scene, as they were sung in Italian.

I’m only sorry we were not allowed to take photos inside to show you, though I sneaked the top one just as some of the orchestra players began the warmup. Below is a view of the Bard on the Beach site – what a beautiful day it was (though hot inside the tent!). If you are ever in Vancouver in the summer and you love Shakespeare, this is the place to enjoy the Bard, along with certain special events such as Figaro!

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September 6, 2011 in Canada and BC, Culture, Music 15 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

mellow days

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warm, golden
long shadows, nearing equinox
cool nights, bright stars
September

September 3, 2011 in Nature, Photoworks 13 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Herzog film on Chauvet Caves

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Bison from the End Chamber of Chauvet Cave – from Bradshaw Foundation

As most long time readers of my blog know, I am fascinated by ancient pictographs, petroglyphs and other art forms. They have been an inspiration in my own artmaking for over a decade.

So, I was thrilled yesterday to finally see Werner Herzog’s 3D documentary film Cave of Forgotten Dreams. It was as amazing and awe-inspiring as I had expected it to be from the many reviews I had read. I have previously seen gorgeous photos of the paintings in Chauvet Cave in books and on France’s Culture Commission’s online site, but seeing this film just blew me away. These early humans of so long ago were incredibly skilled artists.

The 3D glasses bothered me a little at first especially in scenes with a lot of movement, but it did not take long to adjust. They really did enhance the experience of the caves’ architecture and how the paintings of the various animals flowed with depth and movement along the curving walls. The discussions by Werner Herzog and the scientists were informative and enjoyable and made me wish I had been able to record some of them. If this film ever comes out as a DVD, I want it!

There are numerous great reviews of the film and articles about Chauvet to be found online. I suggest this interview of Herzog in Archaeology magazine as well as the pages of Bradshaw Foundation. I love these words about the film:

….glide through the cathedral-like cave, over cave formations and sloping passageways, across the beautiful 32,000 year old drawings. These scenes are interspersed by interviews with scientists musing on the cave’s mysterious beauty, the evolution of creativity and the nature of humanity. Operatic, gorgeously accomplished and truly unforgettable: this is an extraordinary glimpse at, perhaps, the dawn of art itself.

August 31, 2011 in Films, Rock Art & Archaeology 22 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

education in Finland

Finland’s education system has received a lot of international attention from educators the last decade or so. I’ve read much of it with great interest, being a Finn, a former teacher as well as a parent. I’m also a product of the Canadian education system which is rated as fairly good but has much room for improvement especially in education for immigrants, first nations and the learning-challenged even as constant cuts in funding of education take place.

Besides the excellent results of ‘no child left behind’, most remarkable is that all teachers have at least a masters degree, have freedom to teach as they wish and have the highest support and respect from governments and parents, unlike here in Canada and the USA, and yet education still costs less in Finland.

There’s much more so please read this article in the Smithsonian magazine. It is the best in-depth one that I have seen and I recommend it to anyone interested in education. Is education not the most important thing each country needs to provide for its young people and immigrants, and the best investment for the country’s future? Many thanks to Gabriolan for the link.

Related links:
A series of articles called Finland Diary by Robert G. Kaiser for the Washington Post in 2005, which I wrote about here.

Addendum: We purchased and read Pasi Sahlberg’s Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? Excellent – well worth a read if you are interested in education. The main conclusion would be that there would have to be quite a cultural change in order to achieve a major transformation in the education system in Canada, USA and many other countries. Private schools, charter schools and the like are not the answer.

August 29, 2011 in Books, Culture, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric 7 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

almost September

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The last of the summer’s visitors are gone but this late summer heat wave still slows me down. My thoughts are swinging to my return to the printmaking studio after the Labour Day long weekend in September. Many ideas have been incubating over the summer but now I need to try to see what comes together in new printworks. It’s always a slow process for me to restart that engine, turning ideas into action and getting into a regular smooth and productive flow. It’s rather like the annual back-to-school change in rhythm which we have all grown up with, and which continued for me through art school and teaching, then sending my own children to school and me to the print studio each fall.

It helps me to begin with some play with images, even if unrelated to the print projects. I am doing a series of scans with my hands and objects (for an online project that I may tell you about later). This image seems timely for me right now.

August 26, 2011 in Being an Artist, Human, Photoworks 9 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

tender 2

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for Jack Layton
July 18, 1950 – August 22, 2011

August 23, 2011 in Current Events, Nature, Photoworks 18 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

care of seniors and prisoners

Let us put our old folks in prisons and the criminals in old folks’ homes! This way the elders get daily showers, exercise and fresh air. No one can steal from them… and they receive money instead of having to pay for everything. The criminals get cold food and have to stay in their rooms all by themselves. No money is given them, the lights go out at 20.00… and showers only once a week. Copy this and watch how far this travels.

A bit of humour with some truth, the best kind! Originally written in Finnish on one Facebook page, the above is my rough translation. I found this gem at hanhensulka, a Finnish-Australian’s blog. He thinks that the author’s excellent suggestion shows the makings of a future social security minister or interior minister in parliament.

Food for thought…. We should send this to Harper who plans to spend billions on new prisons when our crime rate has been dropping and also wants to privatize and destroy our health care.

August 20, 2011 in Current Events 18 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

tender

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August 18, 2011 in Nature, Photoworks 9 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

black & white

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The visual theme on these pages lately seems to be mostly black and white, and some sepia. Is it a reaction against the late summer heat (which I’m not fond of) and the garden’s vivid colours (which I do love)?

August 16, 2011 in Nature, Photoworks 16 Comments »