more ferry pics
Arriving at the Denman Island ferry terminal:
On the ferry to Hornby Island:
by Marja-Leena
by Marja-Leena on a ferry
The many photos from our week in Paris, way back in May, are still awaiting to be posted!
And now I have all these photos of our recent island hopping mini-vacation that I’m eager to share. These were taken on the small open ferry from Vancouver Island to Denman Island. Details, again, that attracted me.
by Marja-Leena Hornby Island photos
Still very busy, now preparing for a new schedule for this fall as I head back to the printmaking studio, but wanted to quickly post some photos of the amazing rocks on Hornby Island. More to come…
by Marja-Leena island hopping
Last weekend we finally, after many years since, revisited Hornby Island, one of our favourite places on BC’s west coast. Creating our own five-day long weekend beginning Friday morning (August 28th) we caught the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, always a lovely ride over the Georgia Strait (or Salish Sea). From Nanaimo we drove north on the Island Highway to Buckley Bay to catch another but much smaller ferry to Denman Island, followed by a pleasant drive across that to catch the ferry to Hornby Island.
Our dearest friends have a lovely treed property with a cosy one room cedar rondavel (eight-sided cottage) which they always so generously give to their guests while they sleep in a tent trailer. Otherwise we spent all our time outdoors with an outdoor kitchen and picnic table where we lingered over many meals with much conversation. Across the road is the path to one of the rocky beaches. The roads and paths are lined with bushes heavy with blackberries.
Hornby Island belongs to the northern group of Gulf Islands but I believe they are all noted for their sandstone formations.
We took numerous photos that I’ve barely sorted through yet, including the petroglyphs that we’d seen long ago and I’d used in some of my work. It’s amazing that we even saw a beach we’d not seen before with dramatic cave and hoodoo formations that were wonderful to photograph. As some readers know, my photos from past visits to Hornby have appeared here as well as in many art works, see some links below. I hope to be posting some of these new ones in the near future.
Too soon, Monday morning we packed up, took the two ferries back to Vancouver Island, then drove south to Victoria, then north to Saanich to visit my sister-in-law. The next day we drove back south to Victoria to visit with a cousin and his partner over coffee at the Royal BC Museum‘s cafe. We had planned to see the exhibition from the British Museum but with only a bit more than an hour left the $27.50 per person seemed too steep.
Instead we walked around Victoria Harbour, had a bit of lunch, then went to visit my 81 year-old aunt. That was heart warming for we hadn’t seen her since my uncle’s funeral nearly two years ago. Back to sister-in-law’s for a bit then onto the ferry line up and the journey home. All that driving left us tired and happy to be home again in our own bed. It’s taken all week to recover from the holiday, what with catching up with chores, getting my prints together for an upcoming group show and attending a memorial service for a departed friend.
This Labour Day long weekend our eldest daughter is here to visit her sister and nieces one more time before they return to England. We have been worried about the forest fires raging in BC, especially near their home east of Kamloops. Her partner stayed home to keep watch in case of an evacuation call if it gets too close. The good news now is that rains have helped to reduce the dangers, and some families that had evacuated another area have been able to return home. Yes, it’s a rainy long weekend here, much needed, so we were very lucky taking our mini-vacation last weekend. Anyway, it’s a busy happy family time…
Related links:
my favourite rock, now gone
my petroglyph photos in a book
a petroglyph
Hornby rocks
another rock photo
and another
by Marja-Leena this and that
This morning as I sat at my computer next to the window, some movement caught the corner of my eye – six big crows were strutting about the lawn, looking for grubs perhaps? I was too slow getting the camera. Usually they are on our roof and chimney top, their heavy thumping often startling anyone alone in the house into thinking someone’s breaking in.
Yesterday evening was very memorable – we had Miguel and Mika here. Miguel is very much in love with this region after his two weeks here. Mika, who has only been here a couple of days loves what she has seen of Vancouver so far.
Delighted to meet her, we were very impressed with Mika’s accent-free English, thanks to Miguel’s coaching. During a little tour of our home and some of my art, Miguel made two interesting comments that really pleased me – how he could recognize our home and setting just from my blog descriptions, and how my art work looks so different and much better than on the web. We enjoyed much conversation and laughter in the evening sunshine on our back deck over a meal centered around BBQ’d sockeye salmon. As it cooled down, we moved indoors for dessert of blueberry kiisseli with whip cream and a few wild blackberries on top. After driving them back to their hotel by English Bay, we felt sad saying goodbye to them both but hope we’ll meet again someday.
Roundabout meanderings on the net led me to this exciting discovery: Sky Mirror by Anish Kapoor. Remember the Kapoor piece we saw in Brighton but didn’t know it’s name? That’s it, how beautiful! And, this surprised me:
The artwork itself, which was manufactured IN FINLAND is a six-metre wide concave dish of polished stainless steel weighing ten tonnes and angled up towards the sky. It reflects the ever changing environment, season to season, day and night. (caps mine)
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PS. Evening of Aug.27th – Things will be quiet on this blog for a few days. We’re going to the islands to enjoy some of the last glorious days of summer! I’ve been too busy getting ready to write another post, hence this short note.
by Marja-Leena London: details #6
Continuing the photo series of street furniture in London’s Muswell Hill neighbourhood…
I love Thomas Dudley, Dauntless Ductile who sounds like a character in a children’s storybook.
See also:
London: details (#1)
London: details #2
London: details #3
London: details #4
London: details #5
by Marja-Leena ‘ecological footprint’ author
I’ve been poking about the net looking for information on Bowen Island, just off the coast of Vancouver. In all these years that we’ve lived in the Vancouver area, we’ve never visited it. Now I’m eager to find out where a certain art gallery is located for I’ll be participating in a group show there next month. (More information on that later.)
I’ve long read and occasionally mentioned Bowen Island resident Chris Corrigan’s two blogs Parking Lot and Bowen Island Journal. From the latter, I checked out Chris’ blogroll and found James Glave.
Exploring his interesting articles, I found an astonishing one called Rees’s Thesis. It’s an entertaining and eye-opening interview of Bill Rees, the University of British Columbia professor who coined the term “ecological footprint”. Now, I didn’t know of or had forgotten Bill Rees so what a thrill to learn about this inspiring and creative man who lives in our own community. It’s a great story on what makes him tick and how he came up with this term, now the global standard for measuring an individual’s impact on the environment. Do go read it, please!
by Marja-Leena visiting Tate Modern
On the morning of our last day in London we went to the Tate Modern to see their collection of modern and contemporary art to balance out the older works seen previously. With us were our daughter and granddaughters who were again taking part in another childrens’ tour.
First the building fascinated, starting with the sloping pavement down into the entrance which seemed rather formidable and unattractive at first. The slope continued inside the building, in what is called the Turbine Hall which apparently is an exhibition space but was bare that day. It was a lively gathering place for groups of children and youths, we smiled at a young child chasing a runaway toy down the slope. The huge bookstore next to it looked like it had a rich collection of books though we were not buying. We were first attracted by a fascinating video in the lobby from which we learned that this building in its earlier incarnation was a a power station.
The collections are arranged thematically rather than chronologically which made for some interesting and thought provoking placements of artists. The large open bright spaces of the rooms suited the modern works and never felt crowded except the odd time a guided school group went through. It was exciting to see the famous pieces and also meet some unknowns. Occasionally I was disappointed that there were sometimes only one or two pieces representing certain artists. Again, we took no photos so I’m relying on the Tate’s website to link to a very few of the highlights.
Marlene Dumas’ work excited me for this was my first time seeing it live
Frances Bacon and Anish Kapoor are both favourites of mine
Several Picassos including this sculpture
Roualt was a favourite of mine in my art student days
David Smith’s sculptures I like
Cornelia Parker is an artist new to me, I loved her full room size installation. The photo does not do it justice but do check out the ‘additional view’ for a detail.
Anselm Kiefer is a powerful artist whose work I’ve seen and admired in Germany but I think we missed this room!
In one room, I was suddenly captivated by a window with a perfect view of the Millennium Bridge with St. Paul’s (below left). It almost looked like a piece of framed art like the other works on the walls, a clever architectural detail, I’d say.
Afterwards, we parted from the family and walked across this beautiful bridge and it’s amazing view of St Paul’s Cathedral, as well as the view back of the Tate Modern (bottom). We had no time to stop but kept on walking, even getting lost for a bit, for our wonderful lunch meeting with Mr. and Mrs. B. More walking about London followed, a kind of last look, then back home to pack and get ready for our journey to Paris the next morning.
by Marja-Leena visiting the National Gallery
On our last two days in London, we really packed in the sights and gallery visits. I wrote about the morning of our second-to-last-day’s visit to the Annette Messager exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, after a ride on the London Eye. After lunch, we walked over to The National Gallery which sits so majestically on the top of the grand Trafalgar Square, shown above with St. Martin in the Fields on the right. This is another free institution though the traveling Picasso exhibition in the Sainsbury wing of course was not.
Our granddaughters and their mother joined a children’s tour they had been signed up for while husband and I went about on our own. It was exciting to recognize many many famous art works from the 13th to the early 20th centuries. I can’t remember all my favourites now though I did at first start to write them down but that took too long! We did not take photos (I think it was not allowed) but the National Gallery’s website has the entire collection online so its great to be able to go back and review the collection. Just a few of our favourites:
Jan Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait – I adore the North European artists
Leonardo da Vinci’s Sketch for The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne – I love his drawings
Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Ambassadors – some fascinating details in this
Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire – I think one of the first Turners I’ve seen in real life.
The Impressionist Collection is gorgeous as well. I was thrilled in particular to see the Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Lake Keitele (above). Many years ago when I was researching Finnish art I fell in love with Gallen-Kallela and especially his work inspired by the Kalevala. He became a significant figure in my BFA Honours thesis.
The interiors are gorgeous with rich brilliant colours on the walls in most of the rooms but I was quite shocked to see mud-coloured ones for the impressionists! As is usual with most huge museums, it was a bit confusing navigating the rooms so as not to miss anything. And as usual, looking at a lot of art exhilarates then exhausts me so, sadly, we did not get to the Picasso exhibit.
Oh, and the children, even the three-year-old, loved their tour, a compliment to their excellent guide! We were then rewarded with delicious treats in the cafeteria to restore some energy for the trip home on the tube and bus. The bus trip that late afternoon rush hour was extra slow and long because it was diverted the long way around due to a water main break near home, sigh.
(Next: visiting the Tate Modern)
by Marja-Leena London: details #5
More details underfoot and on garden walls in London’s Muswell Hill neighbourhood
See also:
London: details (#1)
London: details #2
London: details #3
London: details #4