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by the Fraser River estuary

4:09 pm in Being an Artist, Canada and BC by Marja-Leena

Yesterday afternoon was one of sad goodbyes as we saw our daughter and granddaughters to the airport for their flight back home to London. Husband took the afternoon off work too, so we could do a little exploring of another region new to us, as we often do if we’re farther from home with the car.

So, after leaving the airport in Richmond, we headed to that city’s south arm of the great Fraser River and estuary. We parked next to the West Dyke Trail looking over the broad salt marsh. Taking umbrella and camera, we strolled south towards Garry Point Park located next to the old village of Steveston.

The weather was very overcast, drizzly, calm and warm. Have I mentioned that we’ve had the warmest January on record, after one of the coldest a year ago? It was too misty to clearly see the mountains north of Vancouver and on Vancouver Island. Even the photos of the extensive salt marsh along the dyke trail look colourless and lacking detail. However, here are a few of our favourite shots. I love the bullrushes and the dark silhouetted trees while husband captured some of the plentiful bird life in this protected region. A couple of freighters, a few tugboats and fishing boats passed by along the river.

We warmed up even more with delicious spicy Indian food in a modest little place in Steveston before returning home to an oddly quiet house.

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by Marja-Leena

art & garden busy-ness

8:25 pm in Art Exhibitions, Being an Artist, Print Triennials, Printmaking by Marja-Leena

I wish you could smell the heavenly scent of these first lily-of-the-valley flowers from my garden. The next virtual sense to come one day via the web?

I’m still busy in the printmaking studio finishing up work, then about to clear out my space for the summer break beginning in a week’s time. My small home studio is in chaos as I try to find storage room for the new pieces I’m bringing home. Anyone selling second hand flat files that would fit under my work table? Maybe I should have a ‘fire sale’ to sell off old work to make room for new?

I was also busy getting a submission package of miniprints ready and delivered to the BIMPE VI International Print Biennial right here in Vancouver. It is the first time I’ve submitted because I so very rarely do small enough prints! I’m happy to support them and hope the jury accepts some or all of my work. If you are a printmaker reading this and interested in taking part – and I know this is late notice – the deadline is May 1st.

At home it is the busy spring gardening season especially with transplanting the tomato, pepper, cucumber and flower seedlings and cuttings into larger pots whenever the weather allows, like today. Still a few more seeds to start. It seems the nicest days occur when I’m in the print studio, why is that? Ah well, soon I’ll be complaining of too much gardening and not enough art!

And I must see some exhibitions this week before they come down, especially this Leonard da Vinci one for he is one of my very favourite artists. Entry was free during the Olympics but I didn’t want to deal with the long lineups. So why do I leave it ’til almost the last minute?

Too busy to blog, read and comment much lately, but I found this timely Letter from Reykjavik to be very much worth a visit!

EDIT April 22nd, 2010: In some correspondence yesterday, a friend wrote:
Believe it or not, people have been trying to digitize smell for a number of years, apparently with some success. You can read about their efforts here.
Thanks, Michael!

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by Marja-Leena

Art of the Hibakusha

9:08 am in History, Other artists by Marja-Leena

Like so many others, we have been following the marking of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, then Nagasaki tomorrow. This made us recall the stories once told us by two Japanese-Canadian friends now in their seventies who were living in Japan during the war. Setsuko vividly remembers the day Tokyo was bombed (not atomic). About ten years old at the time, she picked up her youngest brother, an infant, and ran and ran and ran. All her family survived but many of their neighbours and friends did not. She relived that day in nightmares for many years.

Our friend Tomio has just kindly emailed me his story again, and I quote it in its vivid entirety:

I did my best to place a mushroom cloud over Nagasaki in my panorama picture (above) which I took when we visited our homes about four years ago. Nagasaki is 80 km away from my old home in a countryside. The picture was taken in the autumn of that year, and the bomb was dropped over Nagasaki when some low cumulous clouds were beginning to appear over the distant mountains or hills you can see. The rice fields were not yellow but dark green with yet-to-ripe rice plants. The skies were as blue as you can see on the picture and a few clouds beyond the hills were brightly shining.

I was 13 years old and on summer holidays from school. The countryside of Kyushu Island was calm in spite of the fact that American invasion was supposed to be imminent at a southern tip of Kyushu Island. I guess Japanese homeland forces were devastated and defenseless not requiring American forces to bomb any more. Tokyo was almost completely devastated to the ground anyway. We, Kyushu Island citizens, were expected to fight to the last man along with the military forces. Almost all the young men were fighting abroad, and old folks, their wives, and children were working in the rice fields.

On that day, I visited my friend whose parents owned a pear orchard on a hillside. After enjoying delicious pears as a guest, I started to walk downhill towards my home. I think it was about two o’clock in the afternoon. When I reached a point of clear view of the plain below, I suddenly noticed an ominous clouds towering into the sky over the distant hills. I stopped walking and watched it, and the first thing I imagined was some ominous change in the universe although I had heard on radio about a new type of bomb dropped over Hiroshima prior to that day.

The side of the mushroom shape was faintly tinted with colours (spectrum of light) and looked pretty. The mushroom shape seemed standing still (although it started to disintegrate very slowly and mix with with the surrounding shining cumulous clouds towards the late afternoon), and the atmosphere was quiet without any sound of enemy or friendly airplanes used to fly over up to about 10 days ago. Then, I resumed descending the hill with a puzzled mind toward my home.

Of all that’s been written on this subject, Mark Vallen’s post about the art of the survivors struck my artist’s soul the most.

August 6th, 2005, marks the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Japan. August 9th, marks the bombing of Nagasaki. Those who survived the blasts became known as hibakusha (Atom Bomb Survivors), and in 1974 the hibakusha began contributing artworks to an unusual project that would preserve for the world their memories of atomic fire.

Do read the rest, about Vallen’s involvement and the website Art of the Hibakusha, that he has upgraded to commemorate the first… and hopefully last atomic war. The paintings comprising this exhibition are sober reminders of the reality of atomic warfare, created by people who actually lived through an atomic holocaust.

Also don’t miss reading about the amazing and powerful Hiroshima Panels, comparable to Picasso’s Guernica. View them at this online gallery.

Melting Hand by Takakura Nobuko

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by Marja-Leena

November’s end

8:18 pm in Art Exhibitions, Being an Artist, Culture by Marja-Leena

As usual here on the ‘wetcoast’, November has been very rainy and often very windy, with above average precipitation but maybe not quite record-breaking except for early snow on the mountains. Some days the darkness has felt a bit heavy but one just has to keep busy, as I have with printmaking and holiday cards. Later, after all the Christmas preparations and the big days are over, I’ll have to start documenting and posting some of the work here to show you all.

Yesterday we had our first taste of the coming holiday season. Erika, husband and I went out to the annual Christmas craft fair put on by the Finns at the Scandinavian Centre. We went early to join the line-up to buy some home-made karjalanpiirakkas and braided loaves of pulla (both almost as good as my mother’s!). I resisted buying any more Christmas decorations after so many years of collecting but found a few good books for the granddaughters, plus some Danish marzipan that I always use when I bake the stollen. One of the books was written by an old friend and former neighbour, a Norwegian, who had a table there – it was a very pleasant surprise to see him there!

As we often do when we are in the area, we stopped afterwards at the Burnaby Art Gallery to see Robert Young’s exhibition** on it’s last day (naughty me). I’ve seen much of his work before but it was still great to see it all together in this lovely old building. I’ve written about Young here before and here’s a review of the exhibition.

As it was not raining for a change we went for a stroll around the gallery’s lovely gardens… yes, lovely even in November. I love the shapes of the bare old trees, some covered in moss, the pond with all it’s subtle colours and reflections and the soft pale mist over the lake beyond. I’m glad I remembered to take the camera, though I forgot to use it at the craft fair.

Since we were more than halfway there, we then went to that famous Swedish home furnishings store where Erika and I picked up some frames for some of our artworks. So you can say we had our Scandinavian fix mixed with some art and gardens, followed by delicious goodies with our afternoon coffee back at home.

Today the sun came out for a while after the morning showers. The forecast calls for more of that pale yellow ball in the sky this week along with colder temperatures. I can see an almost full moon out there too! I hope we’ll have a dry day next weekend to put up our outside LED Christmas lights. Some of the neighbours got theirs out yesterday and today so it’s slowly becoming festive and bright outdoors to chase away some of those Scandinavian Christmas trolls hiding in the dark!

** Edited March 2nd, 2013: Link has expired and has been removed.

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by Marja-Leena

island getaway

4:39 pm in Canada and BC, Travel by Marja-Leena

As some readers may have suspected, we’ve been away on a week’s getaway to a couple of islands. The day after our disastrous federal election, we took a ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, then a small ferry over to nearby Gabriola, one of the Gulf Islands. This was our first visit to this island, one that has been on my wish list for some time because of its noted rock formations and petroglyphs. We stayed in a wonderful bed and breakfast for three nights and were lucky with perfect weather in which to explore and take numerous photos.

I’ll write more later, including about the rest of our trip on Vancouver Island itself. We made it home Monday evening, happy and pleasantly tired. Amazing how much there is back home to catch up on, I could just turn around and go back to the lazy life on ‘island time’. With hundreds of photos to still sort to post here and many blogs to catch up on, I will just leave a couple of scenic shots here to say I’m home.

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by Marja-Leena

purge or save?

11:47 am in Being an Artist by Marja-Leena

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’m going through some major shifting and sifting of stuff in our house. One area of purges is through my very old issues of art magazines, mostly from the 90’s and a few older. The majority of these are Canadian Art, Vanguard, an art criticism mag published between 1976 and 1984 by the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Border Crossings from my old home city of Winnipeg.

There are also some Finnish design magazines and small exhibition catalogues from around the world passed on to me over a decade ago by a good friend whose well-travelled and arts-loving Finnish mother was moving into a care home at that time. Inside one of the magazines, I found some delicate and lovely pressed leaves that I will preserve digitally. During breaks, I’m enjoying rereading a few articles, such as about the rebirth of Marimekko in the 90’s under the creative and brilliant direction of Kirsti Paakkanen.

I’ve hung on to these for too many years thinking I will reread them, but since I have not, it’s time to say goodbye. I love well-done print design and articles about art and artists and hate to just throw them into recycling, so I hope to find a new home for them, via something like Freecycle. Instead of the more violent act of purging, I can choose the gentle act of sharing. Is there an art student out there eager to have them?

What do you do with your old but good magazines and catalogues?

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by Marja-Leena

on this day

4:35 pm in Being an Artist, Blogging, Digital printmaking, Photography by Marja-Leena

This morning in the printmaking studio was somewhat frustrating for me. Lucy, our trusty and faithful wide-format printer was not happy. I’ve been trying to print a trial proof of a template image for my next series of prints. (I’ll tell you soon about the ones just finished.) I need to be sure the layout is right before I start placing the images on the page so I don’t have to redo them all. But Lucy now has a fancy new computer with the latest new OS and she’s making strange. Our fab technician and the IT person have been working on it the past few days but it still wasn’t working for me.

Somewhat dejected as I bussed home this afternoon, I paused along the path home to admire the fall colours hanging over a weathered leaning fence. Being without a camera, I impulsively picked a few small branches to scan at home. I haven’t posted any fall colours or done any scanning for a while so that made me feel better!

I also had a wonderful surprise awaiting when I opened my computer. Today Qarrtsiluni posted my ARKEO #4 along with a fabulous podcast by the editors Beth Adams and Dave Bonta. I think they made interesting observations, including the comment about emerging language. It’s always heartwarming to feel that one’s work is meaningful to others. I felt inspired by the current theme, Words of Power, so I’m very honoured to have my work included in qarrtsiluni again. Founding editors Beth and Dave have done such a fantastic job of this amazing online magazine and deserve a round of applause! If you don’t know it, do please check it out.

UPDATE Nov. 6th: I must tell you more about Lucy’s naming! This morning Bonnie, our technician, was showing me the small changes that had been made yesterday to restore Lucy’s operation. As I prepared to print, I told her about how amused some of you readers were concerning the fact that we have a name for this printer. Bonnie said she got the name from her brother’s old grey car. And get this: her brother is very interested in history and old things, so my thoughts of the early hominid Lucy were right on the mark!! Thankfully Lucy the printer is not that old and has lots of life left in her as long as the printer drivers are being updated. She is after all a commercial level printer used in many service bureaus and these folks don’t like to have to change their printers every three years! Oh, and I had great success with my prints today, the colour management is much improved in this version!

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by Marja-Leena

printers and scanners

8:38 pm in Art Institute (Printmaking), Digital printmaking, Tools and technology by Marja-Leena

In the comments to yesterday’s post about my experiments, virtual friend and artist-blogger in Alaska, Elise Tomlinson asked some very interesting questions, which have inspired me to write today’s entry.

So, do you have your own printer and scanner for doing giclees? I am so intrigued with the whole process of them. Right now I get them done by a local print shop, they are reproductions of paintings I’ve done…but I’ve heard of other artists with their own printers/scanners who use the new technology to produce what I would consider to be original fine art prints (using your definition) conceived of originally as a print, where they control the amount of ink, the paper, etc. What are your thoughts on that? Also, if you do have your own equipment, would you mind sharing what brands you own?

I first wrote nearly two years ago about the tools that I use and later about the studio where I make my prints – you might start reading these first for a background.

At home I still use my old (1997) Umax Astra 1200S scanner though it’s SCSI and has to be connnected to an old Mac G3 which I can access at my Mac G5 via the network. It’s slow and a bit inconvenient but I haven’t wanted to spend the money on a new one with a fast Firewire connection because I do like its 8.5 by 14 inch bed.

When I need to do some high resolution scans for my large printworks, I use the studio’s scanner, an Epson Professional (I’ll check the precise model tomorrow), which allows slide and film scanning too. (It’s 1680.)

I still use my HP Deskjet 1220C 13″ printer at home, one I chose because the studio has one, as does the technician herself in her home studio, and it’s proven to be a real workhorse. It uses water-based dye ink, which is not fully archival ie. more than 80 years, though still very good. I use it for small projects and proofing my work in a smaller scale before printing at the studio’s 42″ HP 5000UV which is fully archival with waterproof UV pigment inks. The experiments that I wrote about yesterday were done with this studio printer.

It is a high end professional machine that has been very durable, reliable and gives excellent results. It’s just that some artists like yours truly are pushing the medium further and expecting it to do more than it was designed for!! Newer models offer more features of course. One of the Institute members recently bought himself an Epson 7800 (I think) that is 24″ wide, with adjustable heads to allow thicker materials and with a straight feed for rigid surfaces. So for my problem with the organza, his printer might work better!

And my thoughts on giclee printing? Please read prints vs reproductions.

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by Marja-Leena

too many goodbyes

8:41 pm in Canada and BC, Current Events, Home by Marja-Leena

Sunday was spent traveling to the Victoria area on Vancouver Island for my late aunt’s ‘remembering’… a sweet event, lovingly and artistically arranged by her daughter, my cousin, at her charming lakeside cottage home. Heartwarming stories and memories shared with hugs, laughter and tears. Another wrenching goodbye was to this house which my cousin has to leave soon.

Our own family stayed at my late mother-in-law’s house where one sister-in-law has lived for many years after her passing. With her daughter and husband joining us, we had a celebration of their coming first child over a traditional family breakfast on Monday morning. Seated around Omi’s teak table with her German china we remembered the many years she used to serve us a similar breakfast. A walk around her lovely garden had me misty-eyed remembering her as she worked in it, as we had to say another goodbye to another home, for this has now been sold, so many years since she left it. (Please see daughter Erika’s lovely post about it.)

The ferry ride home is always so very beautiful – the blue skies, white puffy clouds, sparkling waters, lovely islands sprinkled with cottages….

It’s taken me a long time to write this and I apologize for the wistful nostalgia. I must be getting old.

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by Marja-Leena

Midsummer nights

12:08 am in Culture, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric by Marja-Leena

Many summers ago my husband, our two little girls and I were traveling by car and ferries through Germany to Denmark, Sweden, Finland and back again to Germany before flying home to Canada. The night we arrived in Denmark we went to friends for a delightful family dinner in their home. Afterwards we were invited to come with them to a lovely big midsummer’s party at the gracious manor-like home of our friend’s company manager. At midnight everyone walked down to the coastal beach to see the many bonfires lining the shore – a magical scene.

The next evening we were in Sweden in a little town by the sea, wondering why the town was strangely empty and quiet. Walking around we soon heard music and merriment in a park on the outskirts where we found everyone celebrating Midsummer’s in a fairground theme including something like a maypole. Our children loved the rides and lively music.

In Finland the next night we again enjoyed a Midsummer’s celebration, actually Juhannus (St. John’s Day) with bonfires on beaches and young birch branches tied to posts everywhere. Everyone with a summer cottage was out there with family and friends. According to Virtual Finland, “the interminable nights of winter have given way to the white nights of the Finnish summer. Midsummer, celebrated at the summer solstice, has been very important since pagan times, especially in northern Europe, where the difference between the dark and the light seasons is particularly dramatic. In the north of Finland, Midsummer marks the peak of the exotic appeal of the Arctic, as the sun remains above the horizon all night.”

Obviously the actual celebration dates are rather flexible in each country for convenience, and our family struck lucky to enjoy it three times in three countries where it is a major annual event. It’s strange to me that it’s called midsummer, when it’s really the beginning of summer, especially in the North. Sadly though, from now forth the days are starting to get shorter. Those white nights are truly unforgettable!

If interested, you might like to read more about this in last year’s post, and at Answers.com. In Britain, Stonehenge is open again for solstice celebrations.

Hauskaa Juhannusta! Happy Midsummer’s!

UPDATES: Stonehenge in Pictures at BBC, and this article in National Geographic

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by the Fraser River estuary

art & garden busy-ness

Art of the Hibakusha

November’s end

island getaway

purge or save?

on this day

printers and scanners

too many goodbyes

Midsummer nights

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