Marja-Leena, Author at Marja-Leena Rathje

scapes

June 10, 2014 in Nature, Photoworks

For the first time ever, I am growing garlic. Today, I harvested the scapes or flowers (though they don’t actually bloom). I’m going to saute them in butter for tonight’s supper!

These are reminding me of our visit last fall to Sointula. It was there that I bought several huge organic garlic bulbs at a little untended roadside stand, with a little box for coin payments. Some time later at home I took one of those bulbs, separated the cloves, planted them and crossed my fingers. Now I am patiently waiting for the new bulbs to mature!

In the meantime, I’ve taken pleasure in scanning these lovely shapes of scapes and adding them to a series of kitchen art, such as stinking rose and more purple.

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purple

June 5, 2014 in Nature, Photoworks

This phalaenopsis was a birthday gift from my husband (about four months ago) and is just now dropping a couple of its blossoms. I love how long-lived the blooms are which is why he enjoys giving them to me instead of cut flowers.

It’s become a habit for me to scan the fallen yet still beautiful blooms for posterity. Some scanned phals from the archives: translucent, fallen phal, papery, freshly fallen

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gardening days

June 3, 2014 in Home

Summer is here! I am busy busy in the garden! Here are a few photos of what is blooming.

Peonies must be the beloved perennial in every garden:

Newcomers this year are the tall large purple alliums, now an interesting seedhead:

Like sunshine, this generous old faithful, a low-growing yellow allium:

Many rhododendrons in our garden, this one with lovely red bud opening to peach:

And how does your garden grow?

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a modern petroglyph

May 31, 2014 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists, Rock Art & Archaeology

Xwalacktun (Rick Harry) is a well-known and recognized and very prolific First Nations artist who studied in Emily Carr College of Art and Capilano College in Greater Vancouver. Recently I was excited to see one of his latest works, a petroglyph called GENERATIONAL Pictograph Petroglyph SITES at the Squamish Lil’Wat Cultural Center in Whistler. As I have long been fascinated by ancient petroglyphs, this modern one intrigued me greatly. I love it!

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a box of promises

May 29, 2014 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists

On our recent drive up to Whistler, a visit to the beautiful Squamish Lil’Wat Cultural Center in town was a must for us, after last year’s inspirational visit. We spent most of the time upstairs where the temporary exhibits are displayed, and a new one had just been installed. Below is the first piece we loved. I’ll feature the other favourite in another post.

Called Box of Promises this stunning piece slowly rotates revealing the play of the patterns in varying relationships.

looking inside

looking underneath

A fascinating collaboration by two artists from two different cultures and with a very thought-provoking title.

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tafoni

May 26, 2014 in Canada and BC, Photoworks, Rocks

Susan of phantsythat, who knows my love of rocks, sent me a fascinating link to a pictorial story about tafoni. Oh my, what stunning photos! Tafoni are small cave-like features found in granular rock such as sandstone, granite, and sandy-limestone with rounded entrances and smooth concave walls, often connected, adjacent, and/or networked.

Though the term is new to me, these rock formations are familiar and something I have photographed intensively on Hornby and Gabriola Islands on our BC coast. I became inspired to revisit some of my hundreds of photos, of which a number have been posted here over the years. I have chosen these few from Gabriola Island which I hope haven’t appeared before.

It’s great to now have a name for these formations though I personally have called some ‘rock lace’. If you are interested and perhaps have not seen them before, you may like to visit a few of those older posts, such as:

– rock lace and a great example of tafoni on Hornby Island

– lots of these on the beach at Pilot Bay, and in wall-like formations on Gabriola Island

Oh, and of course, the banner at the top of this site is tafoni!

Thank you, Susan, for thinking of me and my passion for unusual rocks!

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white lilies

May 22, 2014 in Nature, Photoworks

fondly remembering a day last week
a heartwarming visit from a dear friend
with a potted white lily in her arms
first scattered blooms captured as keepsake

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Burtynsky at VAG

May 20, 2014 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists, Photography

Yesterday we finally went out to see A Terrible Beauty: Edward Burtynsky which is in its last week at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It is a focused survey of photographs the artist produced between 1983 and 2013, and represents all key bodies of his work, such as early series of homestead and rail line photographs shot in British Columbia in the early 1980s, his documentation of the extraordinary growth and transformation of China in the past decade and a new, groundbreaking international project that is focused on the subject of water.

What a stunning exhibition with forty-four of this Canadian artist’s work, some of which I’ve seen in the past. The works are so very beautiful aesthetically, yet very shocking and disturbing once we realize what we are really looking at — the many examples of massive destruction of so much of this earth by industry, railroads, farming and other human activity.

Burtynsky is very particular about his images and does a great deal of research, planning and eventual manipulation on his photographs before printing in very large format. Sometimes they even look like paintings and they are all works of art, not just documentary photographs.

Most of Burtynsky’s exhibited photography (pre 2007) was taken with a large format field camera on large 4×5-inch sheet film and developed into high-resolution, large-dimension prints of various sizes and editions ranging from 18 x 22 inches to 60 x 80 inches. He often positions himself at high-vantage points over the landscape using elevated platforms, the natural topography, and more currently helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft… In 2007 he began using a high-resolution digital camera. (from wikipedia)

The timing of our visit did not work out for us to see his two films “The Manufactured Landscape” and “Watermark”.

Do visit Edward Burtynsky’s extensive website!

– watch the video above or on Vancouver Art Gallery’s site with an introduction by the artist and Bruce Grenville, Senior Curator

– another video and an excellent interview by Kevin Griffin in the Vancouver Sun, discussing the artist’s process

– a good article in Galleries West magazine, Spring 2014 issue, pages 32-26

– check out my previous posts in June 2004, May 2005, October 2006. Some links have since expired.

ADDED May 2nd: Our daughter Erika visited this exhibition with us. Please read her profound thoughts on it here.

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a Friday drive

May 17, 2014 in Canada and BC, Rocks

Yesterday, on a spur-of-the-moment decision we decided to go for a ‘Sunday drive’ along the stunning Sea-to-Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler. As many know, I love rocks and this highway has numerous massive walls of cut rock with fascinating sculptural faces and colour variations, often where one cannot not stop for photos. The ones above were taken from the parking lot near Brandywine Falls.

Below is a view of the Stawamus Chief rock near Squamish, a very popular spot for rock face climbers. Though we’ve seen this many times, for the first time I noticed the face of it had an image that looked to me like a samurai, with a fierce expression, arms outstretched in battle form and robe waving behind.