reflections
– a beautiful, brilliantly sunny, very cold day
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by Marja-Leena by Marja-Leena Nov.16th
(the view outside my office window on a drier day)
I seem to be focusing on weather lately, as is everyone else living in southwest BC. Yesterday’s massive storm topped all previous storms of this stormy month! Powerful winds and heavy rain caused all kinds of havoc. Ferries shut down, highways, houses and powerlines were hit by falling trees. By late Wednesday afternoon, 210,000 BC Hydro customers were without power, including one daughter’s place in Surrey. It even caused a four-storey building under construction in East Vancouver to collapse and has left 125,000 still without power today. Port Alberni on Vancouver Island was hit particularly hard. I think the Hydro crews deserve a huge thank you for the hours and days of dangerous work they are doing to remove fallen trees and restore power.
Thankfully we haven’t been affected in any serious way. The only impact for me has been that the Capilano College campus was shut down yesterday and today because of a water main break, so I haven’t been able to go and work in the studio. Hopefully all will be repaired for tomorrow. Weather-wise it will be a normal damp November with no storms until the next one on Sunday.
November 16th will always be an especially significant day for us, thanks to the birth of our second grandchild and my art opening one year ago. I loved one commenter calling it “an opening act”! We will be at a special little birthday party this afternoon, then we meet dear friends for dinner. Since they moved to Victoria we only see each other once in a while, so it will be a real treat. A special day ahead!
UPDATE NOV.17th: On the way out yesterday, we heard that Greater Vancouver residents have been advised to boil their water or use bottled water! Then this morning’s Vancouver Sun features huge headlines on the front page Two million told: Don’t drink the water. “One of the largest water warnings in the province’s history was issued Thursday for Greater Vancouver’s two million residents after torrential rains triggered dozens of landslides into the region’s reservoirs, turning tap water cloudy and brown.” Now the city of Nanaimo has the same advisory. This may last for a while with Sunday’s expected storm.
At the restaurant last night, we were unable to get our usual glasses of tap water, instead having to purchase bottled water. No tea or coffee either! I wondered if the kitchen did not know how to boil water, heh. Anyway, yes, we had a wonderful time at the birthday and then meeting our friends. Guess what we talked about – the weather!
by Marja-Leena November
November is here. You can tell by the weather, the heavy heavy rainfalls, the wind, the dark and gloomy days. Indoors never felt so good.
Turning inward means that my art work is continuing to develop in an interesting way, so I’m happy about that. But in other art related news, I’m disappointed with some news, as are many of my fellow printmakers who submitted work last spring for jurying to the Krakow Print Triennial. I found out second-hand from an artist who was was in Krakow for her solo exhibition there (she was the Grand Prix winner in 2003) that about 350 artists were selected from over 2500 applicants. Only three Canadians, unknown to us, were accepted and none from the US, a rather unusual result.
Rejection is par for the course but our biggest complaint is that there has been no communication from the triennial organizers about whose work has been accepted, which is unusual for an organization with an excellent reputation in the past. Funding issues, perhaps? Anyway, I had another look at the Triennial website and their list of winners, noting that one of the prize winners is a Canadian, one Cécile Boucher.
The dark, cool and damp evenings make us non-TV watchers a little more inclined to cuddle up on the sofa and watch a good movie. We’d been to the library a few days ago and scoured through their collection for some good selections so last night we watched one choice, The Constant Gardener. We enjoyed the love story, the exciting drama of attempts to expose the corrruption of the pharmaceutical companies in Africa, and most of all the film’s beautiful and horrible scenes of northern Kenya and its very colourful and musical people. Here’s a Quicktime trailer.
Now I’m awaiting the family’s arrival any minute for a visit and dinner, another pleasant diversion away from the miserable weather beyond the rain-washed windows.
by Marja-Leena testing your memory
“Attention! A thorough test of your memory has begun!”
She chuckles when she reads this message as she observes the hardware test running on her erratically behaving computer, which had been making her grumpy all day.
by Marja-Leena weekend time
a fabulous walk in sunshine along the West Vancouver seawall
a stunning Burtynsky exhibition seen
a very enjoyable overnight visit from sister-in-law
a happy grand-daughter’s 6th birthday party
a tour of exceptionally lovely fall colours, fast falling
a strong wind and rain storm
a dusting of snow on our local mountains, soon melted
a first frost of -2C coming tonight
a sound of early fireworks
a clock turned back
a history of daylight saving time
a wonderful quote:
I don’t really care how time is reckoned so long as there is some agreement about it, but I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind. I even object to the implication that I am wasting something valuable if I stay in bed after the sun has risen. As an admirer of moonlight I resent the bossy insistence of those who want to reduce my time for enjoying it. At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves. – Robertson Davies: The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947, XIX, Sunday
by Marja-Leena printing proofs
It’s an incredible feeling that’s hard to describe, when I do a print for the first time and it looks great! Whether it’s an etching, a collagraph or an inkjet print, it’s hard to be sure how it will look until that first proof has been made. This morning in the printmaking studio, I waited patiently for the two large images to send over from computer to the large-format inkjet printer, a very slow process. As I watched the prints come through finally, I felt that buzz, that thrill, that joy of the creative juices zinging through me!
One of the prints, based on THIS photograph, rewarded me with another thrill, that of a surprise! Look at the detail above! I never noticed it on site at Writing-on-Stone Park, nor in the digital photo itself. Only when it was printed large, about 51 x 76 cm. ( 20″ x 30″), did this little treasure reveal itself.
Gazing at these two prints temporarily pinned up on the wall, I was able to feel the magic of the place again. I was able to get a better sense of how to develop the pieces further. Working small on the computer screen just doesn’t capture the feeling in the same way.
Oh, these aren’t finished by a long shot as I still need to do some fine-tuning on these images and work on the additional layers to go with them, but they are coming along well. A good start, a good day.
by Marja-Leena colour full
a rainy foggy week, a sunny weekend, a long walk
gathering red leaves, planting spring bulbs
red tulips, blue hyacinths, little yellow daffodils
blue yellow white pansies, purple flowering kale
colourful sunset, colour full
by Marja-Leena on the wall
As I mentioned a few days ago, I’ve been playing with layering some collagraphs with inkjet printed transparent film. Here’s a peek at what I’ve been doing. Above is a photo of the works in progress pinned up on the wall by my work table. Below is a closer look of one of them, “Untitled” for the moment. In size they vary roughly around 41 x 33 cm. (16″ x 13″). Some larger pieces are simmering at the moment….
by Marja-Leena note on ‘blocks’
My post on artist’s and writer’s block has had an incredible response with many very thoughtful and interesting comments still coming in. Do read them and feel free to write in if you haven’t already. I’m just reminding readers of this because the entry has gone off the page and into the archives under “being an artist” or here. Thanks again to everyone for their participation in the discussion and for giving me a much-needed jump start.
Yes, I’m happy and thankful to say that my block has passed. I’ve been playing, as many of you suggested. I’ve taken small prints that were cut from proofs of some collagraphs and woodcuts done in the past and layered these with inkjet prints on clear mylar. This layering technique is one I used in the Silent Messengers series and some of the later Nexus pieces whicht regular readers may be familiar with. They have turned out very interesting and are giving me some hints of possibilities for the larger pieces to come. I wish I’d taken my camera to the studio to take some shots to show you. I plan to sandwich some of the pieces in clear plexiglass, so it will be exciting to see how these will look.
by Marja-Leena Toxic-Free Artists
I recently started subscribing to Toxic Nation E-News from Environmental Defence (in Canada). It’s also available online. This item in the October issue caught my eye and I thought I’d share it, in case any artists in Ontario may be reading this. I think many artists are now aware of some of the hazards of our occupation, but I believe we can always learn more on the subject. We really need these workshops across Canada!
TOXIC-FREE ARTISTS: CARFAC Ontario presents Staying Alive! – A Health & Safety Workshop for Visual and Media Artists
Coming to Ontario cities of Windsor and London on October 14th and 15th, and Timmins on November 25th.
About the Workshop: Artists often repeatedly use harmful chemicals and toxins, and continually place themselves in harm’s way in order to create art and make a living. How often do we consider the consequences of repeated exposure to these potentially harmful chemicals and situations? These issues are addressed by:
• Ted Rickard, MLS, MEd, CRSP, Manager of Health and Safety at the Ontario College of Art and Design; and
• Dr. Jean-Jacques Dugoua (Dr. J.J.), BSc, ND., naturopathic doctor with the Artist’s Health Centre.
The CARFAC Ontario Staying Alive! workshops are presented in partnership with the Artist’s Health Centre Foundation and Environmental Defence. For more information and to register please visit the CARFAC Ontario website.