thankful

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A Happy Thanksgiving to all my American blog friends and readers! I’m enjoying reading some of your thanksgiving posts. Many count the blessings in their lives, or the things they love about Thanksgiving. Here’s Patry’s number 4:

“Traditions. In our family, we all write down one thing we’re thankful for and put them into a cup. Just before dinner, we take turns drawing one out, reading it aloud, and guessing who said it. One rule: you can’t say anything you used in a previous year. (That prevents boring people like me from saying “my family” every time.)”

This made me think of my own family and one Canadian Thanksgiving (in October) a few years ago. We decided to do something new – we all held hands around the table and each in turn said what he or she was thankful for. Our grand-daughter, perhaps three years old then, remembered this and always asks to do this at every big family dinner. A new tradition started by a grandchild and remembered year round – how wonderful is that?

the xylothek

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Alnarp, Sweden is the home of a unique Wooden Library.*

The wooden library, or xylothek (from the Greek words for tree, xylon, and storing place, theke) consists of 217 volumes describing 213 different species or varieties of trees and shrubs.

A xylothek is generally speaking a collection of simple pieces of wood specimens placed together in some kind of cupboard. In a refined form it is in the shape of “books” where you can find details from the tree inside, everything arranged as a “library”. This latter form flourished in Germany around 1790-1810. Four different manufacturers existed and three of them offered their products for sale. The Alnarp collection is an example of that.

Each “book” describes a certain tree species and is made out of the actual wood (the “covers”). The spine is covered by the bark, where mosses and lichens from the same tree are arranged. “Books” of shrubs are covered with mosses with split branches on both covers and spines.

Read more about these exquisite works, and their history and how they came to be in Alnarp, Sweden.

View the gorgeous photos by Mikael Risedal – be sure to click on each to view much larger.*

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(Thanks to wood s lot for this stunning find a while ago. I’m late posting this.)

* March 28, 2014 – link updated as site has changed; photos no longer enlarge.

poppy day

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Wear White Poppies for a culture of peace
Today on Remembrance Day in Canada
Many thanks to wood s lot who always finds such treasures

UPDATE: 8:30 pm. I’ve just been reading a lovely post about Remembrance Day as experienced by an American now living in Vancouver. I didn’t know that the Market at Granville Island observes this day by publicly asking everyone to “observe 2 minutes of silence in remembrance of the soldiers who had died in the past World Wars.” I don’t know if many stores do this as I don’t seem to shop on this day.

This brought back memories of school days too long ago when we had to go to school on the morning of Remembrance Day to attend an hour of service. Various speeches, and maybe films were followed by two minutes of silence, then the slow call of a bugle would follow, which always made my skin crawl and emotions swell. Nowadays school kids have a service the day before so they can have a full day of holiday.

Anyway, this brings up a perfect opportunity to introduce Loud Murmurs which I’ve been reading with pleasure for some time, almost since blogger David Drucker and his wife decided to leave the US and move to Vancouver. He’s written about the many trials preparing and then moving, finding a home and jobs and about his experiences living in another culture. It’s always interesting to me to read about how a newcomer to this city and country views life here.

ADDENDUM Nov.12, 10:30 pm: If you haven’t already, please read the first comment below. It’s a moving and lovely poem written by a very good online friend of mine. Roger gave me a little more information about it today that I wish to share with readers that may be interested in it…

Roger’s Uncle Curt was with the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) in Japan during WW II when a small troupe of Japanese engaged them while they were trying to get some prisoners released. This is when this remarkable incident occurred. Years later, in his last days before passing away, Curt wrote down this story on a piece of scrap paper. It was amongst several things Roger inherited from his uncle. This is Roger’s little Remembrance Day tribute to his Uncle Curt, based on that story.

Halloween

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Happy Halloween! Be safe, little ones!
All about Halloween
All about pumpkins
All about Samhain, Day of the Dead, All Souls, All Saints
Halloween 2005
Halloween 2004 and a complaint about commercialization

Griffin & Sabine

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Griffin and Sabine, An Extraordinary Correspondence, written and illustrated by Nick Bantock grew into a series of six books that achieved great popularity and are some of my very favourites. I love the artwork, letters inside envelopes and postcards that invite a slow savouring, a sweet pleasure of opening mail and reading hand-written letters. Something that is not so common today with the speed and ease of electronic communication. In fact, Nick Bantock and his art exhibition were the subject of a blog post here a couple of years ago.

Now there is a play, an adaptation of the Griffin & Sabine series. Called a lyrical romance, this world premiere is now playing to November 4th at the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage in Vancouver. Here’s a description from the theatre site:

“How can I miss you this badly when we’ve never met?”  
Travel through the lush, mystical universe of Griffin & Sabine, based on the internationally renowned series of books by Nick Bantock. Griffin Moss and Sabine Strohem are two artists who live half a world apart. He is an isolated, hesitant English postcard designer, while she is a confident illustrator of postage stamps and very much a creature of the South Seas. The pair exchange love letters, unaware that their profound connection will draw them into a surreal realm of haunting figures and intrigue.

View the list of actors and a few video clips about the cast and audience reactions.

Like many fans, we wondered how these books can ever be made into a play. Some time ago I read a fascinating article about the long and challenging process of transforming this very visual and ephemeral story into a stage play. Really worth a read.

Anyway, we went to see it earlier this evening. It was well done in most respects. We liked the minimalist set with projected images of Bantock’s artworks and the interesting changing lighting. A bass player and a percussionist hidden in the shadows provided occasional background music. Knowing it’s an immensely challenging proposition to stage such an otherworldly story, it was fairly successful. However we thought it was rather rushed in the two hours, the actors speaking too fast. (I had difficulty understanding Griffin’s English accent, though it was authentic to the character, but that’s just me.) It’s the usual dilemma of condensing a book or books into a short time. My husband had not read the books (he rarely reads fiction) so he had no preconceptions and expectations and thought it well done but also felt it was rushed, the speech sometimes too “clinical”.

We’d still recommend it highly for its unique artistic achievement. We did wonder if it would make a great digital animation movie.

Image: part of the artwork on the cover of The Golden Mean by Nick Bantock, scanned from my copy.

no more plastic bears

The ongoing fashion for cute, unoriginal and downright kitschy public art fauna continues to make me peevish, as I voiced here on July 9th , July 13th and July 17th of 2004 . And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Jenn Farrell has written an excellent article for Vancouver’s The Tyee called Pack up the Plastic Spirit Bears – There’s got to be a better way to handle public art and charity. Here’s an excerpt, and please do read the entire article for the many valid points made.

But Richard Tetrault, a Vancouver artist and muralist, believes that the spirit bear project demonstrates a lack of trust in artists’ own work, and instead forces them to produce something “cute and frivolous.” “Take something that’s a template, that’s really hard to work with,” he says, “then give artists all these conditions about not making any political or social statements…then strain all that out and see what they can come up with.”

The lack of a real art legacy in Vancouver bothers him and many other artists. “There are all these issues, substantial things that can be expressed in content in public art, a tremendous untapped dimension that we aren’t even tapping,” laments Tetrault. Another artist, who, because of his contribution to the spirit bear project, asked not to be named, expressed similar feelings. “Why does art for the masses have to be such pablum? I don’t want to see the same thing over and over, just these different variations on the same thing. I want to see things that are different and controversial, that make people think.”

fall equinox

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Dear readers, I hope you’ve all had a great autumnal equinox, or spring if you’re in the southern hemisphere. Yesterday was the first day of fall and the weather was gloriously warm and sunny all weekend here in southwest BC. Our summer drought is over with the several rainy and cool days this month making the grass green again. Next to spring, this is my favourite time of year, with its cool nights, pleasantly warm days, and the beauty of nature’s rapidly changing colours.

Several times recently I wished I’d had the camera with me as I was going about errands. One very rainy day I was walking to an appointment and I could not help but stop for a moment to admire the gorgeous glowing red Japanese maple leaves scattered on the sidewalk and grass borders. At the supermarket I was admiring displays of huge pots of chrysanthemums in many shades of yellow, gold, orange, rust and burgundy and the colourful piles of mini pumpkins, gourds and dried Indian corn.

Of the equinoxes, the spring seems to be celebrated a lot more in many cultures, yet the autumn is more associated with harvest. This year both Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the start of Islam’s Ramadan happen at the autumnal equinox.

This weekend I enjoyed some gardening including taking cuttings to grow for next spring and preparing some plants for their move back indoors. I’m thrilled that my pot of third generation Silver Vase Plants or Aechmea Fasciata have three flowers and a fourth emerging! These flower last for many months. Aren’t they amazing? In searching for its forgotten Latin name I learned that this plant is related to the pineapple plant.

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the human journey

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I’ve been happily lost in my travels through the pages of the Atlas of the Human Journey. I’m always fascinated to learn more about the amazing migration of humans from Africa to all the far corners of the earth. Clicking on “Journey Highlights” on the lower right hand corner brings up a long list of different cultures, languages, anthropology and archaeological sites with some history or other interesting bits of information. The mention of some yet unproven theories on how some peoples arrived where they did reveals how much is still unknown. The Saami culture and other more obscure ones are even on the list, something you don’t often see in these kind of broad studies.

As most readers know, a great deal of new information has been recently discovered through the modern science of genetics. So, this site happens to be a part of the Genographic Project. Read the fascinating information here about DNA and genetic markers. I’m rather tempted to order the kit and send in some of my DNA and find out where the Finns came from! I’m also intrigued by some claims (elsewhere) that the Finnish language and genes may be as authentic, ancient and unique as that of the Basques.

The image above is of a Gravettian period (22,000 to 28,000 years ago) cave painting in the Czech Republic, photo by Kenneth Garrett, captured from this site.

Blue Buddha

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This past Monday evening ‘The Nature of Things with David Suzuki’ presented Blue Buddha: Lost Secrets of Tibetan Medicine. It traces the odyssey of traditional Tibetan medicine from it’s roots in ancient Tibet, to a worldwide interest in it’s traditional medical wisdom.

Twelve hundred years ago the people of Tibet developed a comprehensive medical system. They understood how the mind affects the body. They knew subtle ways of changing the body’s chemistry with medicines made from plants and minerals. They blessed their medicines in lengthy rituals. And they encoded this knowledge in a series of 79 elaborate paintings called thangkas (scrolls).

I found the program fascinating and inspiring from many perspectives – the history, the training and practice of the traditional medicine, the spiritualism, and the art. If this interests you, do read the informative website and the interview with “Blue Buddha” director Aerlyn Weissman where she gives her perspective on Tibetan medicine and how it has influenced her personally.

I tried to find online images of the 79 thangkas but only found a few poor images shown, such as at this detailed ongoing study. The author of the study mentions that the scrolls she saw are not very old. If I recall the film correctly, most of the original ancient medical thangkas, used in their teaching, were lost when the Chinese forced the Tibetans to flee their country. The monk doctors who had memorized all the information, slowly taught these to younger acolytes who painted new ones. In the program these looked truly amazing artistically and scientifically.

If you are able to view CBC where you live, the program is repeated tonight at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld. I highly recommend it and I’m going to tape it this time.

As an aside for those who don’t know our great David Suzuki – he is a Canadian author, broadcaster, environmental activist, geneticist, and professor, and is well known for motivating people’s interest in science. He has written eighteen books, his latest being “David Suzuki: The Autobiography” (Greystone Books). Check out also the David Suzuki Foundation.

And finally, I must put in a plug for the CBC – this kind of quality programming is what CBC does well and should continue to do more of instead of the highly commercial non-Canadian offerings best left to the private stations.

Fiskars Village

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The Fiskars Granary

Funny how one thing leads to another, especially on the net. A while back I had bookmarked for future study an exhibition announcement in Art Daily called ‘Fiskars Art Center presents Remix-Rethought’. Fiskars? The Finnish scissor company? Yes, and there is a place in Finland called Fiskars that I didn’t know about. This tickled my Finnish funny bone.

I found a lovely website for Fiskars Village. It was founded in 1649 and today is known as a center of craft, design and art in a beautiful valley in Southern Finland. I enjoyed the virtual walk around the village and its beautifully restored historic buildings. The village site lists news and the many exhibitions and events.

Some interesting history here! When the old Fiskars Ironworks (est.1649) ceased during the 1980’s the town became uninhabited. The beautiful surroundings and vacant premises lured a number of craftsmen, designers and artists to the village. Eventually they formed The Artisans, Designers and Artists of Fiskars Co-operative. They hold numerous high quality exhibitions that have witnessed growing attendance numbers.

This year the main exhibition is the Remix-Rethought exhibition that I first read about in Art Daily. There’s also an exciting touring exhibition in Japan, Fiskars Design Village. The Artist Residency program for foreign craftsmen, designer and artist professionals also sounds very tempting.

Finnish readers will enjoy this lovely article by Eija Mäkinen* about Fiskars’ artists, artisans and designers. (*Update: this site no longer exists so link has been removed.)

So, guess what town we are going to visit on our next trip to Finland? I think I’d be tempted to move to Fiskars, and it’s not far from Helsinki!