by Marja-Leena 
Just a gentle reminder that my exhibition opening is happening tomorrow, Wednesday November 16th starting at 4:30!
In case you missed it, here is all the information. Everyone welcome!
If you can’t make it to the opening but would like to meet me another day, please feel free to email me when you are coming and I’ll be there.
by Marja-Leena 
This morning on waking I was startled to see a white coat of frost everywhere! Here on the westcoast we know November is the rainiest month so it’s a visual treat whenever we have sunshine, and when we see the fresh new snow on the mountaintops, and even are blessed with some ephemeral art work on our skylights! Compare this photo to the ones I took last year on December 5th. This year’s frost pattern is different, isn’t it?
This afternoon I went around bringing in the last few potted plants, hoping that they did not get too damaged by the -2C because they were tucked against the house. Being so busy making art this fall, I’ve neglected the fall gardening jobs, which get even harder to do now with the rainy days. The dahlias need to be dug up now that the frost has blackened the tops, and I still have to plant my spring flowering bulbs. Rain is forecast again, but please Mr. Weatherman, let it be sunny next weekend, now that I will have some time at last!
by Marja-Leena “This blog is thinking about hibernation. I’m an Adorable Little Rodent (TLB blog ranking) with hundreds of hits a day. But I’m getting bored with my humble self and I want to spend time on other things.”
Sadly for us faithful readers, Amy Kane is retiring her blog ever so humble tomorrow. I’m late posting this for those readers who have not had a chance to visit her. As you can see by the tremendous response to her last two posts, she will be missed. I’m sad whenever a favourite blogger, familiar like an old friend, quits, as a few have this year. Here’s wishing you well, Amy, in whatever you pursue, with high hopes that we meet again in blogland!
I had to capture these great words from Amy’s sidebar under “recently read” about Biz Stone’s Who Let the Blogs Out?: A Hyperconnected Peek at the World of Weblogs:
“It really doesn’t matter if your blog is focused on a hobby, your work, politics, or just what you do during the course of the day. Blogging is information sharing, and the more you research and share, the more you gain expertise in your area of interest, even if that area is only “things that interest me.” Every post you publish is added to your life’s work, and that work is a window on your mind. Even if all you do is collect and publish bookmarks, the very links you choose to publish tip your hand. Blogging is an everyday practice of searching, thinking, and writing. There are many benefits to this exercise.”
by Marja-Leena 
With my printworks finished and ready to hang on Wednesday morning, I had a day of deserved and much-needed rest yesterday. Today I am sorting through my notes, even my blog posts which are a proving to be a very useful archive, to put together the supplementary information for my exhibition. You can see that I am a list person!
1. The curriculum vitae has been updated and is ready to print. Must update the copy on this blog soon.
2. The all-important Artist’s Statement – I’m re-revising this everytime I look at it! I’m starting with this early statement and adding some words by Kivikäs on the “silent message of man”. Because I’m including the last ten pieces of the Nexus series that preceded the current series, I need to say something about their connection.
3. I’m going to put up the five of Karen D’Amico’s original photos that I have used for the series of prints called Silent Messengers: Connecting with D’Amico along with a note about this collaboration-of-sorts.
4. I’m seriously thinking of displaying my copy of the 2003 Finno-Ugric Calendar with a print-out of the excellent introduction by Väinö Poikalainen along with some comments on the influence of Loit Joekalda on my work.
5. A short note of explanation regarding the strange title is underway for Nexus: Vyg and Willendorf to be put up next to that piece.
6. The colour brochures of my work (pictured above) that were printed to accompany the 2002 exhibition in Finland have been updated with a stick-on label with my new email and weblog addresses. Though the examples of work are older and not in this exhibition, the brochure is still an attractive “take-home” for visitors since I still have a couple of hundred of them as it was cheaper to print in large quantity.
by Marja-Leena 
On Canada’s Remembrance Day today, as I struggle to express my conflicting feelings about it, I read this wonderful essay: A Rare Tribute to the Dead: Käthe Kollwitz’s Memorial to her Son
Artist Käthe Kollwitz grieved the loss of her son Peter in the First World War. A pacifist at heart, Kollwitz agonized over whether her position dishonored the sacrifice her child had made. A restless self-critic, she had the gnawing feeling that she was guilty of an earlier, far more serious betrayal: allowing him to join up. Finally, in 1931, she completed what she felt was a fitting tribute: a double sculpture of herself and her husband mourning on their knees. The figures, she said, represented her entire generation, asking the young’s forgiveness for having led them into war.
Read on about her tribulations during the WW II, and this – one of Käthe Kollwitz’ last entries in her diary before her death in 1945:
One day, a new ideal will arise, and there will be an end to all wars. I die convinced of this. It will need much hard work, but it will be achieved… The important thing, until that happens, is to hold one’s banner high and to struggle… Without struggle there is no life.
I’ve mentioned my great admiration for Kollwitz before a few times on my blog, including a photo of another memorial that she did.
Finding this article today is most fitting in so many ways! Thanks to wood s lot.
More on Remembrance Day:
CBC on how Canadians honour and remember this year
CBC’s archives on Remembrance Day
my short post about it last year
And last but not least, read Why I don’t wear a poppy.
by Marja-Leena 
Rob Newell photo – North Shore Outlook newspaper
Caption reads: Stroking Silence – Marja-Leena Rathje presents “Silent Messengers”, a collection of mixed media prints in the studio gallery at Capilano College…..
by Marja-Leena Most of my prints for my exhibition are completed to my great satisfaction, but one has been giving me some trouble! It is the transparency layer for another Silent Messengers: Hoodoos. I’ve been proofing it a few times with successive adjustments and improvements. Today it took me four hours to get one print because of some problem with sending the file to the printer. This entailed several restarts of printer and computer and much impatient waiting. The resulting print proof still needed some more work which I’ve just now finished. So it’s back to the printer in the morning, with hopes that “Lucy” (our pet name for the printer) will be more cooperative! Wish me luck.
Some say that working with computers and printers are prone to problems. Actually, even hand printed work can sometimes be frustrating, maybe with getting the right colour, the right technique of wiping the ink, the right paper and pressure, and so on. It’s all about proofing whether it’s a traditional print or an inkjet.
I still have to finish trimming the prints, attach the layers to each other, sign and document them. Even if I don’t get the entire set in each edition done, but have one of each ready for the show, I can finish doing that later after the show is hung.
Yesterday I was in the rather uncomfortable role of photographer’s model! I’ve never enjoyed having pictures taken of me! One of the North Shore newspapers sent a photographer to take photos of me in front of some of my prints for their arts page, for which I’m very grateful of course. He was patient and friendly and made me relax, so we shall see how that turns out.
It has amazed me how much creative energy I have maintained the past two months. This morning I woke up naturally before 5:00 am, and was in the studio a bit after 7, but the frustrations today have felt stressful. I’m going out for a vigorous walk in the rain now!
by Marja-Leena 
You are invited to come to the opening of my exhibition! I’d love to meet you local bloggers and readers!
Silent Messengers: mixed media prints
Opening: November 16th, 4:30 – 8:00p.m.
Studio Art Gallery, Capilano College**
2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver
The exhibition is on from November 16th to December 7th, 2004.
Gallery hours: 10am – 4pm Monday – Friday
(or by appointment – email me)
Note: If you need directions to the Studio Art Building, please email me and I can send you a PDF map. It’s a 1.5 MB file, too big to upload here, and you probably need a fast connection to receive it. OR if you send me your address, I will mail you the card which has a map on the back.
I’ll keep reposting this so that it stays on the main page.
Addendum: To find your way to the North Vancouver Capilano College** campus, check out Google maps. Thanks for the tip, J!
** now University
by Marja-Leena 
Busy artist Pnina Granirer is having another exhibition! Floating Dancers will be at the Seymour Art Gallery, 4360 Gallant Ave. in Deep Cove, North Vancouver, from November 8th – Dec.4th, 2005, with the opening reception on Tuesday, November 15th, 7 – 9 pm. There will a dance performance by Cory Caulfield at 8 pm.
This exhibition is an installation of large figurative drawings on clear mylar sheets and mixed media paintings that explore movement and dance. Parts of this exhibition were shown last March at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery in Vancouver. A new series, ROMBUS VARIATIONS; IN SEARCH OF MEANING, will be shown at the Seymour Art Gallery.
The documentary, Pnina Granirer: Portrait of an Artist, which aired for the first time on January 30, 2005 on BRAVO!, will be screened during the exhibit run.
Following her participation this summer in WESTCOAST SURREAL: A Canadian Perspective at the Museo Granell in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Pnina Granirer’s works are now part of this Museum’s prestigious collection. Do visit Pnina Granirer’s website.
Pnina has been in these pages several times – I wrote about my visit to Pnina’s show at the Zack Gallery last spring and how it inspired my own work with mylar layers, about a visit to her studio, and about the theft of her work. (I must remember to ask her if it was ever recovered.)
by Marja-Leena 
Can you believe it’s November already? What a busy and creative fall I’m having, with great progress on the list of things to do for my exhibition, which opens two weeks tonight!
The new works are almost done. Silent Messengers: Hoodoos IV and V are nearing completion as I’m about to proof the transparency layers tomorrow, make adjustments if needed, then edition these. The other five, still unnamed, smaller pieces are ready to be editioned. I’m really excited how they are all coming together. Along with previously completed works, I will likely put up about 20 pieces.
The business end of things is heating up with the invitations (which turned out great!) now in my hot little hands. My address list is still not up to date, having lost it somehow (a backup oversight?) when we bought this computer last February, so that’s a bit of a muddle. As for the posters, I need to contact the designer to see how that’s coming. The magnets that I will use to hang the work got ordered online last night from Lee Valley since I don’t have time after all to drive out there. All the rest is paperwork and I’ll get to it as soon as the prints are done, probably by the weekend.
My thoughts are leaping forward to how I might arrange the work in the gallery, the photography, the food and beverages for opening night. Later I will need to set up proper lights and cameras to take some good installation photos and document the work both in slides and digitally. And I’m already thinking about the next new pieces!
The beauty of having a solo show for me, and for most artists I’m sure, is to see a larger body of one’s work hanging on the walls, to really see what one has been doing over a period of time and how it all works together, and thus learn a bit more about what the work is really about. I also look forward to the feedback from visitors and my fellow artists.