Going for Late Baroque

Gotta love this Rococo hopscotch that was meandering around the corner from us, courtesy of the young sidewalk artists residing on Chester Avenue.

Caught it before the spring rains washed it away.

Blossoming

Oh, I love younger daughter's watercolour paintings.

I know I'm her mother.  They're just so lush, and light years ahead of anything I can manage.

Younger daughter's art lessons ended yesterday, for another summer.  She's been taking them with the same teacher for the past dozen years, with a few exceptions for logistics and pandemics. 

As she left, she embraced her teacher.  The Resident Fan Boy told me the teacher seemed a little surprised, but that younger daughter scoffed, on the way to the bus stop:  "I always give her a hug when lessons are over!"

It's a rare thing just the same.

Just like her paintings.

"This is really a Canadian story"

 

Alex Janvier in 2022

Three years ago, I wrote about the impact of seeing a 2017 retrospective of the art of Alex Janvier, who lived in Cold Lake, Alberta, and descended from the Dene Suline and the Saulteaux peoples. 

Janvier was one of the great artists, indigenous or Canadian.  He has just died, at the age of 89.  

This video, made two years ago, captures his gentle, but pointed truths.  It also shows a tiny fraction of his art, which is beautiful, but trust me, if you're standing in the same room as his paintings, it's like being overcome.  They are that amazing.

Fly fly away

Fly Fly Fly - Alex Janvier (1981)

A couple of days ago, we had Orange Shirt Day in Canada, also known as Truth and Reconciliation Day. 

This year was the first time that September 30th was declared a federal holiday. 

On a day that was proving rather more complicated than I'd hoped - please don't ask why - I hurried through the streets of Victoria, passing all sorts of people clad in the same orange shirt being sported by the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter at home. For myself, I was wearing my favourite cloisonné "Haida Fin" earrings, my Leah Dorion "Breath of Life" facemask, and I carried my Norval Morriseau umbrella. I figured that would have to do.

Speaking of artists, the last big exhibit I saw at the National Gallery of Canada before we left Hades covered the life's work of Alex Janvier.  I was somewhat familiar with the earlier decades of his work, because, years ago,  I helped a friend tidy the phrasing of his Master's thesis on Janvier; his research had included traveling to Cold Lake, Alberta to interview the artist, who was known, but not yet famous.

What I was not prepared for was the very scale of Janvier's development over six or seven decades.  I moved from gallery to gallery, almost having to scoop my jaw from the floor.  Each room brought new styles and experiments in exploding, curling, spiralling gatherings of brilliant colour.

Except for one small room to the side.  Displayed within were the works of the young Janvier at the Blue Quills Residential School.  Outside was expansion, exuberance.  In this small display room, I felt crushed and suffocated.  I couldn't stay long; I felt the walls closing in.

(Ironically enough, apparently it was the principal at Blue Quills that recognised his talent, and steered him towards art school.)

I continued on the journey through the exhibit.  Each passage through a doorway confronted me with newness and daring.  By the end, I was close to tears.

It would be the height of arrogance for me to say I understand what the Indigenous children went through, torn from their families, forced into schools where they were stripped of what they were, not cared for, and often abused.  However, that little dark side gallery within the magnificent showcase of one artist's life's work (which still continues) gave me a glimpse, and some idea of the horror.

Move over, Monet

As is my habit when world headlines get positively terrifying, I am burying myself in art.

It's not always stress-free.

This week, younger daughter and I are back at water-colour classes. We're labouring at a still-life of drooping blossoms, cut crystal, teapot, jug, and a cup of tea.

Younger daughter creates her own bold and beautiful vision. She's a natural.

Our teacher gazes at what I've wrought.
"I honestly really like it," she says. "Now, don't take this the wrong way..."
I sit back and raise a dignified eyebrow. I'm a grown-up.
She continues: "I had a favourite student at the art gallery. Just love her stuff. She had vision problems, and kept switching between her glasses. I think that's how she came up with the unique look of her pictures."

So, perhaps impressionism is the way to go.
At least, I can claim this is intentional.
I'm thinking of calling this "Twinkle, twinkle little bat", because it's rather like a tea-tray in the sky.

(I'm quite proud of the spout...)

Memory: lost, retrieved, elusive, concussive

Younger daughter and I have been taking watercolour lessons over the past year. As a result, I'm becoming a wee bit more familiar with the materials required and the ones which I prefer.

Recently, I dropped into Island View Print, which is the most convenient art supply store, relative to my haunts and wanderings. We've been painting long enough to begin running out of supplies, and I've developed a liking for a brand of paper called, oddly, "The Langton". Demeter picked a pad of it up from Island View Point about seven years ago. It's difficult to pinpoint or even describe why I like it. It's soft and giving (does that make sense?), and I think what I manage to produce somehow looks better on it.

I had looked it up online, and it's there, but doesn't look readily available, so I asked the nice fellow in the shop about it.

He shook his head regretfully.
"I doubt they make it anymore."

He directed me to the watercolour paper shelves, to see if I could find something to my liking.

To my astonishment, I spotted the familiar green cover in the bottom shelf. I extracted it and waved my trophy at the assistant in delight.

"You must have found the very last pad we have!" he exclaimed.

I was cradling it triumphantly as I advanced to the cash register, when I saw a lady with a familiar face enter. I smiled warmly at her; she also smiled - politely - and proceeded into the store.

I finished my purchases, and was juggling my treasures while trying to retrieve my cloth bag from my knapsack. The lady came up to pay for her supplies, and placed a card on the counter, explaining she was a teacher - for a discount, I guess. And I was juggling, struggling, and thinking: Jessica? Jessie? Last name?

I would have tried to surreptitiously read the name on the card, if I hadn't thought this would be a rude and disturbing thing to do.

By the time I'd stepped out to the bus stop, I was sure I had known her from my teaching days at the university. We had become quite good buddies. I'd even been to her house in my days of early motherhood.

But she showed no signs of recognition, and I hesitated.

At home, I rummaged through my journals, and found her. The journals told me her last name, and that she'd visited me in the hospital after I'd given birth, and that she and another friend became estranged.

I'd forgotten all of this. I'd even mentioned the estrangement in passing at the time, no doubt certain I'd remember the details without writing them down. She'd clearly drifted out of my life with the birth of younger daughter, and I hadn't even noticed.

Writing things down helps, but it doesn't always prevent the fading away.

You think you'll remember. You won't.

Brolly secrets

Beautiful sunny morning, after a bleak rainy day filled with reports of up-Island rivers sloshing over their banks.

My National Gallery of Canada umbrellas fortuitously arrived early in the soggy afternoon. Now, I'm sort of hiding them from the Resident Fan Boy, who got me a lovely, if small and flimsy umbrella for Christmas, festooned with First Nation moons, and made in China.

Empress Hotel and the Butchart Gardens

Oak Bay Marina and BC Legislature

Emily Carr's birthplace 

Craigdarroch Castle and Tally-ho carriage

It was meant to replace my treasured, but now leaky and rusted Robert Amos umbrella, which gave me such comfort (and limited shelter) in Hades.

I've secreted my new William Morris patterned "Strawberry Thief" umbrella in my packsack, and concealed my larger and sturdier Norval Morrisseau behind other brollies. The Resident Fan Boy, not the keenest of observers at the best of times, hasn't noticed yet. He will, and his feelings will be hurt.

But this morning is blue and clear, and the first thing I spot is a crow hopping along the curb in front of our building. One for sorrow.

I exclaim out loud when I spy another crow up the road on the next block: "And two for joy! Thank you!"

I realize, too late, that I'm right next to a lady in a wheelchair, parked on the sidewalk just around the corner, having a smoke. I explain the folk-rhyme to her.

"I'll have to remember that," she says, squinting up into the sunshine.

I stroll off to rescue worms.

Artist and artisan

So I was heading up Cook Street this morning, and was startled to see this mural on the side of the dry-cleaners next to Wong Grocery.

How have I missed this? I asked myself, before noticing the painter on the scaffold.

I walked to the foot of the structure, and called up to the lovely young lady at work: "Was this always here, or have you just put it there?"

She gave me a dazzling smile. "I've just put it here! It's not done yet; I'll be adding to it!"

"Wow! And I'll be watching out for that!" I said, before marching on, as she wishes me a good day.

I think the figure is meant to be Chinese Canadian, although the hat that she's wearing looks a little like a Coast Salish cedar hat.

October in Victoria. I love it.

The Emily Carr tree

On my evening returns to the house-sit, I sit on the left-hand side of the bus, and from there I can see what I've come to call (in my own mind) "the Emily Carr tree".

It seems to burst out of a larger tree like Athena from the head of Zeus, and bristle against the sky.

Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky - Emily Carr (1931)

Orca strait

I had heard about this Victoria Foundation project months ago while I was still in Ottawa, but to be confronted by it in person, where it's displayed outside the main branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library, was a whole other kettle of orcas.

This is the work of Victoria-based Kwagiulth artist, and Victoria Foundation board member, Carey Newman, who had scores, well, maybe hundreds of prominent and not-so-prominent Victorians come to workshops to create individual tiles, then pieced them together into a trio of killer whales - we call them orcas in this part of the world.

If you click on the picture, you may be able to make out the individual tiles, which include Queen Victoria, and Emily Carr. This was, of course, all in honour of the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

Yowza.

Eating crow

Oak Bay Avenue

You can click to enlarge

Ideas are like stars

I've just had a significant birthday.  Or is it an insignificant one?  It leaves me with a zero at the end, anyway.

As an antidote, I pulled together songs that came out in a year that ended in "7".  For 1997, I chose "Ideas Are Like Stars" by Mary Chapin Carpenter, a song that, for me, doesn't belong so much to 1997, as it belongs to 2001, and my first winter in Hades.

I'd just acquired the CD A Place in the World, and younger daughter had just been "identified" as having Special Needs.  This song would come on, and I'd have to dive into the basement to smother my sobbing.

While searching for videos, I came across a new recording Mary Chapin Carpenter has made, with an orchestral score and choir.

Today Joseph is sitting alone, with occasional nods to the waitress
She tops off his cup while she's snapping her gum, making her rounds on the lunch shift
Counting out coins, he leaves them arranged, in neat lines and circles and arcs
She just stares at the tip that spells out her name and ideas are like stars

And yesterday pedaling down 4th Avenue, between the stalls and the bookshops
The sepia tones of a lost afternoon cradled a curio storefront
And inside the air was thick with the past, as the dust settled onto his heart
And here for a moment is every place in the world and ideas are like stars

They fall from the sky, they run round your head
They litter your sleep as they beckon
They'd teach you to fly without wires or thread
They promise if only you'd let them

For the language of longing never had words,
so how did you speak from your heart?
Yet here is a box that swears it has heard that ideas are like stars

Tonight Joseph stood out in the yard, as Debussy played from the kitchen
Celestial companions `til mornings first lark, shone overhead and he listened
And who was that shadow there by the gate, who was that there standing guard
It was only loneliness, and loneliness waits, and ideas are like stars
Ideas are like stars.


I've since learned that the Joseph in the song refers to American artist Joseph Cornell, and have found a video featuring the original 1996 recording, with images of Cornell's artwork.

Art appreciation

"I never understood the Group of Seven," sighs the barista at Planet Coffee.

"Until I travelled from Toronto to Ottawa in October."

This is only a test

So at the tail-end of my Double Leo Sister's surprise visit with her family, I was sitting in a Greek restaurant, feeling fortunate to have survived the three days with no emotional explosions. (Oh, there were explosions, but none directed at me, so I was all right, Jack.)

The painting below caught my eye, and I stared at it for a few minutes in disbelief, before asking the Jolly Not-So-Green Giant Brother-in-law if I were seeing what I thought I was seeing.

I want you to look at the painting before scrolling down. What do you see? Go on, I'll wait:

Ready?

My brother-in-law told me it was a blue door and two shuttered windows on a house of sand-coloured brick set into a courtyard.

I saw three dangling Tardises -- or what ever the plural of TARDIS is.

I sent the photo to the Resident Fan Boy in Hades. You can probably guess what he saw.

Reflections at a Quaker Meeting

As Meeting begins, I see a chair.

It's a very ordinary chair, metal-legged, plastic-cushioned, such as used to be in countless business meetings and university seminars.

And as the Silence descends, I find myself wanting to sketch it.

The morning light hits the metal legs, and the reflections in the ancient, dark polish of the meeting house floor seem to dip below the surface in long, silver cones.  I sit, wishing I had the courage to pull out my sketchbook and try to capture it, knowing it's beyond my skills.

I've been taking my third session of art lessons with a friend who has taught both of my daughters.  This is the first time she has offered drawing, so I spend her two-hour classes trying to draw what I see -- and falling short, of course.  I rather like my creations, but am aware that I'm not really hitting her objectives.  This doesn't particularly trouble me.  In drawing, as in painting, photography, and writing, you are forced to slow down and notice details, and that's the point, isn't it?

Rather like a Quaker Meeting for Worship.

I don't have the gumption to haul out my sketchbook, but I do quietly pull out my notebook and scribble:  "Who polishes the floor? -  Surely they do it with love."

When I look back to the chair, the reflections in the floor have vanished. The light has moved on.

Ambushed by art

I only got to house-sit in Oak Bay for one week this year, but still, I don't know how I managed to miss these two, just outside of Ivy's Books on Oak Bay Avenue.  There's different temporary art in the municipality every summer, and if you're not alert -- and I guess I wasn't -- you'll miss it.

Four-century see-saw

This is London Bridge in 1616, in a famous engraving by Claes Janz Visscher.  If you look at the lower right hand corner, you'll see heads on spikes, a little public service announcement for people considering treason. (Click on the picture, if you must.)

And this is the same scene in 2016, drawn by artist Robin Richards.

If you go here, you can spend hours of fun, sliding back and forth between two years that are four centuries apart.

Not me, though. I'm going to bed.

Taken by surprise

New Forest

A few weeks ago, I nipped into the National Gallery to see a small Chagall exhibit. And it was okay.

However, because it was small (which, because it was in the National Gallery, meant it was pretty big), there was another exhibit slipped in beside it. It was the work of an English photographer of whom I'd never heard: one Frederick H. Evans (1853-1943).

I ended up enjoying this exhibit more than the Chagall one -- although the Chagall was perfectly fine. I guess it was the pleasant surprise.

Gloucester Cathedral: Alabaster Effigy

This was one of my favourites, probably taken in the last decade of the 19th century. I love the layers seen through the arches.

A Sea of Steps

This is one of his most famous photos, taken at Wells Cathedral in 1904.

Afterwards, I went to have a quiet lunch at Memories which used to be a rather funky restaurant on Clarence, but the ancient building it was in was declared dangerous, so it's now a rather posh place tucked in behind the corner of St Patrick and Sussex Drive. The food is still good, though, and they were playing a song by Sting that I'd completely forgotten about.

Last week, when younger daughter got lost and my mind was full of a tune by Paul Simon, I looked up the song on YouTube and up came this recent performance by Paul Simon and Sting which dovetails "Mother and Child Reunion" with "Love is the Seventh Wave".

And that too, was a pleasant surprise.

Nose dive

Kingfisher 1983

When I first came to Hades almost exactly fifteen years ago, one of my first stops was the National Gallery of Canada. Back then, you could stroll through the permanent galleries for free; you only paid for special exhibitions. I had been familiar with the almost photographic and slightly unsettling pictures of Alex Colville - nude people standing around refrigerators at night drinking milk and the like.

My gallery technique is to hurry through a display, then return to the ones that call to me. I got a very strange call from Colville's Kingfisher. It's very tall and thin, and when you get close, there's a sinister gleam in the bird's eye.

Moon and Cow 1963

One of the things I do to take the sting out of having to leave Victoria to come back and live in Hades is saving treats for myself. This year, I resisted going to the Alex Colville retrospective until a couple of days before it closed. (Alex Colville died two years ago, preceded by a few months by his wife and muse Rhoda Wright.)

Seven Crows 1980

This meant I had younger daughter along with me. This is usually not a problem. The art gallery tires her quickly, but she says she enjoys it.

The problem this summer was that she had taken to walking around with her eyes closed, a development that started at school last spring and slopped over into our home life as the summer began. I wondered how on earth she would manage an art exhibit.

Dog, Boy and School Bus 1960

She managed it by setting herself up in a corner near this painting. I pointed it out to her, but she turned her head and told me to go away. I went to the other side of the room and examined the other paintings, watching her surreptitiously. She remained standing in the corner, and I mean facing the corner. I got her to move from room to room by telling her where I was going then moving ahead, praying she would follow.

Dog, Boy, and St John River 1958

When we were walking to the bus stop, I asked her which painting she liked the best, expecting it to be "Dog, Boy and School Bus".
"I liked 'Dog, Boy, and St John River'", she said. I had to look it up when we got home. Clearly, she had been paying attention.

She also liked the Alex Colville movie connections. Apparently the art direction of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom is based on Colville's work, and about four of his paintings are hanging in the background of scenes in The Shining.
"That's the movie where Jack Nicholson says 'Heeeere's Johnny!", younger daughter informed me.
"Have you seen that movie?" I've never had the nerve, myself, but they've shown films like Psycho at her school.
"No!" she scoffed. She's a great scoffer.
"It's a very famous movie, Mom!"

Horse and Church 1964

The paintings that stuck with me? Well, this one is haunting. Colville painted it after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A black horse bolting in blind panic from a windowless chapel. It feels a bit like my life lately.

Mr. Wood in April 1960

However, this one kept calling me back. It's a painting in springtime. The bleak early spring of eastern and central Canada. I like the truthfulness of it.

My kingfisher favourite was not a part of this retrospective.

This painting is by my neighbour Caitlin.

I've been back in Hades for nearly 48 hours. I smile at people I pass on the street; they glance at me and focus on some point beyond my left shoulder. Down by the Rideau River, the din of the crickets and cicadas is deafening. The Resident Fan Boy let slip today, during a family chat in a restaurant, that one of his cousins has held a grudge against me for a year and a half, as a result of something I did in all innocence, and out of genuine affection for her late mother. My soul, recently opened by sea winds, mountain views and conversations with friends, is closing back in on itself like a blossom without sunlight.

This evening I wander home after taking the Accent Snob for a stroll. On a corner near our house is a string pulled across a front gate, with drawings attached with clothes pins, fluttering gently in the evening breeze.

25¢, reads the sheet in the centre.

A little girl the colour of summer is curating her collection, and I sorrowfully tell her that I don't have change.
"I'm supposed to give them away," she informs me gravely.
"Are you sure? The sign says '25¢'."
She assures me that I can choose a picture.
I ask her her name so I can write it on the back when I get home, and tell her my name and the name of my dog, aware that asking a child's name in these times borders on the creepy.

As I reach my front walk, a lady with a golden Lab cross asks me about the Accent Snob, and we exchange information on our dogs, but nothing about ourselves.