Author: Helen

Getting Ready for the Big One

Posted on by Helen

We live on the West coast, on Vancouver Island. That said, as we watched the horrific video coming back from Japan last week, watched that black tsunami wave churning up buildings, cars and people in it’s path, we couldn’t help but see ourselves in that wave. As our hearts went out to those thousands of people washed away and those left, now wondering about the nuclear danger unfolding, a niggling thought pushed it’s way to the front of my mind.

Then at work, someone told me of Jim Berklands predictions for our coast. OK, sure, there are detractors, but it doesn’t take much to see that if the Ring of Fire was a dot to dot drawing we are #4 on that list. And I don’t really care if he’s got the dates right or not. I sincerely hope he’s wrong just as I wish we weren’t #4. But there it is. We do live here in paradise, I love it and I want it to always stay the way it is. But I must admit I’ve been living in denial… like many others. I’ve been thinking it’ll never happen, or maybe if it does it’ll be in 500 years. Oh sure I had a few gallons of water stored in the back porch, my little nod to the Big One. And I did look last summer at garage sales for a little stove for “The Kit”. But I never really got around to putting one together. All those warnings to get 72 Hours of provisions ready had been by and large ignored.  That niggling thought finally  grew into a need for action.

Now, if you’ve read my blog before, you know I’m all about recycling. But last weekend, I just wanted to get our Kit together. So while a lot of it is recycled like the blankets, dishes and pots and pans, the last a lucky garage sale find on Saturday, most of it is new. We had looked up quite a few Earthquake preparedness sites on the net and come up with a list of sorts. I found the bins at a good price and rapidly started to find the stuff on the List.
the-bins
There was tinned food and granola bars for us and cat food for our cat, a can opener, some first aid supplies and a couple of odd things too. Like those cat treats for Sophie. And in one of those freezer bags are a couple of chocolate bars too. For shock, I told Bill, but for comfort, I said to myself. Also a deck of cards. We even managed to find a cheap but complete little 2 burner stove, for the power outages that may come. Gotta have my cup of tea.

green-bin

purple-bin

We also found another of those great inventions, a flashlight that only requires shaking to power up, no batteries. We stocked up on the requisite number of liters of water in reusable jugs. We’re still looking for a radio that’s affordable.

water-jug

Next came deciding where to store “The Kit”. If we had a big shake, what part of the house would be left standing? We figured the back porch, a rather flimsy construction, would probably fall off. So that left the area next to the basement door. I thought if we kept it close we might be able to get at it just by reaching in. Everything is together, right down to the crowbar. We’ve even got leather gloves in the kit, one of the things suggested in the earthquake lists, for digging out later.

Besides “The Kit”, just as was suggested in the earthquake sites, we’ve figured out where our home is in relation to tsunami and Victoria earthquake liquefaction maps. We’ve thought about where to go that’s high and safe if we are caught away from home, while at our jobs.

All of this has had the effect not only of making the whole thing more real and even more scary but oddly somewhat reassuring. Oh sure, I know that I really don’t have any real earthquake experience, the last one here only slightly rocked the fridge. But I do feel like I’ve tried to do something to take care of ourselves in the 72 hours until help can get to you. And now at least I’ve got “The Kit” started and can add to it.

I’ve sent out my “flurry” of emails to friends about the getting ready. But I know I can only do what I need to do for ourselves for now. And I admit, that in the back of my mind, I’m hoping that, like taking an umbrella to ward off a rain shower, “The Kit” will ward off the Big One. Oh, I know that’s stupid and silly, even as I write it.

And then, as I watch the tragedy in Japan that is still unfolding, my mind tries to wrap itself around the immenseness of the losses of life and homes. I see that with this “Kit”, I have, at least, come out of my personal denial that it can ever happen here. And that, while just a miniscule thing, on the scale of these earthquake disasters this last year, is something.

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A New Year Is Waiting…..

Posted on by Helen

tubes-of-paint

Our little house faces east, and in the morning, when there is sun on the wet coast, the light streams in. It was streaming in when I opened the studio door, lighting up the paints and brushes on the table.

The paints and brushes are waiting. The brushes, waiting to be used and the paint, waiting to be transformed, from color in a tube to color on canvas. I have left these paints and brushes here ready to use. There is a latency to this little tableau. There is also intent.

Now that all the holidays are done and the decorations put away, and we are making our way through the last of the baking and the eggnog, the plan is to work on painting again. Something I haven’t really done for years. But I’m feeling a need for a change from mosaics. I’m feeling a need for a change, period.

Is it the New Year syndrome? I don’t like to make resolutions, I rarely keep them. But this year, I don’t feel the need to make resolutions but to make changes. I hardly know what the changes will be yet. But I’m looking at what I need. One is more time for painting, artwork, writing. The other is more room, less luggage, less “stuff”. So today, the paints may be used or perhaps I’ll start looking at clearing out room for work, clearing spaces by getting rid of some “stuff”. Or who knows, I may start looking for a bigger place for all my stuff instead. I mean some of it is really good useful stuff. There are big work tables waiting in the basement for a bigger studio. There is a big table leaning on the bedroom wall, legs removed, waiting for a much larger dining room for big happy dinner parties.

My old dusty dictionary defines latent as ” hidden, dormant but capable of being developed, present but not seen until some change occurs”. It’s almost poetic. The online dictionary adds another dimension. Latent as potential. Like that too.

So my New Year, like the paints, has a latency to it. The Year and my time in it, is waiting to be used and transformed, waiting for all those changes to occur. All that time, all those decisions…..might be exciting.

brushes

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The Christmas Dogs and …… Chickens?

Posted on by Helen

tropic-santas

Christmas Day is here, and I did, after all, get a lot of baking done. Thanks to my good friend Scarlette who came over and gave me a massage which really made my bursitis bearable. As I told her, she “saved my Bakin”. Hah, hah. I know I know but I couldn’t resist.  Scarlette has lots of very relaxed and happy clients.  You can find her at GLO Massage and Esthetics.

I didn’t get any of the Santa’s up, all 110 of them. But you can see them if you look at at last years 25 posts, the 25 Days of Santa ornaments.  That’s the Tropical Santas at the top of the post.

Last year, Bill and I went out Christmas Day and walked on the Gorge and saw all the Christmas Dogs. Everyone had their dogs decked out in Xmas gear and were so cute.

santadog-looking-up

But this year we got to dog sit Scarlette’s puppies for the morning, Rosie the Cairn terrier sort of, I think, not sure ( I like to call her Rosita) and Molly the chihuahua. They’re very sweet and have to sniff everything on the way, so walking is very slow. Plus they both tend to go completely unhinged at the sight of any other dogs. People OK, other dogs not so much..

bill-with-molly-and-rosie

So due to rather a lot of people out walking their dogs too, we decided to retreat and on the block close to home what should we find but a trio of chickens in someone’s front yard.

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After a bit of investigation we found the owner of the chickens, Lauralee. Turns out they all have names, the ginger colored one is Nugget and the other two are Lucy and Ethel. They all went running to Lauralee when she called them, wandering girls that they were. And it also turns out that Lauralee has a blog too, called Speedwoodworks, all about her chickens and her renovations of her very lovely little house. You’ll have to have a boo, it’s really good and you can see Ethel, Lucy and Nugget when they were but little chicks just a short while ago in May.  Lauralee very kindly gave me a fresh egg to take home,  thanks muchly.  I can’t help but think that I would never have expected to go out for a walk on Christmas day, meet chickens and get a very fresh egg to take home.  But there it is.

Now, I must get back to cooking for Christmas, but I do hope you have a Merry Merry Joyful day. I know I am.

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I’m Not Ready for Christmas! Not even close!

Posted on by Helen

grouchy-santas

Ok, I don’t know what happened this year. I’m just way behind. It’s only 3 days til Christmas!

Now I have to tell you that I actually wrote this post 11 days ago, but due to problems with our internet provider doing some sort of change over, that caused some sort of technical mess (don’t ask me, I’m not techy at all) that made it impossible to load anything, which has taken this long to sort out, I am FINALLY able to post this.  And yes, I know that was a ridiculously long sentence.

So here it is 8 days later and to tell the truth not much has changed, I’m still way behind. I still don’t have the baking done, the tree is half decorated, and I’ve only just mailed out the Christmas cards PLUS  now I’ve got bursitis.

Last year I was sooooo ready. I had the Santas up the whole kit and caboodle of them. Check it out, the 25 Days of Christmas Santa collection. That’s the Grouchy Santas from my collection acting as the header for this post.

I had the  Christmas music, all of it pretty well second hand, nothing like recycling for creating an abundant Christmas. And even had time to write about it.
This year I’ve been working way too many hours and just haven’t had the time. Plus I decided to make some presents this year. Check out the scraps I’m using. Colorful and tropical enough? Yup, just my thing.

scraps
Here are a couple of the tea cozies I’ve made. Can’t show you the others yet. Gotta keep the surprise, just in case certain gift recipients are reading this blog.

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my-cosy

But I’m not giving up. I’m obviously going to have to scale down my plans, do a bit less, not put up as many decorations, not bake as much (Bill and I could certainly do with less in the goodies department).   But I’ll figure it out. Christmas will come, ready or not. And I plan to enjoy it.  Anyway if nothing else I’ve got chocolates!  What else do we really really need??

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Fall color from Stop sign red to ……. pink?

Posted on by Helen

stopredtree1

The other day as I wandered through the fog taking in the colors, I started to see connections and transitions in the colors around me. Walking around with a camera will do that. Our maple in the front yard is what can only be described as Stop sign red. On a sunny day you need sunglasses it’s so bright.

In another garden I came across another maple that could be a color match for a fire hydrant.

hydrantshrub

I found big maple leaves so red the color vibrated on our now green green grass. That’s one of my favourite benefits of living in a rainy place, the grass is green all winter.

red-leaves

The crocosmia in our front garden glowed when the sun came out.

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And then the deeper red of this tree in the neighbourhood, it’s trunk full of the most lovely gray green moss.

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But there are more colors out there, purples, like the deep purple maple leaves found in the park next to the house.
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Then there is the wine colored purple and green in these swirling and twisting Canna Lily leaves….

canna-lily-leaves

Or the magenta of the Autumn Joy sedum now in it’s glory in the front garden.

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And then what did I see but the full transition of red to pink, which is, to me, really a summer color. But no, here it is glowing under the ferns in another garden in these tiny delicate cyclamen.

tiny-cyclamen

Or in my own garden, the gorgeous pink of the bergenia leaves as they change and die.

pink-bergenia-leaf

But I leave you with the last color of the Hydrangea blooms, earlier in summer a periwinkle blue, and now, a lovely tint of magenta pink. And I haven’t even covered all the yellows and oranges…..

pink-hydrangea

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moving through a quiet foggy morning….

Posted on by Helen

Yesterday morning, looking out the kitchen window I found our garden softened by fog. You would think that living on the coast we would be socked in with fog more often, but actually, it’s really not that common where we live. I love fog. But then I love rain too. Good thing I live here in Victoria. So presented with or should I say, given the present of, a foggy morning, well, I just had to go out and be in it.
Fog feels so soft like this moss growing on the garden gate.

gate-moss

In fog, sound is muffled, the air itself is quiet, much like these chimes encircled with clematis vine. Except for maybe the lonely sound of a fog horn. For me, that sound is instant relaxation.

chime-in-fog

Even the little succulents growing in the basin in the garden, seemed to drink in the moisture from this low level cloud.

sink-of-succulents

Maybe that’s what it is, what attracts me…. I love feeling as though I’m moving through a soft, moist and silent cloud that’s come down to be with me in the garden.

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Introducing the Students of My 2010 Pique Assiette Mosaics Classes!

Posted on by Helen

My mosaic classes are probably a bit unusual. For one, they are very small. I only have only one or two students at a time, three in a pinch. I teach in my own studio and it’s not very big. I may have 4 to 6 students over a whole summer, and usually teach them one at a time.

The next thing that’s different is that I ask the students to each come up with their own unique project, something that means something to them, something they may have been dreaming of doing. I never set a project for anyone, they set their own.  The beauty of this approach is that I never know what will happen or what they will create and it’s quite wonderful.

The last is that my classes are 4 evenings or afternoons over 4 weeks, with lots of time to wonder and create. They aren’t a short workshop over a couple of days. I like to have lots of time for sharing creative ideas and mostly I want it to be an experience that gives my students time to have some fun and go slowly and ponder each piece. After all, mosaic is a slow art.

I have very few students, this year actually fewer than usual. But, I like the fact that my classes are flexible, they can accommodate things that happen, postponements caused by illness or family matters that can’t wait. We often work around all of this and this year was not an exception. The first two students I’m introducing had such problems and their projects spanned a good few months. But the results were worth the wait.

Fern Often someone comes to me with an idea already drawn out, a dream project, something that has been niggling at them and waiting to be made real. This was Fern. The idea was there and when we jumped into her van to cruise thrift shops in the first shopping class, serendipity was at work and she found everything she needed to create her mirror. Bill and I threw in a few ideas for approval and the project was started. That was in July 2009.

Student Fern at Summerhouse Art mosaic class

In between came illness, a move and long stretches where she couldn’t work. But, we kept in touch by email and I always knew she would finish it. And, finally, this year in January, the time came for the grouting.

The mirror was worth the wait. Fern was a natural mosaic artist, pieces fit beautifully. Plus, she had found the most wonderful brownish-purple glass tile on the net to augment the design on the front spirals and around the edges. It’s a quietly classical and beautiful mosaic complete with hummingbirds.

Student Fern's finished mirror Summerhouse Art mosaic class

Marianne was another with a treasured idea, and had all the pieces for it, saved for years. She loved the four reproduction tiles by William de Morgan she had found years ago. Plus she had a huge collection of beach pottery shards. When I saw them I agreed with her that they would make the most wonderful pairing ever. We didn’t even bother with the shopping class and spent the first class creating the design of the large mirror support that would be needed to have the proportions work out. Now, I normally discourage large first projects. I don’t want a new student to burn out and get overwhelmed and then end up hating mosaics. But Marianne was not to be dissuaded and assured me that there would be no stopping her.

Student Marianne Summerhouse Art mosaic class

Because of its size we decided to have all the classes in her apartment overlooking the ocean view. Lovely, I really enjoyed that view, even with my fear of heights. But, the project was slowed by her suddenly having to go away to take care of her elderly mum. When that was taken care of, Marianne, who had her own health problems too, still soldiered on with a few visits from Bill and I to see the progress and enjoy tea and goodies. Finally, the time came for grouting, the exact color picked for grout and the three of us went at the grouting, working hard. The result? Well, as you can see, it was perfect! The gorgeous tiles were set off beautifully by the mixture of very carefully placed pottery beach shards.
Student Marianne's finished mirror, Summerhouse Art classes
Anne had a lot of experience with other crafts and was wanting to try mosaics. The shopping class yielded quite a few choice dishes and Anne went off home to ponder a design. She came up with a landscape of mountains, trees and a waterfall.

Student Anne Summerhouse Art mosaic class

When it comes to design I always try to encourage each person to go with the feel of it. I’m a big believer that we all have our own intuitive sense of composition. We worked together on this in the class and then Anne, led by her own “feel” for what looked best, would adjust, rearrange and create what would ultimately work well for her. The finished piece was lovely and serene, with a bit of influence from Emily Carr’s trees and quiet gradations of tone in the colors.
Student Ann's mirror Summerhouse Art mosaic class

Della sparks with energy. She’s always busy, always learning new things and has a background in quilting. Quilters, I’ve found, seem to take to mosaics like ducks to water. Della was no exception. Plus, as she said many times, she was into the “drama”. By that she meant, lots of color, lots of movement. She wanted to do a table top and had brought with her a patio table for which she wanted to create a new top.

Student Della mosaic, Summerhouse Art mosaic class

Well, when we had finished with creating the design of rivers of various surfaces, overlapping and crossing the table top it looked so good that she had to find an even better table to put it on. And she found it! The whole finished table with it’s dramatic top was absolutely meant to be and gorgeous! And soooo dramatic, don’t you think?

Student Della's table Summerhouse Art mosaic class

Susan and Nancy, good friends, took the class together. Here we all are in my studio working.  I did tell you it was a small studio, didn’t I?

Studio mosaic class, Summerhouse Art class
At the first class, Susan had an idea ready, sketched out and was ready to roll. The shopping class just had her finding so much good stuff that we had to spend a bit of time fine tuning and putting things back before checking out.

Student Susan, Summerhouse Art mosaic class

Her rolling waves and ocean bottom wall piece that was made to set off the candle holders (a gift from a sister), was a rollicking and exuberant bit of mosaic work. It even has a reference to the book The Life of Pi with a tiger in a row boat on top of one of the waves!  You can just see it, still unglued, on top of the second wave. I basically left Susan to do as she wanted, just giving little bits of direction now and then. With some people, you just let them go with it. And it worked out very well I’d say.

Student Susan's mosaic, Summerhouse Art Mosaic class
Nancy came to the class ready to mosaic but without any fixed ideas or plans. I assured her that very often students find just the thing at the shopping class. And that’s exactly what happened. After finding lots of dishes that appealed to her, we found the most wonderful little table crying out for some mosaic just before heading for the cash register in the thrift shop.

Student Nancy, Summerhouse Art mosaic class

I always tell students there is only one rule when shopping and that is only buy what you really like. And all of those dishes in colors and patterns that Nancy liked looked great when collaged together on the table top. It really looks beautiful, as though it was always meant to be this way.

Student Nancy's table, Summerhouse Art mosaic class

I think this years students were amazingly talented and really worked hard to create their lovely mosaics.  Now my only hope is that this will spark even more mosaics in their futures.  I just love getting people hooked on this most addictive art form.  Bravo everyone!

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The Japanese Shirt that Inspired a Little Flurry of Pillow Making

Posted on by Helen

headerwm

The thing with shopping at garage sales is that A. you never know what you will find and B. you never know where what you find will lead you.
I like to call it creative shopping.

This summer I snapped up a lovely pillow with a Japanese theme of a pagoda and a scooter. A few months later I found this shirt, full of lovely geishas.

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Now it just so happens that I have a little collection of Japanese fans, that grace the mosaic I created of Birds and Geishas, that I posted about last year.

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A few years ago I’d created another Japanese themed mosaic that also resides in our bedroom. I titled it my Marriage Mosaic. Just to quickly explain, it turned out that after I had put this little tableau together, I found out that, in Japan, the pair of geese or ducks are symbolic of a long marriage. And although I am nothing like the shy little bride on my mosaic, I love the idea that this little mosaic symbolized our long marriage.

marriage-mosaicwm

Now it also just happened that, being someone who hardly ever throws anything out, I still had a few shirts stashed from our holiday in Hawaii that I’d found at garage sales there. All with Japanese themes and all just waiting to be recycled.

hawaii-shirtswm

All that was needed was to play with the material and come up with some pieced fabric designs. Almost  like making a mosaic but with fabric. A little trick I like to use when making pillows from old shirts is to use the button front as part of the design. Much easier to undo buttons and insert the pillow than to have to sew in a zipper.

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Also a good way to recycle most of the whole shirt, buttons and all. But just a word about my kind of sewing, it’s pretty fast and loose, I cut things out by eye, not one for measuring much. In fact, I just piece things together til I like the look and then cut it all to size.

Of course, I couldn’t stop at just one. This lovely shirt with its gorgeous picture of a Japanese fishing scene just had to become part of another little pillow.

geishas-fishingwm

And that’s it, pillow making is over for now. All the little scraps still left over will be saved for another day and another inspiration. But there’s nothing like creating something new to look at and enjoy.

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Dragon Alley and the Shadow Portraits

Posted on by Helen

carving-bastion-sq

The garage sale season is pretty well over so, for the last two weekends, we’ve been giving ourselves little gallery tours. Interesting things happen when you do this, especially if you are artistically inclined. You start to really notice more around you. Looking at art recharges your creative batteries and we found ourselves taking in our surroundings with a bit more interest, a bit more spark.

For instance the lovely carving in the header was in Bastion Square and I honestly don’t believe I’d noticed it before.

Although our little tours took us all over Victoria downtown, Fort Street and Oak Bay Ave. today I’m just going to focus on a little corridor of live/work condos in Dragon Alley. Dragon Alley is in Chinatown, and on our way to Chinatown by way of Fan Tan Alley, we noticed this sign in the window of a coffee shop.

hippies-use-back-door

Now, we are a couple of old hippies ourselves and got quite a laugh out of this sign, obviously a collectible. But it made me pause when I think of how back in the 60’s and 70’s we were really into organic and all those values like fair trade.   We had such a hard time finding those kinds of products. And now, here they are, ubiquitous. I like to think that those hippie ideals are finally coming to fruition. Took a while but all the signs are here at last.

Ok, on with my little tour. The first thing you find when entering Dragon Alley from Fisgard St is Lyle Ink Gallery. It’s actually in the former dining room of the occupant’s condo. It’s tiny but full to bursting with exuberant art, most made by Lyle with a few pieces by a good artist from the 60’s, Roy Lichtenstein thrown in too.

gallery-lyle-ink

The architects who designed this space had the artistic sensitivity to keep the flavour and texture of the place. This wall created from rusty panels becomes an abstract art installation with it’s rusts and color and texture.

sheathing

The Alley is full of all sorts of little businesses, even a gift shop for dogs! Right next to it, we came upon this water feature wall in the space between two condos. Love the plantings and the quiet water falling into the pool below. But couldn’t help feeling that it really could have used one of our Summer House Studio cast stone sculptures. Maybe I should have dropped them a card…..

water-feature

You enter Dragon Alley through a long brick lined corridor between two buildings. You exit the same way. I had to catch this long view as we left the Alley.

alley-exit

Leaving the Alley, I just happened to look down as I crossed the street in the bright sunshine and really noticed my shadow. It sparked a little impromptu art photography. Bill and I quickly got into the fun of it, playing and creating portraits with our shadows. See what a little gallery hopping can do?  The last one is my favourite.

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I leave you with a few of the relatively new galleries, not in Dragon Alley, but all eclectic, experimental, and fun that we re-discovered and in one case, discovered for the first time. One is View Art Gallery on, you guessed it, View Street, also in a condo main floor. The other is Polychrome Fine Arts on Fort Street. And the last in Oak Bay, a photography gallery called Luz Gallery.  And thinking back to the Hippie sign in the window, maybe just my imagination, but all these galleries sort of bring to mind those “hippie” days so full of new ideas and new ways of thinking.

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