Dynamic Transformation: Butterflies & Moths

Just about finished....maybe Saturday.

I've had to take an x-acto knife and cut out areas that don't work, and repaint them.. then wait for them to dry and reintegrate them with the work.  Constantly balancing and rebalancing the composition as I go along... always following the direction of the wood's grain.  There is a natural aesthetic in the grain that is harmonious and dynamic, which has it's own ebb and flow.

Dynamic Transformation: Butterflies and Moths

New Painting Evolving Everyday

Dynamic Transition: Butterfly & Moth
acrylic on panel  36" X 19'

I'm working on this.... and the transition not only includes butterflies and moths, but painting itself.  I've changed this everyday, and it will go on morphing until it looks finished. Someone interviewing Jackson Pollock once asked him, "How do you know when a painting is finished?".  He sat thinking for a moment and replied, "How do you know when you're finished making love?"

                                    Dog Agility Competition : Kimberley B.C.

Merle-Coated Border Collie

In the fall of 2013, while staying with Margie on Muskrat Ranch, I ventured out with her god-daughter, Lisa, an exceptionally talented dog-trainer, to an agility competition a few kms. north of Kimberley, B.C.  It was interesting to witness the enthusiasm of all sorts of breeds, from collies to doberman pinschers,  performing at a high level of athleticism and obedience.  It's a colorful event, and like any sport involving speed and agility, it becomes a photographers paradise. Even an amateur like me. 

Bearded Collie

Ever-Enthusiastic Chocolate Lab

Tri-Colored Border Collie

I'm all excited about the dogsled race in the Yukon that begins today.. 1,600 kms from Whitehorse to    Fairbanks, Alaska.  That is the distance from Vancouver to Revelstoke (600 kms.),  back to  Vancouver (600 kms), then Vancouver to Kamloops (400 kms.)  Each team has maximum of 14 dogs to begin, and may end up with 6 or 8 dogs at the finish line, the others succumbing to exhaustion, sickness or injury.  Vets are posted along the way to ensure the well-being of the teams.  I had a wee taste of dog-sledding last year on Muskrat Ranch, in the East Kootenays, when Margie left me for the month of February to look after her ranch while she went biking in Cuba.

Muskrat Ranch, Ta Ta Creek

 Every morning I hitched the dogs (3) up to the kick sled and we went for a tour.  It was beyond belief exciting.  Tess is the lead dog, 4 years old and smart as a whip.  Rosie is a good puller, and Amy will pull if necessary, but would rather run along beside (she's 10).  I usually went to a neighbor's place and picked up Quiz, a merle coated border collie, and a really good puller.  When you yell 'go', you had better be hanging on tight and with one foot on a runner, because they are going to go from 0 to top speed in no time flat.  I got left behind the first time I tried it. And it took me a while to get the drift of how to negotiate curves in the trail.  I had to slow the dogs down ('Slow!') and then lean into the corner without flipping over.  The dogs love to pull.

Tess (lying down, lead dog, ) Amy (left) and Rose (behind Tess)

Tess on left.. very powerful runner

Rose and Tess with kick sled

I want to get a kick sled and figure out how to train Rose.   But I better not get ahead of myself.  I need to find a sled first - under $250.

Feeding the mules, Emily & Georgia.  It got down to -25 C. 

Handsome Georgia

Sledding on Lake Windermere, Invermere B.C.

John Zehnder trained Caleb to pull his kick sled.  

On a glorious sunny morning about a month ago I walked with my friend, Susan, around Killarney Lake on Bowen Island.  I took these photos with my i-phone.

I'm painting a panel based on one of the photos... but the surface as I progress has become lumpy with the built up pigment and suspension medium, and I need to either sand it back down to an even finish, losing a lot of the color, or build it up to an even surface, requiring more patience and technique than I may be capable of.

 It's a delicate skein of nothingness...fog, sky, light and reflection,  but there it is.  Hard to replicate.. and I'm wondering if I shouldn't just have the photo enlarged and present it as is.

"I'm Going To Marry Peter When I Grow Up"

Globe & Mail Obituary, October 2012

My earliest memory, ever, is of Peter Morton and I dressed in matching sailor suits, his is white and mine blue, and we are standing for a picture taken by his Dad in front of the Morton's cottage on Indian Point.  I think I must have been three.  Peter's Dad was in the Navy during the war, and loved all things nautical.. thus the sailor suits.  I loved Peter.  Almost all of my cherished childhood memories, and there are many, include my best, and in reality, only, friend Peter.  When I grew up I was going to marry him.  I measured my life's relationships by a standard set against my memories of my love and loyalty to Peter.  We spent every summer and holiday together from the time we were toddlers and his parents bought property on land that at that time belonged to my great uncle and aunt, Indian Point. Our family lived there. This was the setting for all Peter's and my adventures, 2400 acres of grasslands and forest surrounded by lake. The Point was five miles long and had ten miles of shoreline.  It was a natural and enormous playpen.  There were no predators to speak of, so Peter and I had full run of the entire peninsula, and aside from being terrified of the dark, there wasn't much else that frightened us.  We camped on our own from the age of six, and continued to explore every mile of that wonderful piece of land and lake until his parents sold their cottage when we were twelve, and moved to Brockville.  Even then I took the train to meet up with Peter at their cottage in the Thousand Islands on the St. Lawrence River until we were fourteen, and Peter was shipped off to boarding school in Lennoxville, Quebec.  Although our parents continued their friendship, I lost touch with Peter over the years.  He moved to Calgary, I stayed in Ontario for University.  I moved to the Westcoast, he moved to Ottawa.  I moved back to Toronto, he moved to Washington D.C.  He married, I divorced. We met up three times after our separation in our early teens. The first time, while he was writing for the Calgary Herald, he called me 'Sweetie', and was so tender toward me that I felt the love of our childhood affection flood back immediately. He was wearing grey flannels, Weejun loafers and a jean jacket. Perfect for his image of part Establishment, part rebel.  I was traveling with my future husband, Gordon, and there was never enough time to have a really good visit.   I saw him again when I remarried and was visiting in-laws in Ottawa.  We had our three sons with us, and I barely squeezed in a visit with Peter, his wife Cathy, and their four daughters.  My husband, Don, asked Peter if he had the same sunny-side up infatuation with me during our childhood as I had remembered about Peter.  His answer was as much about Peter as it was about our friendship.  He asked Don how he could have felt otherwise about the prettiest girl on Indian Point.  He stayed loyal to his wife, Cathy, while making my heart swell.  We corresponded by e-mail after that, and had a couple of endearing phone calls.  He wanted me to visit him in Washington D.C.  I had been writing stories based on our childhood adventures where Peter always played a starring role.  He was inseparable from me and my idea about myself.  The last exchange Peter and I made was one of my stories which I sent to him by mail, for a set of silver bangles which he posted to me.  He bought them in India when he was doing a post-high school tour of the world with a friend.  They were en route to Goa, but had run out of money.  While they sat waiting empty-handed for American Express (Dad) to deliver funds, they were befriended by street children who fed them and looked after them. Peter bought the bracelets in memory of the incredible generosity of children.  And then he gifted them to me.  I like to think that Peter and I shared that same generous spirit when we were kids, and I think we did.  If he was hurt, so was I.  If I was happy, so was he.  We shared everything, but mostly we shared each other. I feel his presence still in my life, and if truth be told, I think he's watching out for me.  Truly Grateful.  

Snug Cove: The Blue Door

My girlfriends, Deb MacAdam and Pam Bell
took this shot of me during our walk
around Killarney Lake in January.

Snug Cove: The Blue Door

I had a race with time this last week painting a 8 X 8" submission for  a Gala auction at Bowen Island's Community Gallery Fundraiser.  I've never submitted a work before for a fund-raiser, so this was a new challenge for me.  I wanted the bidders to get their moneys worth, so I put a lot of thought into the subject matter, something they would recognize and appreciate about living on Bowen, and into the execution of the painting.  I spent about 20 hours on this work.

The deadline for submissions was 4 p.m. yesterday, Feb 1, and I got it in by 3:30.  I've never painted under the pressure of a submission date before, and in some ways it was helpful, I got at it, and in other ways it was a bit of a compromise.. I would have worked a bit longer on some of the details, and I should have put a coat of urethane over the whole thing at the end to secure the paint.  I coated and sanded the board I was working on about 3 times before I started painting to give it a smooth and slick surface to paint on... gloss urethane.  The slippery surface held the paint, but I could take a q-tip to any error and simply wipe it away with no residue.  That way, I could continually clean up mistakes without having to worry.  It made the execution of the work go quickly and I had confidence that no matter what I did, it could be corrected.  The drawback?  I'm worried that any abrasion will scratch off the paint too easily.  So I had better 'fix' the painting with a final coat, maybe after it has sold.