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.

Jo C. Willems: Wild Life Artist

A while back I introduced Jo to my blog followers, but there always more to come from my good friend, Jo C. Willems.. and take it from me, you better be quick if you want to get to know her, because she moves forward at lightening speed. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I met Jo four years ago while walking in the woods behind Alan's and my home in Reveltoke B.C.,  where she was sweeping the trails clear of debris.  We struck up a conversation about art, and found out we had not only the love of the trails in common, but that we both had been deeply immersed in the academic art world of the 1970's, not an artistic venture for the feint of heart.  Art students in most North American art institutes during the 60's and 70's, as you can well imagine, were in for the artistic ride of a life time.  Anything was art, and art was everything.  Marcel Duchamp unleashed a veritable avalanche of found art upon the unsuspecting world, and Robert Rauschenberg and his colleagues in Black Mountain College took it to the heights of American culture from there. As students we were thrilled and baffle-gabbed by all the excitement, and completely and utterly cut adrift in the ocean of artistic possibilities.  Minimalism, Conceptualism, Performance Art, Dada-Doers, Tough Art, No Art.. it was all part of the mix, and mixed-up we were. So Jo and I understood very quickly upon that first meeting, that we had the unlikely distinction of being art students during a period when the world of art had gone 'Carnival', The World-Turned-Up-Side-Down.  We had a lot to talk about. As I got to know Jo, I discovered she had far more than our shared travels on the planet 'Contemporary Art' to her credit, she had some accomplishments under her belt that very few would be able to match.  I was stunned when I learned what Jo and her sister, Mugs, had already achieved before I met her.

Jo walked the Pacific Crest Trail in the early 1970's with her sister, Mugs, 'Wild' style, and were credited as the two shortest people to have hiked the trail, beginning to end, New Mexico to Alberta. They were recognized by Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Trudeau for that feat of strength and perseverance, and then the sisters hiked The Continental Divide, barely a concept let alone a trail, in 2 sections, north to south midway, then south to north the next year.  Jo and Mugs also rode their bicycles across Canada, Victoria to Newfoundland, and, if that wasn't enough, Jo rode her bike from UCLA Irvine Campus (where she was completing a MFA)  to Victoria, B.C.   The changes sculpted into her body during the ride became the subject of her thesis masterwork. She was both a performance piece and a kinetic sculpture. And then, as Jo says, "Like Forest Gump, I got tired and went home."  Jo is an indominable force, and one of the kindest, gentlest and most generous people I know.  And, she's outrageously funny, as deep as the mountain vistas she paints, and very, very astute.

Jo with her husband, Grant and their dog, Kita

Jo paints as well.  I posted a drawing she sent me for my blog after I met her of the trails I walked daily, and that had become the subject of her art, and still are to this day.

pencil drawing 16" X 20"

Graphite painting 20" X 30"

  Jo paints now in guache, a medium that affords the intricacy of her landscape subject matter with the richness of color they merit. She was working in watercolor when I first met her, and had been for 20 years, and she pulled out a stash of over 80 watercolors for me to see,  most about 16 x 20" and some as large as 24 x 30",  that hadn't seen the light of day for far too long.  I don't know what she had in mind for them hiding behind her dresser, but I immediately saw the talent and the beauty of these works and insisted she haul them out and start exhibiting them, starting with the Revelstoke Public Gallery.  The Director of the gallery, Jackie, was equally impressed, and she guided Jo's ascent into the mainstream of local artists after that first meeting.

Watercolor 20" X 30"

Jo's recently been asked to show her new guache work at the Surrey Art Gallery as well as the art gallery in Golden.  Revelstoke has been a good start, but Jo's powerful visual language will spill over the boundaries of local art and artists.  Guache is a medium that illustrators use.  It's rich in pigment, like watercolor but dense and thick.  Jo says it's like pushing mud around, but the mud in this case is a medium that is densely saturated in color - reds are vibrant and deep, blues have the resonance of true indigo , black is as lightless as a lump of coal.  Jo moved into her expertise with this new medium instantly.  She thought it would take her three years to get a grasp on it, instead it was three months.

'Becca's Way'  24" X 30" guache

Just Need To Get Through February.....

Sailing up Bull Passage, Lasquiti Island.  Can't wait for more .... 

My Three Sons

Gordon, Becca, Alex and David 2011

Gordon 2010

Alex with Alan on Columbia River Flatlands

David on Spring Moon February 2011

In August of 2013,  my sons, Gord, David and Alex joined me at Anderson Lake for two weeks to install a new roof on our cabin.  The crew was led by our eldest son, Gord, and assisted by his friend, Steve, a contractor each of my sons had worked with at various renovation sites over the years.  Gord's good friend, Bill joined us from Calgary.  Gordon had spent the previous four months cooking the whole plan up, and he and Steve calculated the costs, the materials and executed the transition from tearing off the old shakes to cutting the tin (always on a diagonal).  It was an ear-splitting task using a skill saw and ear protection, as well as goggles and gloves. They had to cut each and every saw-fit individually, and custom cut all of the eaves and fachia board as well. The cabin is an octagonal times two. One octagonal for the living space and another for the master bedroom.  Two giant umbrella roofs joined together with a flat roof covering the hall between. There isn't a right angle in the whole structure, inside or out. The job took well over a month, so youngest son, David stayed on with Steve to finish it up. For David, the line 'Blood, Sweat & Tears', took on new meaning.  It was a hot summer and working on a tin roof was hotter still, but the roof went on, and the cabin is much improved as a result.  No more leaks coming through dried up cedar shingles, and an added bonus is aesthetic, an eave around the cabin where none existed before.  I hated the old roof line, and was beyond ecstatic to see it go.  We choose deep red for the color of the tin and the fascia board, and we love the results.  Yahoo!!!

New deep red tin roof

Respite inside.  A haven.

Our Jewel.  Outside on the deck over-looking Anderson Lake

Before any work could begin on the roof, Gord, Steve and Alex had to set the new mooring buoy for Sasperella.

Huckleberry Finn style

And it's not coming back up...

Now the real work could begin...

And we all rejoice in the tranquility of our cabin paradise.

Hawk in Coal Harbor, A Tribute.

This past summer I had a short but sweet love affair with a very special man. Meet Bob McKnight.   This entry is my photo essay of Bob's passion for wooden boats, in particular, Hawk, a 49' wooden racing sloop  designed by William Roue, of Bluenose  fame and built in 1929.  A Canadian sailing icon on  the Westcoast, Hawk was in dire need of repair and Bob took on the job with the intention of returning her to her former glory.  The restoration began in the dead cold of winter, on the hard in a North Vancouver shipyard, replacing one rotten plank after the next.  A close friend of Bob's, Jan, who worked side by side with Bob on this job, mid-way through the grueling work grabbed Bob by the shirt collar (yes, she is a very powerful woman) and told him, through clenched teeth, IF HE EVER FUCKING TOOK ON ANOTHER JOB LIKE THIS AGAIN SHE"D KILL HIM.  Unquote.  Physically it would be akin to pushing a large bolder uphill with a toothpick. Twelve to thirteen hour days, seven days a week.  After steaming the oak planks, fitting them,  recaulking and sanding (imagine holding a long board covered in sandpaper over your head and moving it back and forth, then repeat motion 3,000 times),  they painted the hull Electric Blue, a deep, dark stately color that befits her elegant lines.  A marine rich yellow line engraved in the length of her hull enhances her sheer line, and Jan's painstaking care on her topsides brightwork polished her off. The result? Stunningly beautiful. Sheer elegance.

On a brilliant sunny day in August, 2014, Bob brought Hawk into the mast tower at the Vancouver Rowing Club to step her mast. 

Tough Dude

Loving father: Bob working out plan with his son, Will.

Hosting the mast from the tower pulley

Rick prepping Hawk

Adding the spreaders. Bob's crew: David, Bob, Rick and Bob's son, Will.

David guiding the mast to the deck

Stepping mast on top of the keel

And they do!

Celebrating success with a beer

Bob, bringing in Hawk To Step Her Mast, 2014

Jan on her restored gill netter/ river boat, Vesta. 

 

The End