A Summer Collage

Collage 

is a word that comes to me often lately. I move through time and space seeking images for my work, even following them as they lead me from one adventure to another. 

Every single place, person and moment is offered up as material for translation into paint.

Life and Art fuse.

 

Trip the Light Travels - Day #3

Today we took a break from driving to more fully absorb the beauty around Lake Superior and the Wawa area. I have crossed Canada so many times and never stopped long enough to fully appreciate this particular area. The ever changing light on the water takes you by surprise throughout the day as you come around different corners on the road.


 

We stayed in an airbnb log cabin located slightly east of Wawa and on the shore of Lake Superior. Just sleeping beside this large body of water is a gift in itself. Rhythmic waves break along the shoreline and an almost full moon poured its generous light across the water's surface to create a masterpiece of shimmer and sparkle in the dark night.

We visited Old Woman Bay where the photos don't capture it but the water was turquoise. The cliffs are home to peregin falcons and the water is crystal clear. There is something about being in the presence of such clear water and pure air that seems to make you glow from the inside out. It feels right and natural to feel so alive and in synch with the world around you.

Of course we visited the famous Wawa goose in town which commemorates the completion of the Trans Canada Highway from Sault St Marie to Wawa in 1960. Before this time there was no road access to Wawa and this last part of the highway was called the gap. This stretch of road is by far the most awe inspiring part of the drive.

Silver Falls were just down the road from where we we stayed and they were roaring at their absolute height of power from all the Spring rains. Magnificent to see and hear!

I thought Silver Falls was roaring and then we visited High Falls!! I am a huge fan of falling water. I could stand in its presence for hours and loose myself in its powerful movement and sound. It feels so joyful to me!

   
 An abundance of beauty is to be found here in grand gestures and minuet details. No wonder the Group of Seven were so inspired to paint here. Glen Gould came and stayed regularly in Wawa and claimed to write some of his best music here. The Life Force is potent here.

Long stretches of completely deserted shore line and pristine beaches.

Preparing for the Inhale

Thanksgiving week-end has given me time to reflect on the gratitude I feel for being alive in this moment in this place and with the people who surround me. 

It has been an ever expanding exhale all summer long and even into the autumn months. I have been walking trails, climbing mountains, swimming in lakes and fully immersed in the outdoors as much as possible.

       

Now it is time to take all that extraverted energy and turn it inward in one long inhale over the winter. All the sights, sounds, smells and textures of the living, breathing earth will find their way into my paintings if I am still enough to hear them.

I can't wait to return to my studio for some quiet, solitary months at the easel processing all the beautiful impressions of the summer and autumn months. 

Every year that goes by my impressions appear to broaden and deepen from within and without. The whole landscape seems numinous to me at times. I often feel as though the natural world is lit up from within and radiating beauty and mystery. The more I paint the more I see and more often than not I feel rich beyond my wildest dreams with all that is there in and around me. Its a mystery I don't even want to know the answer to.

Green Balm

We arrived by boat, at night, under a waxing moon. The boat sliced through the ink blank silence and deposited us on an island. The darkness was complete and enveloping. The brightest light was the moon above. I was home.

I could feel tension leaving my muscles as my limbs softened in recognition of the tree limbs. The wilderness reached its arms up to meet my soul which in turn seemed to leap up in recognition.

 

This is the Right Place

 

 There are certain geographical places on this spinning globe that resonate more strongly with each individual being than others. The Ausable River is one of those places for me.
The twisted roots embracing the rocks, the ancient rock cliffs, the deep dark pools and the roaring waterfalls all make me ecstatically happy when I am around them.

A Day of Beauty

"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else." 

~Emily Dickinson

Yesterday was a day of beauty from start to finish. I completed five days of early morning yoga, in spite of having to shovel my car out of a freak spring snowstorm for two of the mornings. This was a real challenge for me and I am so proud of having done it and my body and soul are thanking me for spending time with them in the early morning hours.
It seemed to set the tone for the whole day when I did this.

 

 

I seemed to notice the trees more than usual today. This is the beauty that lives outside my window in the park across the street. I am particularly enamored by this tree being but today when I came out my front door, she took my breath away.

  

 I then went on a journey across the city distributing invitations for my upcoming show, Numinous Notes, at the Galerie de la Ville One of my stops was the Stewart Hall Art Gallery on the Lakeshore where I stumbled into this exquisite exhibition by Kathryn Lipke, In Search of the Garden Eden Her varied work, techniques and mediums made for a dynamic and beautiful reflection on nature and our relationship with it.

  

"Stones hold the memory of both humans and nature itself, We carry this memory in our minds and bodies" I loved the way the artist traced the lines of the stone and river movement with her pencil.

Nest. This piece is particularly intriguing in that it is composed of emu eggs wrapped in shredded money.

This is a still from a video called "Ghost Vessel" that left me spell bound. Something about that burning structure floating down the frozen dark river that was very moving.

I then dropped by a friend's house to deliver some invitations and was stopped in my tracks by these intertwined cedar trees, the light and the snow created such striking patterns as these trees stood there emitting their beauty. Another gift from the trees.

Next stop was to meet my mom, dad and sister for a private viewing of my recently hung exhibition. I had not yet seen it myself and was delighted to find the paintings so well displayed. It is a joy to find your paintings breathing in a space that presents them well.

Next I hopped on a metro for a meeting downtown with ELAN English Language Arts Network and the launch of their new website Made au Quebec, a unique collaboration between English and French Cultural communities. On my way to the meeting I came across these patterns of light and texture. I could have spent hours looking and photographing.

Once more, on my walk home, the trees spoke to me. Here this gorgeous being reaches her snow lined limbs towards the moon. Her tangled branches sculpt the sky into shards of twilight blue and I am grateful for all that is.

"Beauty is not caused. It is." 

~Emily Dickinson

Heart Stopping Beauty on Hwy 99

 

 Spent the day cooking, walking and talking with my eldest girl. Left her behind with a few tears this morning. I have always loved how effortlessly Amy and I can flow together no matter how long we are apart from each other.

Spent our last evening walking in the golden light of the remarkable landscape of Kamloops. The dry climate allows for a remarkable range of dusty colors from ochres to rose to sagebrush greens. I could paint the textures and colors here for a long time.

 

 

Amy sent me to Whistler via Hwy 99, also known as the Lillooet Hwy. What a drive!

The most beautiful vistas and views so far! But first as I exited Kamloops on the Trans Canada I came across Kootenay Lake, utterly magnificent with the shifting shadows and light of the breaking clouds.

 

 A bit further down the road I turned onto Hwy 99 and was given one last taste of that delicious palette of blonde grasses and pink brush, made all the more intense by the brooding dark skies.

 Now I started to really enter the "Rockies". I was happy that it wasn't snowing or raining today as this is not a road for the faint of heart. Some serious hair pin turns and deep canyons looking down into the Fraser River. Unfortunately there wasn't much place to pull over and take photos of this incredible canyon.

 

 Many, many views of lakes, rivers, and creeks along the way. Not much traffic at all and every time I stopped to take a few photos I was greeted with complete silence or rushing water.

 

 

Just before arriving in Pembroke I came across this beauty. A jewel of a lake, quiet and majestic just sitting there in all her majesty. I stopped and sat beside her for quite some time. The silence was deafening.

 This whole drive was so full of heart stopping beauty that I gave up taking pictures after a while as it was impossible to convey it all. This gives a small sampling of that drive but nothing even comes close to the real experience of it. Amy described it best when she said that it is "one of her favorite stretches of earth". Mine too.