This past Sunday, I went to a wonderful late August party. My friends Susan and Vlasta held the party at their beautiful place in the country. People sat near the pond for a while and soaked up the gorgeous evening. It was one of those times where you realized summer was coming to an end but we were happy just enjoying what was left of it.
Then it was time to eat. Susan and Mac got ready to barbecue burgers and boil dozens and dozens of cobs of corn for the hungry masses. Mmmm! It was yummy! Food always tastes so good outside on a late summer evening.
As the sun began to set, a bonfire was lit and people gathered to chat and watch the flames. Food, friends, and a last beautiful summer evening. What more could one want!
Last Saturday, my friend Lisa and I went to a concert in a barn which turned out to be a truly magical experience. This was held at By Chadsey's Cairns Winery, Prince Edward County, by the shores of Lake Ontario. As the brochure advertising the concert said, there was "wine, food, hay bales, and light streaming through the barn boards."
I took a shot of the exterior of the barn because I really liked the way you could see through, to the opening on the other side.
Across from the barn, there was a wine store that sold wine made from the grapes growing in the fields behind. Lisa and I tasted a couple of different wines before purchasing some bottles - white for Lisa and red for me.
Before the concert, we sat outside overlooking the vineyard and drank some of the delicious red we had chosen.
We were served a meal by an Ottawa chef named Jonathan Korecki, from Restaurant 18 in the Byward Market. These appetisers were really yummy!
Then it was time to go into the barn for the concert. I loved this cathedral-like view of one wall, with all the light coming in through the boards.
The musicians were all members of the National Arts Centre orchestra. Here is Michelle Gott, the harp soloist, warming up.
There were three other musicians from the NAC orchestra. In this picture, Yosuke Kawasaki, concertmaster, and Joanna G'froerer, principle flute, are playing Beethoven's Serenade for Flute, Violin and Viola (I couldn't get Jessica Linnebach, the viola player, in the picture). It doesn't get any better than this - music, food and wine on a magical summer evening.
Alas, the camera I have been using for many years died recently. I replaced it with a newer, fancier, and more technically enhanced camera, and then set out to see what kinds of things it could do. It has a lot of bells and whistles that I haven't mastered yet, but in the couple of weeks since I bought it, I have had a lot of fun playing with it. I took this pic when I was at the Ottawa Jazz Festival at the end of June. Those sax players really cooked!
The new camera takes better close-ups than the old one. This is a picture of some Oenothera (also called Sundrops, or Evening Primrose) in my garden.
I went to Toronto to visit family shortly after getting my new camera. I took this picture of my granddaughter asleep in her stroller when we went to an ice cream parlour for a treat. She looks so completely relaxed!
This picture was taken in the National Art Gallery in Ottawa. I was a long way away from these people so tried the zoom function to take this pic. I wanted to capture their relaxed human gestures in the stark, industrial setting of the gallery. Everything around them is so abstract, except for the poster for the Chagall show (which was quite good, by the way).
I have a lot to learn about my new camera, but so far I am happy with it.
Last Saturday, I got together with my friends Fran and Holly to make a site-specific installation in the woods. We had done this several times last year and really enjoyed the results. We called ourselves FEH, for Fran, Evlyn, and Holly. So as FEH, we decided to meet again this past weekend to create our first installation of this year.
We decided we wanted to do a "painting" so we picked a huge rock with a flat top on which to lay our colours down, using found materials.
Then we started to "paint" with bark, stones, pinecones, moss, twigs, broken glass - anything we found that had colour and could add to the shape and design.
It involved a lot of decision-making and precision putting the elements in place, just like any painting does. In this picture, Fran is carefully placing pinecones down in patterns. It was interesting that we each favoured different materials to work with - I mostly used rocks, Holly was really into sticks and twigs, and Fran focussed on pinecones and bark.
After about an hour, it had taken shape. We started to finesse the elements, getting excited when something really "worked". We were also in awe of the colours we managed to find in these natural, found materials - the green moss was gorgeous, the red bark added a pop of colour, and we wanted to make sure that the blue-greys of the rock showed through.
Walking around the rock afterward, we had fun seeing the patterns and colours of the painting from different angles. There was no problem with "up" or "down" on this painting. It was interesting no matter where you stood in relation to the rock.
And of course, like all artists, we signed our work at the end. Then we left, with our eyes opened to all the colours around us in the forest, after this art-installation in the woods.
Once upon a time, there were three white apples. They were installed in the River Gallery Sculpture Garden in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1993.
They were made by the sculptor Peter MacElwain. In this picture, he is putting the final touches on the apples after they had been set up in the sculpture garden.
I helped Peter install the apples in the sculpture garden. It was fun taking them to Tennessee and setting them up. Two of them were sold to collectors and the third lived with me and Peter at our home in Lefaivre Ontario.
Many years passed. Peter died in 2001 and I tried to take care of the sculptures of his I still had left (most were purchased by collectors). Despite my efforts, the remaining white apple deteriorated after years of sitting on my front yard. It lost its stem and needed some minor repairs, a good cleaning and a fresh coat of paint.
Then this year, I was invited to show the white apple at a sculpture garden in St. Eugene Ontario. The owner of the sculpture garden, Nik Schnell, did the needed repairs, attached the new stem, and set the apple up beautifully on the grounds. As you can see, I was very happy with the beautiful restoration of this white apple.
Everyone who sees the white apple loves it. Nik sent this picture to me just the other day. It shows his son Alex with his girlfriend Amber, getting their picture taken before they went to their graduation prom. Love the contrast of white and black, especially Amber's black dress and white purse, beside the white apple. This is a particularly lovely picture for me because Alex's mother (Nik's wife) died just this past April. But an apple is a symbol of life and hope and fulfillment, so it is nice to see Alex and his girlfriend beside it. Peter would have been so happy to see this!
This past Sunday, May 24th 2015, was the vernissage of the 3rd Garden Sculpture Show at Philippa's Garden at the Skelly Gallery in St. Eugene, Ontario. It was a perfect day for wandering through the garden and looking at the many wonderful sculptures in the show. At the heart of the garden is the Homage by my late husband, Peter MacElwain. It has been a favourite for people going to this annual event for the past three years.
This fun piece, which is set up near the Gallery, is by a sculptor named John McCabe. Great use of materials.
There were several sculptures that hung from trees, like this bright and whimsical piece by Susan Jephcott.
Dody Dines showed her beautiful tile pots, with lots of plants and vegetation - perfect for a spring day in the garden.
This is one of my favourite pieces, by Lis Skelly. It was tucked away among some trees and seemed to be looking out shyly.
This piece, by Nik Schnell (who runs the gallery and sculpture garden), was also tucked away among some trees. It is a very intriguing piece and viewers can see themselves reflected in the mirror that makes the "face" of the sculpture.
Further along in the garden, there were 6 pieces by Bernard Gauthier. Some of them were positive cut-outs, like this.....
.....and some of them were negative cut-outs, like this.
My friend, David, had some fun with one of the negative cut-outs....
.....while Holly had fun with one of the positive cut-outs. Wonderfully silly!
Two artists, Adele Reeves and Lisa Livingston, made this fabulous curtain of hundreds of fabric shapes that hung from some trees on the path through the garden. It was magical walking through the gap in the middle.
This is another piece by John McCabe. Love all the colour.
These fun pieces by Kathryn Harvey can be turned around, so one can see the faces.
For me, the most important piece in the show is this apple sculpture, White Cortland, by Peter MacElwain. This was very recently restored and it was exciting to show it again after many, many years. I was so very happy that people were enjoying it in its full glory.
Great show - wonderful day!
I walk past this small garden of trees every day. In the winter, they are bare and dark and the ground underneath their branches is covered with a white carpet of snow. Today, spring is at its height and there was another kind of white carpet on the ground under the branches - a carpet of white petals that had fallen from the flowering trees. Enchanting!
