Summer Painting

It has been a good summer for painting. Inspired by a walk in Voyageur Provincial Park in June, I started this painting and worked on it when I could throughout the summer months. I still have changes to make, but have decided to let it sit for a while, think about it, and finish it later. It has been a lot of fun to work on. 

My studio is unheated so I can only work when it is warm enough. I started another painting quite recently to make use of the late summer days. I hope we have a sunny and pleasant autumn so I can continue to paint for another month or two. This painting is already starting to be fun to work on, too!

The Annual Fall Festival in Dunvegan Ontario

Every year, I go to the Annual Fall Festival at the Glengarry Pioneer Museum in Dunvegan, Ontario. So last Sunday (September 13), I kept up the tradition and went even though it had been a very rainy day. Despite the soggy weather I had fun! Lots of good food, music, animals, activities and people wearing pioneer costumes. I was taking a picture of the town crier when he came over and handed me his bell. My friend Mac took a picture of the town crier and me, holding the bell (I didn't want to ring it because then people would think I had something to announce!). 

The music was appropriately down-home-y and old fashioned, like the music out of the movie "Oh Brother Where Art Thou". These guys were really good - playing banjo, mandolin and guitar. 

There were sheep. These guys were waiting their turn....

...because there was sheep-sheering exhibition, and they were next. This guy was a pro at sheering sheep. 

Nearby there was a man giving a demonstration on rope-making. He had a special machine to do this. It was fascinating to watch. 

There were a number of roosters in cages. I missed the rooster-crowing contest, but it was nice just to see the roosters in all their glory. 

There were also chickens. 

The blacksmith was hard at work at his forge. This was a very popular exhibition. 

And finally, there was more music. The fiddler was dynamite. Altogether, a fun day and worth slogging through a few puddles to enjoy.  

A Late Summer Party

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!

A Concert in a Barn

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.

Playing With My New Camera

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.

FEH's First "Installation in the Woods" for 2015

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.

The Story of a White Apple

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!