Long Island Retreat, May 22nd - May 29th

Well here it is July already and there's a lot of catching up to do! So a few posts today and an update.  

Since my last post I had the good fortune of being invited by Helen Opie to stay on Long Island for a week, with Helen and 4 other artists.  It was a really lovely trip with very nice people!  And a really great break after the chaos of moving in the spring.   Red sand, islands, rock formations, dramatic skies, changing light, old trees and the breathing of the ocean made for a soothing stay indeed.

Most of the others set out to do plein air paintings, but I brought along my draft of "What If Michelangelo Was A Telemarketer" and re-drew many of the pictures to self publish; such that they'd make sense with a fold down the middle for a 'chap book'.  It was really great to have this time on an island to work towards finishing one of my many projects! My draft is now at Kwik Kopy in Halifax, hopefully I'll have the printed books within a couple of weeks!

Helen painting on the beach

Long Island is owned by Dick Lemon who created the space with the view of having a place where creative types could gather.  It has a main house which is on solar, and 3 outbuildings.  I got to stay in the "lighthouse" and enjoy a great view which inspired me to start doing yoga again; I'd not felt this relaxed, focused and in tune with everything since traveling to Asia in 2001.  It was a week of healthy living and eating and great conversation.  I'm extremely grateful to Dick for offering Helen this opportunity (which came about from Helen writing "Long Island Sketch Journal" on a different trip).  Getting to celebrate Helen's 79th birthday with her on the last day was an added bonus!
It was a great experience, thank you so much!

My view from in front of the lighthouse cabin

Gotland Sheep... In the beginning...

One day driving down the Northfield road I saw a small flock of sheep and thought, how pretty, and noticed that sheep have slender legs, not like the plump cartoonish sheep that I had made last year. 

 I'd really like to have some sheep out here!! But that will take time as we need fencing.  Meanwhile I decided it'd be fun to make sheep that would be life-sized, more realistic, and could stay out on the lawn of Swoon all the time.   We'd been putting my animals from last year on the lawn, but they weren't designed to stay out in the elements, nor are they life-sized.  After some thought, I got an idea on how to make 3 life sized sheep using minimal time and money.

The first thing I went and did was buy supplies.  These sheep will have bamboo armatures, papier mache heads and legs, and bodies made of fabric covered chickenwire.  

The project depended on my finding just the right fabric, for cheap.  So I went to Fabricville on Bayers Road and spotted some rolls of a mixed colour grey fabric for only 50 cents/yard!!  How lucky! It was so marked down because of some yellow water stains, but seemed excellent to me for making sheep.  I bought 12 yards which will hopefully be enough for 3 sheep.  

 

  

I want to tear the fabric into strips to attach to the chickenwire, hopefully this will make it look woolly.  I did a google search for grey sheep with black heads and legs,  and decided that Gotland sheep are what I'm trying to make: 
 

Next I bought chickenwire and bamboo poles.  For each sheep I used 2 x 6' bamboo poles, and 2 x 5' bamboo poles.  The legs are 5' poles cut in half, and the bodies each have 3 x 3' sections and 2 x 1.5' sections.  Here's a shot of my messy workspace, I like to watch documentaries while I work, on things like our Fiat Currency system and GMO foods.  I am going to try to work tidier though!! At least this shows the beginning of the 3 frames.

I cut up the bamboo with a small hacksaw and attached the bamboo using strips of discarded bike tire inner tubes.  This is a method I learned from some awesome puppet builders in Washington State. 

To stabilize the joins I also used some small bamboo pieces, and then wrapped up everything with newspaper and masking tape.  I find the Halifax Chronicle Herald is the best paper to work with, it's nice and 'papery' unlike the Globe and Mail.  Once my skeletons were made I started fleshing out the legs.  I made the heads separate.  To make the frames for the heads I crumple newspaper and cover it with masking tape. 

Two of the sheep leg frames

Frames for the legs and heads finished, I made my first pot of paste in my new home.  I use a cornstarch paste that I cook on the stove, also taught to me by awesome Washington State puppet makers.  I think I'll give instructions for that in a future blog post.  Last night I started papier macheing, my next task being to coat the head and leg armatures with enough layers of papier mache that they are solid when dry.

Sheep heads and legs, with bowl of cornstarch paste.  These legs and the head on the left have had their first coats of papier mache.

As well as working tidier, I'm trying to turn over a new leaf of starting one sculpture project and seeing it through, rather than living in a jungle of half-finished projects.  So I'm pretty focused on these sheep but have frames for a couple of other creatures who might get papered while I'm at it... once the sheep are done I want to make more dogs, cats and crows!

Frame for Pug and Crow

Reassuring Crows

Here's the rough draft of another greeting card idea I had.  One night in Halifax I felt so overwhelmed about the upcoming move to here that painted this picture to relax myself.  Funny that the tree and night sky colour turned out to look so much like the February sky as seen from my new living room:

 

Drawings - ho

So still can't find my camera cable, but I was gallery sitting at Swoon, and Rae Smith pointed out I could just put the memory card right into my laptop.  ah.  maybe by committing to blogging my drawings I'll draw more often, it'll be fun to look back over months (years?) of sketches, and (hopefully) notice an improvement.

here are the drawings I did, sitting out by the pond, on April 19th

Here's one from did today of a pine branch.  I love all the trees around here.  I love the big birches back in the woods with their peeling bark, pines, maples, everything.  all the birds are good too.  and even the beavers that are munching their way all around the pond, leaving piles of fallen trees stripped of bark.  I learned today that they don't eat fish, as I suspected, wondering why there has been no bites yet from anything other than a minnow out there.

Drawing the pine was fun, inside on the couch.  With so many things I should be doing it's nice to be forced into doing just one thing; I think a benefit of art is that it allows the viewer and the maker that space to be present, to be still, if even for a fleeting moment.  maybe that's something art and nature-watching have in common.

It occurred to me today that I've used moving-chaos as an excuse to completely stop making art altogether. It'll take awhile to figure out a ceramics studio but meanwhile I'd like to get a start on a few papier mache animals, I'm thinking life-sized puppies.  I've been thinking it'd be fun to get a real puppy but a papier mache one would be much lower maintenance.

where is my camera cable? and, Princess Cruise story

It occurred to me yesterday that there hasn't been much art in my art blog here.  Spring is here with singing birds and budding trees, I can't get over how beautiful my new home is! yesterday I walked jersi to the pond, then went back for my camera and sketch book.  The red maples are flowering and so beautiful; I sat and sketched for awhile realizing that the more I do so the more informed my pottery will be when I go to carve on to vessels in the future.  I feel young in my career and excited to build on a foundation of nature-loving and drawing practice.  somehow the gardening, nature watching and art will all be connected eventually I'm sure.  I had another greeting card to post as well but can't find my camera cable anywhere! hopefully with spring cleaning it will turn up soon!  My first sketches weren't all that great I figured, but I'm excited to post them and keep practicing.  hopefully a few years from now I'll look back and see that they've improved.  everybody has to start someplace.  


In other news I get the paper now, and the story was in there about the Princess Cruise boat that sailed past people in distress, despite the concern of its passengers.  I'll paste an article about it below that I found online.  It got me thinking about complacency, bystanders, and the importance of speaking up against wrong-doings.  I feel bad for the people who tried to speak up, wondering if they thought they could have done more.  I can't imagine what the guy in the boat must have felt.   though maybe on some levels I can; haven't we all felt ignored by people who could have stepped in to help but chose not to?  Haven't we all, at some point, been one of those passengers on that boat, sailing past other humans who were barely clinging to life (either truly or metaphorically), presented with a critical moment of "hey I should maybe do something about this?" only to decide, "meh. not my problem.  I wonder what's for lunch."

I hope that everyone touched by this loss honours the death of these men in their own way, by trying to be more conscious about stepping in, speaking up, when it is possible to give help, instead of comfortably sailing past on their ship.  I hope that somehow some good comes from the loss of Adrian Vasquez's friends, and he can at least have some comfort knowing that the story of their mistreatment served as a global wake-up call to complacency and unconsciousness.  

 It made me think of this really great TED lecture I watched about how normal people end up doing bad things.  Why do people do "bad" things? Phil Zimbardo has some good theories:






Anyhow, Adrian Vasquez, for what it's worth: I'm very sorry for your loss.



Cruise ship fails to heed fishermen's plea for help; 2 die

By JUAN ZAMORANO and JEFF BARNARD
The Associated Press

RIO HATO, Panama — A Panamanian man and his two friends had been drifting for 16 days in an open fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean when they saw a huge, white ship. They would be saved, they believed, and Adrian Vasquez began waving a dark-red sweater.
Meanwhile, bird-watchers with powerful spotting scopes on the promenade deck of the luxury cruise ship Star Princess saw a little boat adrift miles away. They told ship staff about the man desperately waving a red cloth.
The cruise ship didn't stop, and the fishing boat drifted two more weeks before it was found. By then, Vasquez's two friends were dead.
"I said, 'God will not forgive them,' " Vasquez said as he recalled the encounter in the waters off South America. "Today, I still feel rage when I remember."
On Thursday, Princess Cruises said a preliminary investigation showed that the passengers' reports of a boat in distress never reached Capt. Edward Perrin or the officer on duty.
If they had, the company said, the captain and crew would have altered course to rescue the men, just as the cruise line has done more than 30 times in the past 10 years. The Santa Clarita, Calif.-based company expressed sympathy for the men and their families.
On Feb. 24, the three men set out for a day of fishing from Rio Hato, site of a former U.S. Army base guarding the Panama Canal. They were on their way home, happy with their catch, when the motor died.
Vasquez recalled seeing the ship — "It was big; it was white" — on the morning of March 10.
Vasquez says he jumped up and began waving the sweater. He says he repeatedly raised it over his head and dropped it to his knees. Though near death, Elvis Oropeza Betancourt, 31, joined in, waving an orange life jacket.
" 'Tio, look what's coming over there,' " Vasquez recalled saying. "We felt happy, because we thought they were coming to rescue us."
Bird-watcher Jeff Gilligan, of Portland, was the first to see the boat. Judy Meredith, of Bend, Ore., looked through the spotting scopes and says she could see a man waving what looked like a dark red T-shirt.
"You don't wave a shirt like that just to be friendly," Meredith said. "He was desperate to get our attention."
Barred from going to the bridge to notify the ship's officers, Meredith said she told a Princess Cruises sales representative what she and Gilligan had seen, and the representative assured her he passed the news on to crew.
The bird-watchers said they put the representative on one of the spotting scopes so he could see for himself.
Meredith says she went to her cabin and noted the coordinates from a TV feed from the ship, booted up her laptop and emailed the U.S. Coast Guard. She said she hoped someone would receive the message and help.
When she returned to the promenade deck, she says, the boat was still visible.
But nothing happened. The ship kept going. And the little boat with the waving men disappeared.
"We were kind of freaking out, thinking we don't see anything else happening," Meredith said.
Gilligan says he couldn't bear to watch.
"It was very disturbing," he said. "We asked other people, 'What do you think we should do?' Their reaction was: 'Well, you've done what you could do.' Whether something else could have been done, that's a bit frustrating to think about."
Oropeza and Fernando Osario died. Vasquez eventually was picked up by a fishing vessel off Ecuador's Galápagos Islands, more than 600 miles from where they had set out.
Vasquez said he slipped his friends' bodies into the sea after they began to rot in the heat. Before his rescue, two rainstorms gave him fresh water to drink and he retrieved floating coconuts, he says.
Vasquez said he recognized their boat, the Fifty Cents, from the photographs taken by Gilligan with his 300mm lens.
"Yes, that's it. That's it. That is us," Vasquez said. "You can see there, the red sweater I'm waving and, above it, is the sheet that we put up to protect us from the sun."
Vasquez mentioned the ship in his first statement to Panamanian authorities when he returned to his country.
Back home in Oregon, Meredith says she couldn't sleep, wondering what happened to the men.
Reading a news story about a Panamanian rescued off Ecuador after 28 days in an open boat, she figured that was the boat she had seen.
Gilligan says he has had trouble coming up with an explanation for what happened.
"My only theory is the people on the bridge have seen a lot of fishing boats," he said. "And they were on a tight schedule and they let the schedule cloud their judgment."

Copyright © The Seattle Times Company 

Don't Give Up!

 I've been preoccupied with gardening lately, still inspired by my visit and conversations with Helen Opie... the thought of producing food is exciting and I've found some great youtube videos about 'forest gardening' to watch.  Lots to think about.  I've also been researching the best way to set up fruit trees and to keep deer from eating them.  In other news, we built a compost box out of four pallets, I've got my worm compost bin going, and we now have a roll of black/white silage plastic to lay out over the field, but then it snowed.

Back to art, I got this idea awhile ago to combine 'art cards' with popular cartoon greeting cards.  I've made a few paintings with the idea to use them as backdrops for art greeting cards.  Here's my first ever art card, the painting is named 'encouraging squirrels'.  I photographed it and then added captions with power point.   I like the thought of combining paintings and captions to come up with greetings that are a bit less ordinary, but perhaps necessary...

A Weekend With "The Opester"

Well I just had a great, action-packed weekend with my dear friend Helen Opie, whom Brendan (my husband) nicknamed "the Opester" before they even met; she doesn't mind and the nickname seems to suit her.

As well as an amazing artist Helen is a master gardener and has been extremely generous with advice as we're keen on growing as much food as possible.  Saturday March 31st Helen invited me to her home in Granville Ferry where she was explaining how to grow tomatoes from seeds.  She'll be co-gardening this year with her friends, Jeff and April as she figures there is plenty of space on her 1/3 acre lot to grow food for Helen as well as Jeff, April and their children.

Onion Seedlings in Helen's Kitchen

Strawbale Raised Beds

Helen had an assortment of tomato seeds and pepper seeds to plant, mostly from Hope Seeds.  I brought a few packs of seeds from Halifax Seed as well as a deep-root planting tray from Lee Valley Tools.  I didn't plant peppers as I've cut way back on my intake of nightshade plants; tomatoes are nightshades too but are too delicious and too much fun to grow.  

Seedling trays were planted with a couple of seeds per hole filled with wet soil, 3x the depth of the seed.  So for tomato seeds, which are small, they are just barely covered with soil.  The trays are then covered with plastic wrap (but only until they sprout) and my tray now sits in a sunny window, on a heating pad which I also got from Lee Valley.  Helen suggested I cut the front and top off a cardboard box and line it with tin foil, to reflect more sunlight onto the seeds.  I'm out of tinfoil right now but will try to remember to do this!

Helen and April planting pepper seeds

Helen also has the next show opening at Swoon, her paintings as well as paintings and sculptures by Christine Lavoie will be featured for April, with an opening Reception this coming Saturday from 2 - 5pm:

With Saturday being a gorgeous day and Helen having many neighbours and friends who don't go into the city often, she got the great idea to host a "preview of leaving attractions" from 2 - 4pm, and hung all her paintings on the streetside outside wall of her home.  When I arrived at Helen's place she had a long list of folks in the neighbourhood to call up to invite to her spontaneous art event:

Her outdoor show attracted many residents throughout the afternoon, who enjoyed the work very much, and appreciated the opportunity to view it!

Helen proudly holding her painting-hanging-hammer

Sneak Peak at Helen's show, minus a couple paintings

Helen's "Whalecome" sign, which suits her home very much!

 

Late Saturday afternoon we packed all her paintings into my car and I drove her back to my place where she spent Saturday and Sunday nights for a well-earned rest.  She also gave me some red worms so I can start my own worm compost bin, I'm excited about that.   I'm very pleased that she likes my new digs as much as I do, and on Sunday, after she dowsed to figure out where my septic tank and its access is, we walked around with my shovel to see how the soil is.   Fortunately the overgrown field in front of the house appears to have wonderful rich soil full of worms!  Much nicer soil than she suspected at first glance. Thank you, river. 

I think the area by the shed will be a fine spot for some fruit and nut trees, and perhaps some raised beds as well.  Helen suggested I get some silage plastic to place over the sod, black side up, so that it can start to rot the ground cover underneath.  Later in the summer I'll plant squash, tomatoes and other plants through evenly spaced holes in the plastic.  Sounds much easier than breaking up all the sod as it is!