Magic in the Landscape

Out for a paddle
Out for a Paddle
Taken from the train window, somewhere near Tacoma, Washington.

I really wish I was better about keeping up with what’s going on at local galleries, because too often I see shows just before they close or miss them completely. In some cases the shows I do catch at the last minute are ones I would definitely recommend to others, but then it’s too late.

Such is the case with the show I went to see on Saturday afternoon at Jacana Gallery. The show featured the work of artist/illustrator Soizick Meister. The series of paintings focuses on easily recognizable landscapes around Vancouver, with plenty of iconic imagery of crows, herons, tanker ships against the north shore, logs on Kits/Jericho beaches, and other things easily recognizable as “Vancouver”. In every painting there is the mysterious figure of Mr. M dressed in hat and trench coat, turned towards the scene to contemplate the landscape. The scenes are peaceful, sometimes with playful details of paper boats or piles of books. This is magic realism at it’s best, and I found the show to be a wealth of inspiration.

Jacana Gallery has the full show online.

Starlings Take Flight

2 Comments

Rachael Ashe: Holga

This is my favorite shot taken on my Portland trip. I love watching birds take flight.

I keep meaning to write about the good summer I have been having but so far I haven’t been able to find the time. Here are a few good things:
1. Slowly transforming my apartment into a more inspiring space just by changing the art around on the walls and adding more.
2. Fun dinners with various friends on various days.
3. A cycling trip to Agassiz a few weekends ago with the lovely Mann family.
4. Moving to a new work space, and liking it much better than the old one.
5. Feeling inspired again and beginning to plan and prepare to submit work for shows in the fall.
6. Having too many good things to actually mention in the short amount of time I’ve taken to write this.

Crossing the Bridge

3 Comments

Bridge near Tacoma

Thanks to Ariane getting all up in the templates for my site and tweaking the CSS today, things are looking much more polished around here. Gone is the annoying horizontal scroll bar that appeared whenever I used an image 500 pixels wide. Yay – and thank you Ariane!

I have added an etsy page to the site where you can directly view some of the items in my shop. You still have to go to Etsy to purchase, and it doesn’t allow me to showcase everything, but it’s a start. Hopefully soon I will have another announcement about other places you can purchase my work online.

Portland Artist – Theo Ellsworth

Starlings at twilight
Title: Starlings at Twilight

I was less impressed with the Saturday market in Portland on my latest visit than I was the previous time I was there. It seemed much more crafty and junky with fewer “gems” here and there. My favorite artist from the visit is Theo Ellsworth, a writer, illustrator and comic book artist. His drawings are intricately detailed and feature fantastical scenes, people and creatures from his own made up world. His style reminds me a bit of drawings I’ve seen by Clive Barker but without the dark twists. I bought one of Theo’s lovely prints (and wish I’d picked up more) as well as a copy of his book Capacity Number 7.

Collaboration Across the Miles – Directions

1 Comment

Collaboration across the miles - Directions
Directions

This is the second in the collaborative series I started back in June with my friend Kai. She moved to China a few months ago and as a way to keep in touch I suggested we do a photographic collaboration. We take turns selecting the themes and also putting together the diptychs.

Kai is on the right Rachael is on the left.

Little bike

2 Comments

Little patient waiter.

Last night I was wandering around downtown with a friend when we came across a woman selling blueberries beside the Vancouver Art Gallery. Her prices were good but I didn’t have money to buy any right at that moment, so I came back later after a stop at a cash machine. They were really good blueberries, big and sweet, and I ate about a million of them while riding home on the bus. In case you’re interested, apparently she is at the corner of Robson and Hornby selling blueberries quite often.

Good things from yesterday:
1. Quality time with a happy little Yuuki.
2. Preparing for a weekend trip out of town.
3. Having a really productive Art Day.

The power of words

2 Comments

Crumble and flake

Last night I finished reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s a wonderful book about travel and self exploration, and it has inspired me to get moving on some of the neglected dreams I’ve been sitting on for far too long.

A paragraph in the second last chapter really struck a chord with me, given the thoughts burdening my head lately and a continued string of sleepless nights. The context of the words below is that the writer of the book traveled to a small island to be alone with her thoughts and work through the unhappy things that were going on in her life at the time.

The yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash. We get seduced by our own mantras (I’m a failure…I’m lonely…I’m a failure…I’m lonely…) and we become monuments to them. To stop talking for a while, then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words, to stop choking ourselves with words, to liberate ourselves from our suffocating mantras.

Looking in the Green

3 Comments

green leaves

From Free Will Astrology:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free,” said the sculptor Michelangelo about a statue he made. Let that approach be your guide in the coming weeks, Leo. Proceed according to the hypothesis that the beautiful thing you want to create is embedded in stuff that’s hiding its true nature, and your job is simply to liberate it from what’s extraneous.