|
SeaRose
Studio Fall 2005 Newsletter
Hello to you
all. Once again I sit, to remember, to reflect on, to write of
all the busy-ness of the first two thirds of the year. This
morning I got up, walked down the hall to the living room and
was overjoyed once more (the sixth day) to be able to look
through the many glass panes of the French doors, directly out
to the view of Cramer Pass and on towards the Burdwood Group and
Mt. Stevens. I turned the crystal doorknob I have saved for
twenty years, opened the door and breathed in the sweet
fragrance of garden roses. Down below me on the surface of the
ocean I saw the v-shaped ripple of an otter swimming, then
another, then four more, and another four. I watched from my
high and silent vantage point as the ten otters climbed out of
the water onto the dock below me and enacted a most interesting
ritual. After each otter got up on the deck, it stretched its
neck out low and rubbed the side of its face on the rough wood
of the dock. They cavorted around the dock for five minutes,
tumbling over each other and then discovered the old blanket I
had tossed out of my speedboat. Six or seven of the otters then
surrounded the blanket with their noses radiating out and their
rear ends to the center, up on the blanket. They all humped
their rear ends up and down for a few minutes and then all at
once, the whole crew, except for one confused juvenile, dove off
the float and swam away towards my neighbor’s float. You are
correct in concluding that the old blanket was covered with
several piles of smelly otter poops. I knew that they liked to
defecate on something soft if they had the option however I
never imagined that they all did it simultaneously! My nature
lesson for the week. This is the largest group of otters I have
seen here so I am pleased to see the family is growing.
For several
weeks this summer a mother and baby humpback whale lived and fed
on the great boiling schools of pilchards that came into the
Broughton Archipelago this year. Many times we sat on our porch
and watched the two cruising and blowing in Cramer Pass. We even
sat out for an hour after dark one night when we heard the
blows. We heard the sound of the rushing spilling mass of
pilchards as the big whales herded them up from the deep, then a
whoosh of foaming water as the gaping mouth pressed the water
and fish through the baleen plates. Finally, we heard the softer
splash as the great bodies fell back into the ocean. In the soft
summer darkness we perceived the mother breaching twice, hearing
the sound and seeing a green flash as a phosphorescent cloud of
spray billowed up. Most exciting of all was the day the pair
cruised closer and closer to our float. After three suspenseful
minutes, we watched the humpback mother’s huge lower jaw, a
steely grey colour that looked like metallic plating, rise up,
up, straight up from the sea twenty-five feet off our dock.
Right at the lip is very narrow and pointed and the jaw widens
radically as it billows with water and small fish. The shape was
a slightly curved broadly based triangle that put me in mind of
some strange “Star Wars” machine rising up from the deep. She
had a great mouthful of pilchards, we just watched, awestruck,
unable to believe our good luck, as this giant creature spewed
water and fish and crashed back into the sea. Whew, what a
performance. I never get over how wonderful it is to be able to
live here and witness the natural world right from my doorstep.
I got
sidetracked with the wild things but the news I want to share
about the progress on the house is about the aforementioned
French doors. My dear friend Liz H. and Al from Comox offered us
the French doors they took out when renovating their old house.
This was an amazing gift. It took us six months, sandwiched into
our regular ‘must-do’ activities, to strip off the indoor and
outdoor enamel paint, replace a pane of glass, sand and varnish
the tough old fir. My darling E.G. (Engineering Genius, if you
recall) had to enlarge the opening we had already designed and
built into the front living room wall, as well as cut a bit off
the doors to make everything fit. He made a beautiful yellow
cedar doorsill and weather strip and the doors open and close
with a wonderful weighty, silent smoothness. Every evening now
we turn off the lights for a few minutes and just enjoy that
dusky time the French call “l’heure bleu”, the blue hour.
We have
worked steadily this summer both in the production of pottery
and on the house. In July we participated in the Mind & Matter
Festival of Art in White Rock. Thank you to everyone that came
to see us whether to visit or to support our art endeavors by
purchasing or both. It was lovely to see you all. We met one
lady who was so excited because she was going to the Broughton
Archipelago on a kayaking tour. Later in the summer when she did
come, she and several of her cohorts came for a studio visit.
Small world…also had excellent visits with our children,
grandchild and Mom, parents, brother and sister-in-law, aunt and
uncle and assorted friends. It was a busy, enriching trip and
did not get less busy on our return home.
The latter
half of July and most of August was filled with encounters with
visitors from all over the world, giving painting lessons and
studio tours, running around in Sea Rose, my speedboat, to see
friends, lots of pottery production and a couple of intensive
weeks of painting production for the Lighthouse Gallery in
Bastion Square, Victoria. I also framed and sent to Choyces in
Sointula, paintings that I had done in February of some of the
familiar Sointula images. These proved very popular as five
paintings sold very quickly. I am not yet done with this
interesting material. Many of the boathouses and other buildings
from the days of the settlers are finally falling apart and I
want to document them before they are all gone. I plan to return
next February and paint again, although the probability of
having the fabulous sunny weather I experienced this year is
likely low.
E.G. built a
woodshed and is filling it with firewood. I love it for a number
of reasons. My security rests in a full woodshed. As well, when
he salvaged the tin roof off the old generator shed, he
obligingly cleaned it at my request. Now from the water, you can
see the house with it’s turquoise roof and nestled in beside is
the smaller woodshed with matching roof. Silly to be so pleased
by this evidence of industry looking so cute but there it is, I
am pleased.
I am barely
keeping up with the garden, OK, I am really not keeping up with
the garden but am certainly taking enormous pleasure in the
fruit and flowers produced this year. The blueberry bushes are
thriving and I would like to put in four or five more so I can
freeze some. The raspberries have gone crazy climbing up the
hill and enveloping the pathway to the kiln so I have formulated
a plan to completely move them to an area of raised beds with a
little more sun. The sugar maples that Dave and Irene brought us
from Quebec are suddenly maturing and showing just how big they
are going to be. A couple of fishing sessions with Bill P.
netted some pinks we smoked and canned and some nice big slabs
of spring salmon for winter dinners including one a perfect size
to be baked whole at Christmas. Eating Gilford Island, a phrase
coined by our friend Ron T.
We had
several Art Retreat guests for five to seven days for each
retreat. I am always gratified by the depth and profundity of
the leap of learning that can happen in such a short intense
time. I received some feedback from Vicki A. and Robbie, Norma,
Helen and others that made me feel like my efforts really made a
difference.
Summer is
over and Autumn is truly upon us although it kind of felt like
it in early August. Winter plans include our usual production of
fine porcelain ware for the table for the Sointula Winterfest in
November. Both E.G. and I have several commission pieces to do
including an eight place setting dinner set, a stimulating
challenge. As well, I will be exhibiting in a three person show
at the Lighthouse Gallery the same month, more details when I
have them. Do please come if you live in the Victoria area.
E.G. plans
to install the baseboard heating in the studios when I go to
Sointula. He installed the living room and kitchen radiators
last February while I was away. This is a good approach for us
(me leaving while he does something complicated and extensive to
the house) as he likes to work from 4 p.m. until 3 or 4 a.m. I
was very happy in Dani & Lionels room with a view overlooking
the sea near Rough Bay and she says I am welcome to come again.
One thing I really liked about sojourning in Sointula for a
month is walking to the library twice a week. If I hadn’t been
an artist I might have been a librarian. However, I am an artist
and I’d better get to it, so goodbye for now. Regards, Yvonne
|
