circling...

these loose marks are somewhat representative of how things are with me creatively

random,  incomplete... a lot of fits and starts

looking back over the year's blog posts there was a recurring theme - a bit of time available for creative work and then long periods of almost none as other things took precedence

what I have done has been good though

 a lot of discovering, a lot of thinking

I'm ready for some action though

during this in-between time I have gathered a few objects important to me and have had them on my work table for some time now

I've analyzed them in a few ways, thinking about colour and shape, marks etc

then a page of circles using the solid silver napkin ring to draw around

(the circles are all complete, the photo just cut some off and it's too dark with fog to re-take it)

that napkin ring my grandfather's, one single gold nugget centred on it

plain, simple, elegant

today I began filling the circles with marks inspired by the objects

for the next couple of days I'll keep circling back to this; when it's finished I'll do a colour study of a sort

simple exercises that have me looking, thinking, and doing whilst everyday life begins it's slow journey into 2024 and all that it will hold

as this challenging year draws to it's close I'll wish for you what I hope for myself

peace in your soul

for as Max Ehrmann wrote almost 100 years ago:

"and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your life. With all it's sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world"

Christmas Wishes

me...

and mine...

would like to wish you...

and yours...

a very Merry Christmas!

Yukon Gold

home for almost a week now, in the throes of Christmas preparation, but I did take some time to work with a few things I had gathered whilst in the yukon

a small forest path, through the trees, across the stream on a small wooden bridge... a walk of about 90 seconds really but lingering is a must

I walked it as a teenager, a short-cut to the small grocery store, it's still there all these years later

when I first got to Whitehorse in early November it had barely snowed and I saw a number of rosehips still clinging to the branches of the otherwise bare wild roses

some were still bright red, many were black - I gathered all I could find along with a couple of pinecones, one grey and the other brown and brought them home with me

on Monday I put it all into my small aluminium dyepot, added a few cups of tap water and left it to simmer on the stove for about 30 minutes

  a few scraps of various silk fabrics and one cotton piece were stirred in and left to simmer another hour... at that point I didn't really care if I got any colour at all as the house smelled absolutely heavenly and that alone felt like reward enough

the pot and it's contents were set aside for the night to be looked at in the morning... it was all a bit by guess and by golly so I didn't have high expectations but the next day I found all the silk had dyed a  shimmering golden brown; the cotton was a bit washed out but the richness of the silk more than made up for it

although the process I followed was rather haphazard I did make notes in my dye-book and attached samples so things are looking up on the recording front at least

the dye looked like it still had some oomph in it so I kinda sorta quickly "scoured" three skeins of cotton embroidery thread (bright white, natural white and ecru), skipped the mordant stage and put the thread in the jar of dye that still had all the plant material in it

and there it sits... I swish it around every day and perhaps tomorrow I'll put the jar in a pot of simmering water and let it heat up for a while

and continue with the daily swishing for a little longer...

I have several natural dye books and have read all about and done my fair share of proper scouring and other preparations for dyeing both cotton and silk fabric and thread with excellent results but I'm also willing to just wing it sometimes and see what I get and sometimes I strike gold

and speaking of gold, the photo below was the scene a friend saw as she drove into downtown Whitehorse today in the early afternoon... the low sun softened by mist rising from the river... golden light striking a path right to her feet

(photo credit C. Young)

-8 degrees and winter has never looked better

sunlight and shadows

last week was filled with a series of random things, a kind of "what have I missed that I can cram in now" kind of week, alongside helping our daughter to move house

a morning spent at the museum which has trebled in size since we lived here

this photograph of Dead Horse Gulch was part of an exhibit new to me, where thousands of horses on the Chilkoot Trail died,  the faint line of the later train tracks along the left-hand side mid photo

my brother was in a small plane that crashed into the mountain on the right-hand side in 1972 when he was 14 - he was the lucky one, two died, the fourth severely injured, lives forever changed

looking at this brought all those memories flooding back - the accident was an earthquake in a small town like Whitehorse, especially as three of the four passengers were children

it's not an image, nor a place to inspire my work directly though serves as a stark reminder that this is not an easy land

another quick walk by the river, a close-up of the dock pilings, the oily-dark river flowing silently by

I love that the current is so fast, the undertow exceptionally strong  and yet it's deadly quiet... a river of respect

a rusted part of the inner workings of a long-lost paddlewheeler still on the shore, sunlight and shadows

sunlight and shadows... like a metaphor for the harshness yet beauty found here

a country fence, everything touched with the heavy hand of frost

the next day,  fresh snow

it's been snowing and blowing the past few days, more typical than the weather we had when I first arrived, and the fullness of winter's darkness has settled over the landscape

call me crazy but I love it

and today I go home

trees

rooted in place, moving only with the wind

what would that be like I wonder, to be so fixed in one spot?

the trees of the yukon seem to be in perpetual motion whether from the wind or the either boggy or stony ground that affects root development, causing many of them to lean

the last time I was here I did some loose watercolour paintings with grey and gold - not looking for any particular outcome, just seeing how the paint might move on the paper depending on how I managed the water

one resembled a river bank and so I began to add trees

won't say it's finished

can't say it isn't

below, a loose abstract of hills and poplar trees in winter

then a stitched tree

interestingly, the back is closer to the tree I've been striving for

the short, choppy stitches are a truer likeness than the detailed, slightly curving stitches of the branches on the front

 

I'll work into it more, referencing the back to make the front

I've been drawing these kind of trees this week as well, and the short strokes are becoming second nature - hopefully that will translate into making stitch-marks as well

but then there's the matter of the lean...

it's always something

river and sky

a walk along the river today

a dark day

sun low in the sky

glimmers of light skim the water's surface, as fleeting as the patterns of the current

swirling and whirling, the water silently flows swiftly by

sky and water,  light and shadow

the ageing pilings of the shipyard docks line the riverbank

 sentinels of history,  of a time, of a place

like the images of people waiting at the docks for the paddle wheelers to arrive 

huddled in groups, they wait... or watch?

I am drawn to them, their weather-worn exterior, jagged tops and leaning stature - how long have they been there? 

at least 100 years or more

and below, a meandering view that is new to me, opened up by the growth of the city and an extension of the walking path along the river

a delightful back channel meandering along the main one, the river dotted with small islands for a while

no sketchbook but thankfully my camera

catching up with old friends this week left little time for creative pursuits but I've been experimenting with ways of depicting the mountains 

folded white Japanese paper for a background, mountains cut from an old photograph, painted cloth, painted paper and coloured pastel paper

I like the image of the trees cut into a mountain shape and want to expand on that idea

 clean lines, especially in the folded paper...  I'm liking the graphic nature of them and imaging a larger version with even more folds to use as a base for other work

figuring out how to do that is a whole different thing though and will likely involve several trials using plain newsprint and a few choice words

tramping the trails

settled in, and feeling like the past seven months have fallen away, that I've always been here

just here

the weather the past few days has been a gift - a warm uplifting breeze  with whiffs of pine and woodsmoke, the air freshened by newly fallen snow that has been melting in the warmth of the midday sun

the sun stays low in the sky during these winter months, slanting across the landscape at an angle that makes much of the day feel like a painter's "magic hour", though the shadows are long and the blues more intense... perhaps it's a northern version of it, the magic and blue hours mixed together in the way of a painter

today I walked in the woods, taking the old pathways,  one that used to lead me to a friend's house, then another that was a shortcut to the store

the wooden plank over the stream has been replaced with a proper bridge but otherwise the shortcut is unchanged

large boulders dot the landscape in this area and there are several found along the banks here

I remember sitting on them often, chatting with a friend, listening to the creek flow by, now hearing the echoes of our laughter in the gurgle of the water

the trees are taller and there are some I can no longer encircle with my arms, their bark deeply lined, many leaning

leaning trees are common here... casualties of the permafrost

I've taken several photographs of the flowing water; the swirling marks make for interesting textures - something interesting to play with as transparent overlays

today I began a colour study - other than acrylic paints all I have with me are coloured charcoal pencils but I love the soft texture of their marks

there is a gentle subtlety to their colours but as I think of this landscape in memory more than see it in life it's maybe as it should be

the memories from years gone by have provided their own filter which colours how I see things today

sight seeing

whitehorse, last winter, the morning sun finally rising, sometime around 11:00 am 

some find the darkness difficult but I have always loved it... dark, cozy mornings where you can take your time to face the day

on my way there again, tomorrow

a settled feeling drapes over me as I step on Yukon soil and look out at a landscape I know in my bones 

and I am home again

there's a long list of places I want to be

 things to think about

photos to take

there's a hankering to spend time by the river, watching the current swirl across the surface

and another to think about the flotilla that set sail from Lake Bennett to Dawson City in late May of 1898

I'm completely taken with the sails, the shape of them, the varying sizes, the mast down the centre line - some were made out of cotton duck, many were patched together from whatever fabric could be obtained

most of all I'm looking forward to the trees

I want to draw trees this time, the tall skinny trees that captivate me 

it's their scrubby resilience that inspires me, the crooked and twisted forms that battle to live 

a true embodiment of the north

and then there are the ravens

I used to think they were the peskiest of birds but now I rather like their antics

so trees and ravens, perhaps a raven in a tree, though that's a rather uncommon sight up there if I remember correctly - you usually see them on the ground

and something with the sails...

making and knowing

it's interesting to me that whilst a piece of work may tell a story I am usually most interested in the story of how the work itself was made

thinking that might be of interest to some of you as well... this is how something I made a few weeks back came to be

it begins with a photo of the side of the Klondike River Boat in Whitehorse taken last March

cropped slightly, contrast heavily edited - wanted to remove much of the substantive nature of the wood, reducing the strength of most of the lines and enhancing the marks of weathering

water at Marsh Lake taken July of 2019

I love the visual texture of the water and the sunlight glinting on the waves

the Yukon River, taken by my Grandfather in the 1940s... a view I know so well, the blocks of ice-jams created by the movement of the water during warm periods of the long winter... planes and shadows, texture on the river

caribou crossing the Yukon River, a still shot I captured from a National Film Board of Canada video compilation of films taken by Yukon Residents in the 1930s

the moving image of this scene is amazing - the water flowing swiftly, the caribou visibly battling the current, their backs and antlers adding a flowing element above the water

all of these images informed the collage below with the side of the boat and the water images printed and used along with strips of silk chiffon I painted with watercolour paint, burnt the edges and then waxed

I love doing this kind of work, looking for connections in colour, texture, form

layering, working to create the feel of something, somewhere

the transparency of this piece alludes to the transient time of the river boats and the gold rush, and that what seemed strong and substantial wasn't after all and when their days were through the river flowed on

I didn't go about planning this work to have this message rather, I gathered images and samples that appealed, that seemed to work well together and once it was completed and I spent time considering and reflecting on what I'd done I began to draw meanings and inferences from what I was seeing

making connections, gaining understandings

I don't think it makes the work any less meaningful, that it didn't start out with that consciousness and only came to it later

things can be known without knowing, the work bringing forth what was already there

reflecting

last week I went for a walk around the little lake, the one right in town, in search of interesting reflections

I've always found reflections to be such interesting things... there, but not real, at the mercy of light and movement

fleeting

I had read recently that a good way to abstract something is to heavily edit a photograph of it... altering colour, definition, cropping and so on and I was keen to try it out

I wanted images of reflections because I've been doing a lot of work with water images lately and want to continue exploring it but also because I like the tension of trying to distort something beyond it's reality when it really has no foot in reality at all

below is the first original image, no editing at all and from this, I created the next one

I like how extreme cropping changes the texture of the branches, emphasising all the bumps, buds and knots

a "dramatic warm" filter flattened the background, lightened it, evening out some of the values and adding some interesting highlights

this next one is the original for the two that follow

again, heavily cropped, right through the horizontal middle

the same "dramatic warm" filter

 a heavy crop with just the left half remaining

it was interesting how just cropping it changed the value, darkening the branches and the background dramatically 

the final one

cropped, same filter

cropped agin

and then cropped the crop

love this last one - it's the one where I finally get closer to abstraction

it's not all the way there but the elements are distorted enough that I think the image would be understood to not be of the landscape as it was seen

the more I crop the more interesting things come to light - I suppose it's something to do with the magnification, isolation and/or distortion of various elements and components, the way colours get altered with the underlying tones coming forth

and with reflections, it's also the way things just aren't quite the way should be

I like that photographs that are not at all good can still yield very interesting images, with the simplest little digital editing in just minutes

I think I won't be quite so quick to hit the delete button from now on