additions

a bit of studio time over the past two days has resulted in me taking the collages of last week and begin to move them along

the bases I showed had the bare bones elements of the landscape in place; snow/ice, the river, mountains and sky

I've mentioned before how much these old pilings that still line the river at the site of the old shipyards mean to me and as it's likely they will figure prominently throughout this journey of exploration I want to include them in the collages in one way or another

from November 2023

these are works-in-progress with hand-stitch still to come and I'm not sure what else

one thing at a time

for now, some machine stitch and a couple of small pilings

I often "see" the landscape in bands and so here I've made bands of snow/ice, river, mountains and sky

I liked the pilings I added here very much at the time but looking at the photo of them has me wondering about taller ones so I will be investigating that tomorrow

this next one has much taller ones... this collage has been my favourite from the very beginning and I'm trying hard not to let that get in the way of the work but the fear of messing it up is pretty strong

hand-stitching is next for this one as well and then I'll likely sit on it for a while and have a think

the other thing that fascinates me in reference to the river is "the ways"

the image below is a still shot from a short film about the sternwheelers

"the ways" at the shipyards early 20th century

and this next one was taken in almost the same place last year - I doubt these are original boards but they have been in this place since before I was born... old remnants or under boards of a sort perhaps?

April 2023

I'm not using them in these first collages but they will definitely factor in somewhere along the way

in the meanwhile I've been doing some research into the definition and history of the term but I think I might be more interested in them as a metaphor... not sure exactly for what but sending the boats down the ways into the river launched a lot more than they themselves

and so the journey continues...