collecting...

the winters are no longer as cold here as they once were

one thing the milder weather seems to be affecting is the number of wildflowers blooming

this past week its been the lupins that have taken over

I admit to them not being my favourite flower as a child... it was all about crocuses and Queen Anne's Lace for me

I hardly even remember seeing many lupins

a few nights ago on an evening walk my daughter and I noticed the transformation to the forest floor... clumps of lupins were everywhere, as far as we could see, in every direction

each day there are more, the colour deepening

a most beautiful sight amongst the varying greens

I feel filled with inspiration from all the places I've been, and the things that I've seen and it will all be coming forth in both words and images over the next few weeks

in preparation for the writing I want to do i've been looking through all the poems from the 100 Day Project and thought I'd share four of my most favourite ones with the stories behind them

this is tied to growing up and living the better part of my life (literally and figuratively) in the forests of the Yukon

so many of the old pathways of my childhood are still intact, the wide expanse of forest across the street from childhood is the same... one rock in particular, still embedded in the path

I used to always stand on it, rocking back and forth on the slightly raised centre before continuing to a friend's house

I love that I do it today without even thinking

sunset is well after 11:30pm now though there is no darkness, just a slight dimming of the light

on the lakes it grows quiet even before that though nothing is really sleeping yet... there's a tranquillity that sinks deeply 

the cold spring has made for a late run-off; the river was low. when I arrived and still is, many channels completely empty of water

one day I took advantage of that and walked out to one of the islands having never been able to do that in all the years I lived here

the stones were all varying shades of light to medium grey and then I noticed one that stood out rather dramatically

it was of the same beautiful blue-green as the water and I found it ironic the only hint of the river in the dry bed came from the colour of a stone 

this last one is I think my favourite; it has stayed with me since I wrote it in the very early days of the project

ice fog in the winter often completely enveloped the land

sound is muffled, streetlights and headlights shrouded until you get quite close though still diffused

the fog seems to swallow both sound and light

when temperatures fell below -40 we would sometimes boil water and toss it off the back stairs outside the house and listen for the ice to hit the ground

we were never disappointed

it seemed to me the ice fog did the same sort of thing to the spoken words, the way sound didn't travel, just seemed to fall away immediately and I imagined words splintered and laying frozen on the ground

I still love the idea of that and you'll be seeing some work with it over the coming weeks

tomorrow I fly back to Salmon Arm, to manicured landscapes and hot weather, taking a small collection of driftwood and stones, barks and pressed flowers with me

that, along with the most beautiful collection of memories and inspiration to fill me up until the next time I'm home

the ways...

a walk along the river last week led me to the ways...

the place where the paddle wheelers were winched on shore to dry dock for the winter months, and the place where they were released back to the river

the place where the new boats were launched, and where the decommissioned ones were brought ashore for the last time

the way of things

"the ways" is a term I have always, always loved

in ship-building terms its the "launching"

so much meaning packed into two simple words

how they looked, back in the day

I love that there are still four timbers remaining, along with much of the infrastructure

as well as remnants of the steel cables, cross-boards, spikes etc.

most of the year they under cover of water or ice but in early spring, when the river levels are low, you can walk right out to them

Thursday was such a day and I spent some time, looking, thinking, considering all the weight that term can carry, literally and figuratively

I love terms like that... ones that have different ways of looking at them... ones that can be used separately though still carry a connection

and oh that weathering!

I happened to have a small notepad with me that day, and a pencil, so I took the opportunity and made a rubbing

I can almost see letters here, a kind of anemic writing of sorts

the question is, what words might be trapped within those boards, that so many boats moved up and down, into and from the water

what stories would they tell?

today I went back and did more...

now to see what I might launch

reflections

a drive to Haines Junction, gateway to the St. Elias Mountain Range

most of the peaks were shrouded in cloud cover but a stop at Pine Lake gave a different view...

the end of May, but the cold hard land persists

the water was breathtakingly still, the reflections near perfect

I took over a dozen photos and then edited them in a number of different ways

it was awe-inspiring

after about twenty minutes a lone loon came along, it's diving for minnows disrupting the reflections 

I zoomed in to get a clearer shot of the loon and when I looked at the photo I had taken to see how things looked I realized that not only had the zoom helped make the loon more visible, the reflections in the water were stunning, looking as if they were an abstract painting of the water

impressionism perhaps?

 I took many more photos, each unique, as the loon continued to alternate between diving and floating and the water changed again and again with each motion

it was so inspiring it became the day's poem

a single loon

floating on an abstract painting

diving beauty

the 100 Day project is coming to a close, only two left to write

it's been wonderful, difficult, tiring, informative, and immensely satisfying

they made me think about old ideas in new ways and taught me much about what mattered

but oh, I will be glad to be finished

I fought with some,  recorded others as they came; some will be left that way, others  edited further

eventually I'll make a book of my favourites

and be glad I took the time

filling the well...

a late spring in the Yukon...

the benefit of that is the stunning white-topped mountain views as a backdrop to the emerging greens

yesterday we went to Carcross, an hour's drive south-west of Whitehorse

Bennett Lake, from the Carcross Desert

Carcross is where the Tutshi paddlewheeler was based

 my dad was a deckhand on it as a teenager one summer in the 1950s

 it was decommissioned in 1955, beached and left alone until the Yukon government bought the boat in the early 1970s

shortly before its restoration was completed, it burnt in the summer of 1990.

 the burned-out hull of the boat lay  on the shore for decades and finally some work was done to create a viewing platform reminiscent of the length, width and height of the original boat when attached to the remnants of the bow

oh for a bit of that charred wood!

below is the old docking point, as seen in the photo near the top of this post

I love all the interesting details I captured - I've never been able to get this close to the Tutshi before so I was very glad to be able to get these interesting and inspiring images

the plan is print off a number of these photos to use in collage work and I'll also be interpreting some in stitch and paint, and whatever else comes to mind as I go

feeling inspired...

not much...

not much to show in the way of creative work this week

tomorrow I leave for a month in the Yukon and there's been little to no studio time but after last week's post I was itching to get started on some small samples so took an afternoon off from the unending yard work and tried a few things

working with cloth and stitch takes time, at least for me, and time was in short supply but I had a few ideas of things I wanted to do with coloured pencils and ink

I thought about what format to use for the sampling and remembered some sample-work I did a while back where I used circle shapes

loving that look, I worked out four circles to a page in the current sketchbook where all the Japan-inspired work is going

and then had a little play

acrylic ink on a very soft paper with a lot of texture

the one below was done with Derwent Inktense and Tinted Charcoal pencils with a Sakura Pigma pen in black

Golden Fibre Paste on the bottom portion to add texture and more Inktense and Tinted Charcoal pencils in the upper portion

(I do love Fibre Paste - I use it on paper beneath watercolour for interesting effects and have also painted it on cheesecloth to create a very interesting textured fabric)

all of these are inspired by the pottery of past and present Japanese artists

there is such subtlety in the colours and textures of the glazes they develop and use, almost always with a strong connection to the land

sampling in this way helps me work out how to achieve similarities in texture on paper which makes it possible for me to create larger versions of my own ideas that I can then use in my own work

and when I get back from trip I'm also going to have a go at working with pigment-painted cloth to get similar visual textures

slowly but surely the stockpile is building

explorations

I've been pulled away from my work this past week but  yesterday I spent some time at my worktable rummaging through various bits and pieces of fabric, thread and paper of the work I've been doing exploring ...

where was I and where am I going to?

and how might I get there...

a few thoughts trickled in, then another and another and in an instant I went from feeling inspired to feeling rather overwhelmed

with limited time how do I capture all this so I don't forget the excitement of it?

I've tried writing detailed notes and drawing diagrams etc. but something is always lost in the translation and over time the notes aren't enough and everything I was feeling fizzles out

a few years ago I was in the same position with a different idea and I took to making small studies in fabric, thread and paper

little snapshots of what I was seeing in my mind, as fragmented as the fleeting thoughts themselves

for some reason a tiny piece of fabric can hold as much information as a few dozen words 

and it holds the excitement as well

in looking through these small studies (they're approx. 1 1/4" square) I was taken back when to when I did them, the reasons why are as sharp and relevant now as they were then

a few stitches, scrap of cloth

some held together by pins or paperclips

over time I referred back to them whilst working on various things

there's always something there to guide me, or to spark an idea

over the past few weeks I've gathered so many ideas for my Japanese design aesthetic inspired work that I haven't been able to keep up with documenting them but I think this might be the perfect way to do it

small snippets, just a few stitches, or one ragged edge

a wealth of information in the smallest pieces and the simplest work

sometimes I think these little pieces are not just a way to store information or ideas

sometimes I think they might just be the way

the Haiku continue… it hasn’t been easy but i’ve kept at it, every day. Here are a couple of recent ones:

Crocus 

spring's purple anthem

perversely poking through snow

tenacious impatience

crocuses in the Yukon… through thick and thin, and snow

Bald Eagle

that piercing gaze

measure taken, then dismissed

the humbling of it

an eagle sitting atop a tree, looking down at me for a moment, and then not

jillayne

making my mark

last Sunday morning, whilst sitting at my writing table I noticed the sun was reflecting something onto the wall at my right

after watching it for a while I decided it reminded me some kind of letter form

not one in a written language I was familiar with, more of an Asemic version of what a letter/word mark might look like

I started trying to write it but was afraid the light show might disappear before I had it so I ran and grabbed my phone to take a picture

because the reflection was down low and there was a cabinet blocking my access I had to take the photo from an odd angle so it doesn't look quite like what I saw from my desk but it's close

the lines on the left weren't there and faint lines at the bottom centre weren't visible either, just the stronger, bolder ones

the two small marks on the scrap of graph paper in the image below are what I first drew - as I shifted side to side in my chair I could see both of those marks

then I edited them, simplifying, striving for something cleaner, less intricate

I did many of the small versions and when I was satisfied with what I was doing I thought about what I might use the mark for

it feels rather personal, the way it happened to show up on my wall, just where I could see it as I wrote... perhaps I could use it a "maker's mark"?

maybe I should go back and read what I was writing when I noticed it...

I remembered the writing exercise I did a while back, where I had to write about something painful, burn the paper, make ink from the ashes and then use that to write or draw

as I had enjoyed that very much I decided to do it again though this time I didn't write about anything specific, more the pain inflicted on us and the pain we can sometimes cause others

the ash ink was a soft pale grey so I went over it a few times on each of these larger, simpler versions of the mark

another very interesting process 

not what I had thought I would be doing when I sat down to do my morning writing 

but once I notice something that intrigues me in such a way I usually want to get right at it 

and I'm so glad I did

circling around

looking through older work the other day I noticed some things in the piece below...

the varying whites with a strip of grey

do you see those tiny curved lines in that grey piece, on the righthand side?

that fabric is a light silk painted grey with watercolour and those lines are crease marks that remind me of the ice lines of the river I've been inspired by for months

in fact, this whole piece speaks to that

hmmm...

in no time materials were gathered - varying fabric along with textured and painted papers, and a piece of actual resolved work has begun

all the sampling I've done, the things I've tried, the materials used, previous work - including this one, have all combined to finally give me all I need to now do the work and make the piece

no more sampling, just the doing

and as that was all getting sorted out and the working materials organized I came across this piece from a few years ago...

also inspired by frozen water, only then it was branches embedded in the layers of ice in the little lake here in Salmon Arm

this one is a small sample using paper and silk to form the layers of ice with painted paper cut in thin strips to resemble the branches

or perhaps they're the trees that lost their branches in the winter windstorm... I never did decide which

looking at it whilst thinking about the Yukon River had me thinking about the pilings, with the frozen river behind

and another thought was forming...

there's lots here to work with though I have a few other ideas of things to incorporate into the pilings so with this one there will definitely be some more sampling and experimenting

I wasn't looking to do either of these but when inspiration strikes there isn't much that can be done about it other to ignore it or go with it

I choose to go

I've been looking at this icy work for so long now, trying different ideas, testing materials

never knowing if or when any of it would lead me to finished piece of work but yesterday I could see both of these, done and hanging

I've never had such a feeling of clarity, never been this sure of something

I have sketchbooks and boxes of various experiments and samples, all of which I have loved doing and learned so much from but nothing had ever pointed me so firmly in a direction to a finished piece of work until yesterday

and then it happened twice, in less than ten minutes

can't say no to that

Making Plans

making plans, making lists, making adjustments

there's never a clear path with creative work, neither in making space for it, nor in the doing of it

still, i plan

I've come to know that if I don't plan to do something I'll never choose a "when"

this week I had the plan and the when but things happened and the when changed

but not the plan

the burlap printing-plate I made a short time ago finally hit the press, not once but four times

the first inking was a bit messy as I'm a bit rusty

still pretty good though 

and I'm delighted with the detail

all those raggedy threads in all their printed glory

the second print (same inking) was better

still good colour but the dark patches evened out a tad

the last, a "ghost" print

the ultra-pale effect pleases me greatly... good for layering I think

against my usual "jump-in and do it" nature, this session was full of note taking and documenting

press pressure noted, the different print-making papers used, notes on the brayer, the effectiveness of tamping ink on with a rolled up felt

I also realized there are economies of time to be had... standardizing plate and paper sizes for printing on the small press would streamline so many aspects of using it

years ago I wouldn't have had any of that idea but now I absolutely see the value in it

still though, one can't be too rigid with creativity so it will be more of a guideline than a rule

in the meanwhile, I'm still working away at different samples of ideas to bring in to the on-going work that stemmed from the kintsugi experiments

much of it is "in-process" but I did finish one the other day

ink-painted paper

petite brass staples spaced around a circle

the spaces filled in with dark brown straight stitches, criss-crossing back and forth

the paper, though beautiful, is too soft for stitching and peeled away here and there

a navy blue Sakura pigment pen sorted that out well enough but lesson learned

I was inspired to look for brass leaf though, but couldn't find any though I did come home with copper leaf

a new sample in the offing... 

and one of the week's Haiku:

carefree summer days

with a lightly blowing breeze

laughter on the wind

on being a child, on the beach at the cabin...

playing on the sand

a start

a few ideas for titles for this post ran through my mind just now

"pressing matters"

"pressed for time"

both have been true this week, and not in a print-making way

that's all done with though, things have settled back down again and I managed to make a start

since I wanted to do some blind-embossing with the plates I made last week I started with with the small flower plates

as ever I learned a lot

the one above was my most successful

the flower is fairly even in relief so I got decent prints which might improve if I experiment a little more with the pressure

laying the print along two of my joined paper pieces let me see how things may or may not come together... eventually

I'm still in no rush to decide the end point rather, I'm enjoying the journey through a few techniques that appeal, trusting the rest will come

the next one embossed well but was a plate used a long time ago, not a new one and apparently there was still some ink on it

oops!

this next flower was less successful though if I increase the pressure a bit, with ink it may work better

the other flower I made a plate with was just too thin to print so something else to remember

I suppose it might work in a mono print but as it was too thin to work here it's doubtful

it was a happy few hours, prints made, notes taken, different materials gathered, and I'm keen to get back to it on Monday, this time with the bigger plates, first blind embossing and then ink

in the meanwhile I have a small book on making collagraphs to read

probably would have been a thought to read that first but... when an itch needs to be scratched there's no sitting still

the haiku continue, today was poem #50

here is a recent favourite:

broken reflections

shards of land, sky and water

current disarray

looking at the reflections of trees in the Yukon River, when seen from a short distance they look somewhat whole though still distorted by the river's current

when seen from a distance, they begin to look fractured, splintered horizontally, something I always find fascinating

below is a picture taken by a friend that illustrates the effect

until next week

jillayne