Volleyball Net - 1986 - 2025 01 14

 

Pen and ink on paper - 8 1/2" x 11" 1986

Treeplanting camp. We lived in tents, we played volleyball. We brought our kids and they were looked after during the day so we could go out in the fields to plant trees. We were nomadic, moving from camp to camp throughout the planting season. When the work was done in the summer, we would find a house to rent and live on unemployment insurance through the winter. Others of us lived in rural or wilderness farmsteads and we would head back to harvest our gardens, build onto our shanty farm houses, and work the land.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Creative Works - 2025 01 24

Image
  Acrylic ink and brush, glass pen, pen and ink on paper 9" x 6" Last evening my neighbour, and friend, Louise, came over for a drawing session. For many years we have passed each other on the street, this was our first time sitting down together to draw. I laid out a selection of papers, brushes, graphite, glass pens, ink pens, and acrylic inks on the dining room table. We used a collection of glass shot glasses for mixing ink washes and tones.  We started at 7 pm and finally wrapped up at 10 pm.  I was surprised by the drawing I made. It is a combination of techniques I have been exploring since I first started drawing in my late teens. A descriptive, dynamic contour line giving a sense of the edge of form, giving definition for a form to emerge. Symbolic markings of triangles, circles and short lines. Organic tracings of splash marks, their reach extending into exploratory threads. Tonal washes that give substance to shapes and definition between the emergence of shape...
Read more

Women have power - 2025 03 07

Image
  I learned a new word last night at Drawing Together - horror vacui, or kenophobia - refers to a phenomenon in which the entire surface of a space or artwork is filled with detail and content, leaving no empty space https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_vacui_(art) . The underlying philosophical principle is based on the idea that 'nature abors a vacuum'. Thus, empty space in a drawing or a manuscript goes against nature.  Alison was reminded of horror vacui when I showed the drawing I had been working on - an early exploration in using a circular frame for working up a step pattern.  There were four of us last evening drawing at the dining table. We each had our own sources of inspiration for our drawing projects: medieval art, pet bunnies, scenes from a movie, and celtic design.  We listened to a powerful recording of Alexandra Olasavsky's song, 'What Happens When a Woman' has power. I had heard a rendition the night before at Vancouver Folk Song Society evening c...
Read more

Every day is a challenge - 2024 06 26

Image
  Acrylic ink, pencil crayon, wax crayon, pen and ink on paper Every day is a challenge of making my way through the work of caring - all the relationships that radiate out from my singular life, situated in family, pets, research, music, art, garden, community. Making my way as I make sense of my situation on this geographic location on earth, at this time in human evolution, in this moment of an ever expanding universe. Making my way from the quotidian tasks that keep us alive to the mystery of creative works of endless repetition that allow slight variations to show themselves in moments of surprise. Understanding that my singular life is simply a particle of billions of human lives at this moment. Every day is a challenge to find meaning, to understand the significance of what it means to be alive, to be part of humanity, to be one living organism of billions of parts that constitute a sum life on earth. A sum that is greater than its parts. And I am part of it. Everyday is a c...
Read more