Got my film pictures of the Horne family today. Brings back memories of a super afternoon!





The Horne family with Jim and Richard



The Horne artists at work

Aren't these sunflowers great? I was going to try to paint them but they died before I got around to it. A cousin I hadn't seen for years contacted me via email and we had a great visit and got into a search for trying to figure out various family mysteries...lots of fun and learned about naming traditions in Sweden. Makes one realize how all these bits and bobs of family history we pick up can get transformed and also that even official certificates and documentation are questionable given the times. We do make our own stories to explain events in the end...as Pi Patel would tell us.

What I've been reading lately:

"The Light of Day" by Graham Swift. Quite a compelling read...very suspense filled. Interesting development of a rather accidental relationship. Well done.

"The Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri. Short stories and an excellent chronicling of the immigrant experience. Author grew up in London & Rhode Island. I will be interested in reading her first novel which is due to be released very soon called "The Namesake".

"Original Minds: In conversation with CBC Radio" by Eleanor Wachtel. Very engaging conversations with people like Johathan Miller, Jane Goodall, Bernardo Bertolucci, Desmond Tutu, Gloria Steinem etc. Probably have to return the book before I get round to reading all of them.

Yesterday I heard Wachtel interviewing Nuala O'Faolain (interview took place in Victoria last Spring at the Manulife Writers Festival) and found her very funny and entertaining. Put a hold on her memoir called "Are You Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman". I think she catches the essence of this strange, desperate country very well.

Fern, Carole, and I are going to do canvas floor mats together. I've never done one but should be fun. I want to do something with sunflowers. I have quite a few pictures and also bought a bunch of sunflowers yesterday so these should give me some ideas.

Barb brought along her new English Cocker puppy today...isn't he a real sweetheart?



Chester at 10 weeks old

I haven't done too much with my sunflower pictures but I did do this stool that's been hanging around.


sunflower on stool

It's so great not being back at school this week. Golf yesterday, lunch out at the Victoria Estate Winery today. I made a celebratory paella for Jim since he has to work and it's one of his favourite foods.



Paella with men playing boules (napkins holder out of olive wood)

What I've been reading lately.

"The Murder Room" by P.D. James. Up to expectations. What a treat to get another book from her considering her age. She is so wonderful at creating atmosphere.

"Black Bird" by Michel Basilieres. Macabre and very funny story. Very critical of Quebec - I can understand why the author lives in Toronto now. Another one of these very good first novels - how do they do it? The pet crow character is wonderful especially the scene where she plucks out the eye of a very nasty man about to do her harm. The description of the crow swooping behind the ambulance, finding the man's hospital room and standing guard is wonderful. The man who now has one eye wakes up to looking through his remaining eye to see this crow pressing one eye against the hospital window. Only the crow's eye is visible as it is winter and the window is frosty. "A short cawing like laughter is often heard from the crow."

"The Da Vinci Code" by Dan Brown. A really fun to read mystery come thriller. Also makes some interesting comments about the validity of what we feel is historical fact. Very cleverly done.

My latest painting...an almost local scene!



Vancouver freighters

I finally got around to painting these chairs I bought at a garage sale quite a while ago.




Carqueiranne harbour


Bandol vinyards

We had a great time with the Horne family from London yesterday. Madeleine and Victoria did some wonderful paintings...wow!


Madeleine's first painting


Madeleine's second painting


Victoria's work in progress


Victoria at work


The raw materials. Picture taken by Richard.

Went to Madrona Farm with a friend who is a longtime neighbour of theirs. Got some wonderful pictures of their sunflowers and veggies. I'll paint something from the pix I took.


Their original sign

Quite a while ago I found these old suitcases in a thrift store for $2 each and thought they'd be good for painting on. Getting paint to stick on this surface is rather difficult so it needed to be a pretty simple design. Also, wanted something from the sixties since they date from that time...so lava lamps seemed to fit the bill.

Been reading a very interesting non-fiction book (yes...I do actually read something from the "real" world from time to time...) called "Tilting: House Launching, Slide Hauling, Potato Trenching, and other tales from Newfoundland Fishing Village" by Robert Mellin. The author is an architecture prof who has studied the architecture and culture of an outpost in Newfoundland called Tilting. The old houses in this community are almost like boats in that they are built on wooden foundations so they can be moved or "launched" relatively easily and any porches are called bridges. Very easy on the environment since structures can be re-used and moved easily and if they are left to rot there isn't a cement foundation to mar the landscape until the end of time. We've probably all seen pictures of outports in Newfoundland so I included a picture of a patchwork quilt. I seem to recall having one of these in the family. The ones I remember more were made out of men's suits samples that my mom got from our uncle who ran a men's clothing store. My original scan keeps coming up upside down so am posting two that I played around with in Photoshop.



Quilt done with "crackelature" effect from Photoshop



Quilt done with "cutout effect from Photoshop

Books I've been reading....

"Fox Evil" by Minette Walters. What would summer be without a good mystery....well done as usual.

"Down the Road - Journeys Through Small Town B.C." by Rosemary Neering. Read a few selections before I had to return it. Quite interesting.

"The Photograph" by Penelope Lively. Found it a bit tiresome at times but perhaps it was the heat. Turned out to be quite good in the end.

"The Kalahari Typing School for Men" by Alexander McCall Smith. Very light reading but has an innocent quality of life in Botswana in a simpler time. I see this is the fourth in the series starting with "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency". Will be good to read on a plane.

The new P.D. James, "The Murder Room" arrived today. Looking forward to a good read!

We had a good time in Vancouver and got another nice swim in the ocean. Went to Las Margaritas with our son...wow, what a trendy and popular place...good thing we went early. Food is pretty good. The night before we went to Pastis (on 4th) and had their special menu with wine pairings. They have an interesting collection of pastis pitchers, glasses, etc. Most things on the menu were good but the monkfish course (which is why we were attracted to it since we've had fabulous monkfish or "lotte" as they call it in France) was lousy. Then the red wine they brought for the upcoming course of lamb wasn't very good. We rarely complain but did so and the owner couldn't do enough to satisfy us. He brought us another wine and also gave us the choice of ordering from the regular dessert menu. And, best of all, he gave us two pastis glasses (Ricard brand) for our own collection! We were thrilled with this because we don't have this particular type of glass and we were just talking about how we must get more glasses the next time we go to France since our new tile floor in the kitchen is taking a toll on glassware. We were impressed with the customer service since the place was packed with regulars and probably always is. I can see why with this attention to pleasing the customer.


My mom and son who share the same birthday. My mom will be 90 on the next one!
Not too bad a pix considering I used my mini digital camera. My mom was quite amazed by it.

My friend, Carole, gave me a wooden cube and I had this idea of using it as a planter stand for an olive tree. Apparently Le Coteau farms has these in the Spring and it should grow on my sunny deck. Then I had the idea to have some lavender in the meantime. So, I did four designs (one for each side) with lavender, olive trees, and other Provence type things. The lavender gave me a lot of trouble trying to get something I was pleased with so just let loose...figured anything would be better than what I initially came up with. I liked what I did in the end but except for the first one the purple came out as blue when I scanned them. So, did some hue adjustments with my scaning software but they didn't come out all that well. You'll get the idea at least.


Lavender and sunflowers


Lavender and olive trees


Lavender, olive trees, and cypress


Lavender and poppies
* Colours especially weird in this one...very different from the original.

Baking various yummy breads yesterday with a friend while enjoying a great view of the Gorge and all its goings on. I've included a recipe for one of the breads from Provence and some pix from my trusty little digital camera.


Fern with our "Fougasse".


La Fougasse


A herring skiff on the Gorge

Fougasse

1 tsp sugar
10 oz lukewarm water
1 tbsp dry yeast
1/2 cup hard wheat flour
1 1/2 cups hard white flour ( I didn't have these so used all purpose)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/3 c. olive oil
2 strips rosemary stems removed
1 tbsp olive oil
freshly cracked black pepper
1 tsp rock salt


Mix first 3 ingred. Let stand about 5 min.

Combine all flours and salt
Add yeast mixture and combine
Add olive oil and begin to work dough
Knead until smooth and not sticky. I added about anothe cup flour as it was
too wet.

Place in oiled bowl, cover and let rise to double. (1 1/2 hrs)

Oil baking pan
Stretch dough to leaf shape
Create vein pattern with sharp knife.

Brush bread with olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary, pepper and salt. (we
used pesto, garlic and oil) pushing it into the veins)

Let rest 1/2 hr. bake 25 - 30 min.

We were golfing Royal Oak today and this amazingly tame deer joined us on the fairway. Nibbled away and was completely unconcerned with our hacking away getting to the hole...

Took this picture of sunflowers at Galley's farms today with my micro digital camera.

The Oak Bay Car Show today was great and very well attended...wow...crowds of people and loads of interesting cars. Here are a couple of pix.



I loved these Vespas and the cool goggle helmut.



And I'll always love the Mini Minor.

It was interesting re-rereading Carol Shield's "The Box Garden". There were things I appreciated more this time around. I also had forgotten the rather contrived excitement in the plot. Not really necessary and Shields realized this in later works and did what she did best - close observation of the ordinary. It wouldn't be summer without a good mystery and currently being suitably scared by Minette Walters' "Fox Evil".

It was interesting re-rereading Carol Shield's "The Box Garden". There were things I appreciated more this time around. I also had forgotten the rather contrived excitement in the plot. Not really necessary and Shields realized this in later works and did what she did besst - close observation of the ordinary. It wouldn't be summer without a good mystery and currently being suitably scared by Minette Walters "Fox Evil".

We had some great swims in English Bay a few weeks ago when we were in Vancouver. Water temp 75 F. I do miss not being able to swim in the ocean in Victoria. The slide at English Bay looks smaller than I remember it as a kid. Perhaps they've made it less dangerous like everything else for kids these days. I notice they have water automatically running down it...gee, no more burns on the back of your legs!

My mom tells the story of being kids and getting two nickels for the streetcar to get to English Bay. They always bought chips with the return fare and told the busdriver they lost their money in the sand. Always seemed to work....


The slide at English Bay

Looks like I can get these pictures up now



Gallery wall one



Gallery wall two



My sign

In my studio I've recently created a couple of "gallery walls" by putting up some picture rails. It's great because now I can display lots of stuff that I don't have room for anywhere else or haven't managed to give away. A friend gave me an old frame that was 12 x 24 inches. I couldn't think of a design to fit so I made a sign. I was really pleased with it because I think it demonstrates where I am coming from with my very simple, naive style art. I seem to be having some problems loading the pictures...will try later.

Took this picture while out at Happy Valley Lavender Farm's recent open house. Quite neat to see this farm but not miles and miles of mature lavender that you get in the south of France. Been trying to paint another lavender picture...so far not very successful.



Lavender at Happy Valley Lavender Farm

I was very saddened to hear of Carol Shield's death. I realize how much pleasure her writing has given me over the years. A friend lent me "The Box Garden" many years ago and I was quite intrigued by her style and subject matter. I didn't think she'd ever write something like "The Stone Diaries", though...wow, what a book!

When I introduced small groups reading various novels in my classes "The Stone Diaries" was just out in paperback and it was a really popular choice with the girls. I was surprised they related so well to it. I realize I no longer have my own copy. I have replaced it a number of times but guess I didn't the last time I loaned it to a student who was an infrequent attender but was turned on by being in the "Diaries" group. The enthusiasm for English class usually didn't last and that was the last I saw of the student and my book. I liked to think perhaps that particular student or perhaps some other young woman read that book and got something out of it. More realistically, it was pawned for a meal. That's ok too.

In one of the stories I read yesterday about Carol Shields a good friend told of how Carol remained able to laugh and feel joy even towards the end. She relates how Carol had the big TV moved to her bedroom so she could be distracted. The friend threatened to bring over a video she received with her new washing machine on how to do the laundry. They both broke out into gales of laughter about the idea of a video for doing the laundry. I liked that anecdote. It shows the kind of things women can laugh about and also how gender roles have changed and perhaps there does need to be a video with your new washing machine....!

This previous post was deleted somehow. I don't like this new version of Blogger. Some strange terminology like "re-edit" & "re-publish" used in what seem to me incorrect context. However....

More things to post from my "Oak Bay Dump Collection" and also did a couple of paintings based on pictures I took of my beloved Notre Dame Cathedral when we were in Paris in March. However, something is wrong with our connection so I can't post images at the moment. Having to use Jim's unfriendly non-Mac at the moment.

Really excited about our trip to England next summer as part of it will be a week in Dorset sharing a delightful sounding cottage with our Yorkshire friends. This is Thomas Hardy country and I've been reading "Under the Greenwood Tree" (the happiest of Hardy's novels) and really enjoying it. It's a quaint pastoral tale of the time when organs were beginning to take over the choirs of singers and instruments that previously played the church music. Lots of interesting old vocabulary and expressions.

Also, recently finished Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex" and really enjoyed it as well. Certainly a writer to watch. This one won the Pulitzer prize. Very impressive writing - immigrant story writ large. I liked a comment he made about the importance of death - it gives weight to life. Also, how despair wins out in the end - a necessity - makes saying goodbye to life possible. These comments make it seem dark but the novel is vibrating with life.

Yay...my computer's online again! A few more of my Oak Bay Dump treasures and my Notre Dame paintings.



Box with campaniles



Parosol pines on table



Notre Dame 1



Notre Dame 2

When we were in Seattle I found this really cool book called "American Style: Classic Product Design from Airstream to Zippo". The writer and photographer makes the point that the design of common American items is often taken for granted and we don't appreciate how wonderful these items in terms of design because they are so ubiquitous and the Americans couldn't possibly create things as cool as the Europeans. The book does make you look at things in a different way.

One comparison is the Farberware & Atomic Espresso/Cappuccino Maker:



Commentary:

"Here are two contrasting coffee maker designs of the streamlined modern style: the Farberware percolator and the Atomic Espresso/Cappuccino maker. In an interesting comparison the completely automatic Farberware exemplifies an American tradtion of easy-to-use, neophyte-proof design, wheras the Atomic espresson maker appears as complicated to operate as it really is."

Some items chosen for inclusion...perhaps you'll look at these in a different way!

Campell's Chicken Noodle soup label
Lucky Strike cigarattes
M & M package
Black and Decker Dust Buster
Mason Jar
Krptonite Bike Lock
Duracell Battery
Apple Macintosh
Traditional rural mail box
Stanley steel thermos
Panavision movie camera
Kodak carousel projector
Frisbee flying disc
Slinky toy
Steinberger Bass
Learjet
Life
Time
The New Yorker

More experimenting with the arbutus tree idea. This one was done from a picture I took looking up. Funny how it ended very similar to the Pine from Underneath. Guess trees are similar from that perspective.



Arbutus #2

I've been collecting pictures of arbutus trees and did my first painting today. I thought I better keep it simple and just do a trunk to see how I would make out getting the colour right. I'm really pleased with this first attempt. This is going to be fun!


First arbutus tree

Update on books I've been reading.

"The Gingerbread Woman" by Jennifer Johnston
I haven't read much of her lately and felt this wasn't too bad , some good moments, but not great. I think "The Christmas Tree" was the best book she's written.

"The Good Soldier" by Ford Madox Ford
An amazing book...some wonderful ironies. Very funny and tragic.

"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood
I didn't approach this one with a lot of pleasure because I figured it would be a rather grim tale...it is. The usual self-indulgent humour but also intelligent and timely issues. I don't think it really works because you can't summon up any sympathy for any of the characters. She does know how to tell a story...I was motivated to keep reading to the end to see what happened.

"To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf
Oh, yes. Absolutely brilliant. Very interesting to re-read it after all these years. Life experience makes it much more meaningful.

"The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant
Apparently all the rage in women's book clubs. I enjoyed it - quite a realistic interpretation of biblical times, I think.

"Small Wonder" by Barbara Kingsolver (book of essays)

A couple of quotes:

From the essay "Small Wonder"
...but maybe being perfectly happy is not the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twist two extremes of passion - joy and grief" as Shakespeare put it.

From the essay "Going to Japan"
"I remember my Japanese friend's insistence of forgiveness as the highest satisfaction, and I understand it really for the first time: What a rich wisdom it would be, and how much more bountiful a harvest, to gain pleasure not from achieving person perfection but from understanding the inevitability of imperfection and pardoning those who also fall short of it."

Here are some other things I've been painting.



This is an old frame Fern gave me plus a canvas board that was her mother's.



I've been meaning to do something with this stool for a long time.



I put my Fantan painting on an old trunk I bought at a local closing out sale.
I've been missing this painting since I gave it to Monique. It is one of the few I've done of local scenes.

Here's the beginning of my "Oak Bay Dump Collection". All items taken from the free exchange area of the Oak Bay Dump. The original items looked pretty tough...I must start taking "before" pictures.