Some beautiful images to start the year. My thanks to Karen McRae and her exquisite eye for capturing these moments so perfectly.
Wishing everyone a good 2019!
All images copyright Karen McRae, 2019, including ‘featured image’ at the top of this page.
Here’s a video of the performance of Slippages, edited by Jonathan Girard to show the relationship between the Graphic Score written by Deborah Carruthers & the performance the audience heard.
It was great to be involved in this project; my thanks to Deborah, Jonathan, and John William for being such great collaborators, and for welcoming me in to this project!
Enjoy.
This morning offered a landscape rimed with frost.
The mundane and usually overlooked things that surround us, flung into high relief, augmented.
A moment in which things as they are become something more – at least for a little while.
Warm enough (just) for pulling gloves off, grabbing the phone and capturing a moment or two.
Those chance meetings between the dailiness of getting from here to there, and moments of extraordinary loveliness.
… some frost drawings from the day, courtesy back alley weeds and a pickup truck tailgate.
Enjoy.
There are so many moving targets right now.
Everything’s in flux.
Everything’s changing, so fast. Blink and you miss it.
The earth can’t decide if it’s holding it’s breath and waiting, or running on ahead in a rush; sometimes both in the same day.
I was out for a long walk a week or so ago, and the familiar landscape of very early spring captivated me as it always does: lines and planes and subtle shifting colours.
Hints of things to come, traces of change, shifts below the surface.
… And just as quickly: all of this river ice, altered completely with a (too short) warm spell, that sudden speeding-up of transformation that erases what was a gradual reinvention, solid to liquid.
There’s still ice in the valley, but it’s been subdued – it’s sun-worn now, rounded edges and dramatic cracks turned to soft grooves in what’s left – despite the renewed chill in the air.
Blink and you miss it. It’s the Prairies, it’s always been that way.
I have been a huge fan of Nicole Dextras’ work for a while now. There’s a powerful simplicity here, that I think speaks volumes about the thought and awareness that goes into the work. I encourage you to head over to Nicole Dextras’ web site and her blog. Well worth the trip! Happy Monday – enjoy!
It feels too good to be true, even though every cell in my body wants it to be so.
There’s been a rapid – and quite remarkable – change in the weather here the last few days, and (dare I say the ‘S’ word …) it feels like the first glimmers of Spring.
The warm days and sunshine have people smiling, climbing out of layers of clothing, anticipating more. Hungry for sun that actually heats the flesh.
The birds too. So much birdsong in the morning street, and the business of building and courting has begun in earnest; seemingly overnight, a switch has been flicked, and we all have permission to get on with the business of living in other ways than the stasis that months of cold bring.
And there are little moments of wonder built into this abrupt transition, everywhere.
Although it’s out of necessity I have spent as much time looking down at the ice-covered pavement than looking up at the brilliant blue sky these past few days, I’m not willing to (completely) curse the ice for its ability to send my feet flying in all directions at a moment’s notice. There’s some lovely stuff underfoot, between me and the battered and frost-heaved sidewalks.
Self-renewing sculptures pocketed the pavement this morning, and had me stopping to get some quick shots before they disappeared under the sun’s influence, at least for a few hours.
It’s all about surfaces just now – and what’s under them. Waiting to see the light of day. Again.