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.
Always good to remind myself to enjoy the beauty of winter! It take so much less energy than complaining about the cold. Thanks to eMorphes for posting this on (for me) a cold winter day. Images by various photographers – check the original post for credits!
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.
The weather offered some lovely reminders yesterday morning that this has been a rather humid winter for my part of the world so far.
Having spent the last three weeks + feeling like I was running all the time, these frosty feathers were a perfect reminder to me of the importance of paying attention to the details in one’s environment. And, of course, that taking the time to stop and really see offers worlds of peace and refreshment in this ever-busy world.
I’ve been coming across articles everywhere lately that are addressing the endless business that seems to pervade existence; the prevalence of being constantly plugged-in, constantly in touch, continually working, endlessly busy – and how counter-productive that pace actually is. How little we really wind up accomplishing, and at what cost. Busy isn’t necessarily any of the things we want to be: efficient in our days, producing quality work (whatever work we do).
The frost reminded me that it takes time to really create anything that’s worth making; that being present for the process is a great gift. And that time allows the mind to still, and to really work.
We may have passed the Spring Equinox already, but in my part of the world, it’s still winter. Full on snowstorms, complete with closed highways and multi-car accidents this past week. Oh. And shovelling. So. Much. Shovelling.
Enough to make me want to burn a hole in my credit card and go someplace tropical.
Still, there are some truly beautiful things in all the seemingly endless white out there … the magpies still believe it’s spring, and have been busy gathering twigs and other suitable bits, and putting together this season’s nests.
Saw one hardy bird, fighting the storm, stick firmly wodged in beak – so determined to make that particular stick a part of its home. Those flashes of black in all that white were magical – like someone has splashed ink onto the sky.
And I saw how busy the bird – or another just like it – continued to be after the storm had settled:
A good example to follow, perhaps … this diligence in the face of adversity.
A lesson in focus and discipline.
Good timing; Spring really will come, one day – and I want to be able to take the odd break and feel the sun on my skin again.
Six days, and I’m on a plane to Toronto, and into a week of prep and install for my upcoming exhibition at the Fleishman Gallery.
The proverbial ducks are getting into rows (or maybe the kittens are getting herded … more accurate I think!) … the work I’ve shipped has arrived ahead of me at the gallery, and all in one piece; the work that’s coming with me is safely packed, and ready to put into my bags. In the process of figuring out what to bring in the way of coats, clothes and other non-art items, and wrapping up some loose ends in other work here before I leave.
I’m getting really quite excited about presenting the work, and about seeing people I haven’t seen for quite some time. It’s been great hearing from people I’ve let know about the exhibition, and beginning to make plans to get together with some of them is great fun.
I’m also happy to getting out of the snow for a bit!
I readily admit my fondness for the stark beauty of the landscape this time of year – even the urban streetscapes are softened and made into otherworldly sculptures. Everything reduced to a series of contrasts. Dark and light, rough and smooth, hard and soft. The world speaks in simple shapes and clean lines. We see the essences, the bones of things exposed … and then hidden, re-fleshed in snow pillows.
But … still, despite this strident Prairie beauty, I will be ok with not having to shovel, not having to climb over heaps of snow, not slipping every second step on black ice that’s hidden beneath fluffy white stuff.
For a little while, anyway.