doughnut & hole
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doughnut & hole
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James Dean was Here
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For the love of Rabbits!
I made this rabbit a while ago, using a chocolaty red clay and finishing it with an interesting white glaze that makes a cracking texture. This rabbit has a face only a mother could love … but so many people fell in love with this little guy at the Knit City 2014 knitting event. My daughter, Amanda Kaffka (check out her design in Vogue Knitting Holiday Issue) and I shared a booth there and since her Etsy shop is The Crafty Jackalope, she urged me to bring my rabbits. We both love all things Rabbit.
I could especially feel the love coming from one particular woman who as it turns out, has rabbits as housemates. She sent me photos of her rabbits and I tell you, they took my breath away, I actually gasped at the site of them! They are sisters.
Now come on! Tell me that they are not the perfect epitome of Rabbit! Those feet and those ears just send me around the bend! They are artful creatures, even the 16th century painter, Albrecht Dürer, thought so. Her rabbits beg to be painted! I will be sculpting them.
The lucky soul who gets to live with these creatures is Amy Singer, she had the same response to my rabbit as I did to hers. Any Singer is the editor creator of Knitty. Knitty is the largest, longest-running free knitting magazine on the internet! That is why she was at the big Vancouver Knitting event, she was looking with a knitting eye, not expecting to see my big clay rabbit lovingly looking back at her.
I love surprise connections!
(all photos by Amy Singer)
It’s summer. It’s hot.
So let’s cool off with a few Ferry Photos
….. And here’s the Last Word ~
summer eve city walk
we walked along green grass on this lovely balmy evening
and came to a long strip of shops and … manholes!
Like I’ve never seen before ~
One after another
each one beautiful in it’s own way
How could I have never noticed before!?
too many to post tonight
so
come back next Monday for more!
and there IS more!
ps ~ does anyone know why All manholes are always round?
Laundry Day
look closely
what do you see?
Who says you can’t make a wish on Laundry Day?
Nine Little Stories
Little Story One
Why do we keep pulling up these masterpieces?
Little Story Two
This is a Mimosa Tree. So sensitive that when you touch its leaves, they fold inward …
until they get to know your touch.
Is there anything more beautiful?
Little Story Three
This little painted bird is painted on an carefully chosen antique dictionary page
Look closely, you can see the text through it’s heart.
Little Story Four
My friend who took in a rescue dog from Mexico a few years ago and Loves all animals, bought 3 of my porcelain Elephants. The little one in the middle is a rescue elephant, it can hardly stand up by itself. I can not sell it or gift it because of this. It needs to lean on another elephant for support. It went to her home, a good home and is happy and well cared for there as you can clearly see. This family of 4 was meant to be ~
Little Story Five
There was a strange halo around the sun yesterday
I felt like I was in a science fiction novel
Little Story Six
This was at my door the other morning
I would like a calling card like that ~
Little Story Seven
I used to get in trouble over and over and over again for drawing on my wall paper.
I would have liked to live where she lives.
Little and Last Story Nine
Don’t we All need hope?
Ferry Rider
After riding the ferries back and forth for 33 years you’d think I would be long over due in the normalizing department. It should be ho-hum by now, right?
One of my favourite images to photograph is a ferry worker on the deck, on guard, on the look out for trouble, ready to act if necessary. Their neon vests are such a vivid contrast to the soft grey blues of our waters and sky
I am still thrilled to get on the ferry … Every Time …
But this time, after that unspeakably horrible tragedy of the South Korean ferry killing the future of so many young lives that we’re brimming with possibilities, I am sobered. I’ve been lucky. Things can go wrong at any moment and this gives me pause.
This time I found myself checking out the life boats. Could this be the captain’s get away car? What a thought. I think and even now still believe that this could never happen here. But where is here? People everywhere can surprise us? I’m still going to count on the crew’s help if it comes to that.
I carry on photographing but find I have stopped here.
Capacity – 100 passengers … So I do the calculations in my head. Not very crowded, maybe 200 today? And there are about 8 – 10 life boats. I’m not going to go around the boat and count. I am going to get on with life on this ferry ride. It’s going on anyway regardless what happens, good or bad.
You know what I love about the ferry? People read. All ages. So many people are reading; newspapers, books, magazines and some kindle types of reading material. It feels like these books are the instruments of transitions from a quiet weekend in the country to back to work-work, or a winding down from something, like city life.
Along with the kids in full involved ‘kid-talk’ over a board game and the musical murmur of quiet conversations, it’s a kind of peaceful quiet, perfect for knitting and reading and thinking and sketching with a so- so cup of ferry coffee.
Lift Off
eerrrr, not quite …..
bigger post coming tomorrow afternoon
not that this isn’t the cutest rocket I’ve ever stumbled upon!
A little Spring walk
It’s been pretty crazy around here in the Spring Flowering Department. Here in Vancouver Spring just goes on and on … maybe even until late June. Folks in the East really do deserve to get their summer in the blink of an eye, especially this year with their freezing vortex and all. I hear it can go from 20 below to 20 (Celsius) above in one day. Here? Our Summer is very shy and Spring is almost a bully when it comes to sharing time. So although our winter is relatively short and mild, in the guise of giving us a spectacular Spring, summer is still far away for us.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining
at all!
because of this ~
See what I mean?
It’s just goes on and on and on
How much Bliss Shivers can a girl take!??!
Here and There ~ A little Two Step
Gallery
This gallery contains 17 photos.
BC Ferries
I’ve been traveling back and forth on the BC Ferries for over 30 years now and I have loved and appreciated every single ride. I never tire of the peace and joy of traveling across the water, through the passes and ever changing shore lines. I can tell there a lot of riders that feel ho-hum about this mode of transportation but there are always the ones you can see that are really in enjoyment of this transition. I read, sketch and/or knit but I also treasure the time people watch or people listen or to just sit a look out.
I have been photographing on these ferry rides over the years. The journey on the ferry seems to be constantly full of amazing images but of course the ones I just missed are the images I will probably remember the most … lost jewels.
A Kind of Murmuration
Theres an outdoor sculpture right at the Canadian US border. It’s there to what? Relieve the tension of the possible unexpected? Sweeten a border guard that woke up on the wrong side if the bed that morning? Maybe it’s there to calm the border…. hmmmm… something to think about. It’s a sweet torcher for me because ALL I want to do is look and look and look at it.
I think it is wonderous. And it gets my imagination going full speed. There are so many perfect things about it. It plays with border, it flies, it seems to move. It seem hard to take it all in at once which gives it movement and life.
I reminds me of a starling murmuration only it stays frozen like a photograph so I can stare at it (in between handing over my passport). See what I mean? I just want to Bliss out on this work of art but I’m in Situation not conducive to blissing out. It’s a Right-Left brain buster!
Maybe that’s part of the piece. We only seem to catch a quick glimpse of it and then we are gone (hopefully). We are always left wanting more. At least I am. So I was happy that my friend somehow was able to photograph it so now I can look and look and look at it. Of course a photo has none of the life force of being in witness to it.
Witness to the power of defining a border without sealing it.
(photos – Daphne Harwood – sew daphne.blogspot.ca)
I’m out for a walk
I think I’ll go out for walk…
I’ll leave a note ….
“I’m walking down the hill to the water then on to visit the ducks at Jericho, then after a coffee, I’ll head back up the hill to home.”
I saw a few pieces of wood and just had to make this reindeer horse ~
my signature
the bigger picture
… and the sun is going down
I see others were inspired to make beach creations
Oh My! is that real??? It DID make me pause for a moment and picked it up with a stick … it was plastic! Lots of plastic on the beach but this was unusual!
moving along ….
maybe I had squirming on my mind
but these are just water marks in the sand
Willows, so colourful!
looks like ‘Zoe and Wave’ made a driftwood boat on New Years Day
lastly, a loop
Time to head back up the hill to my warm home
crescent moon and a plane flying west ….
Context ~
When something is taken out of its context it can sometimes have a better chance of being seen. looked at, re-seen. It’s raw and unimpeded by what we have come to know when we know the big picture. Context gives the part of a whole piece meaning. Once we know and understand it, we cannot not see that smaller part as it stands alone. To look at just a piece of the whole can inspire a re-framing. It’s interesting to observe how we build narrative of our experience.
I can wonder a lot about what this is, I can muse on different perspectives ~ I have questions. Is this a close up or am I looking at something far away, who did this, how did this happen, what am I seeing? And on and on and delightfully on… It gets me wondering and isn’t that the great thing?
I’m going to post several images for you to see and mind-play with. At the bottom of the page I have posted a gallery of where I found each image. See what happens to your stories when you see them in context.
~ It’s just a game ~
Now here they are in context
the questions are more enlivening and engaging ~ don’t you think?
Modeling
I have mentioned this before but I don’t like posing for and modeling the things I knit on Ravelry or modeling the shawl pins I’ve been making. Maybe I am camera shy …..I have recently made a new line of coloured pins and …. ya … here we go again. I have to show them in play.
Last time dear Matilda came to my rescue and I will hire her again, but I thought there should be a new look.
Years ago I was made a series of female clay vases. They could hold flowers that looked like colourful ideas and creativity coming out of their heads, I saw them as putting forth new ideas, not as containers for a flower arrangement, and that is a big difference.
Well, they I suddenly saw them again as I was dreading going before the camera. Yes! They could model for me! They would be delighted! So with a little playing around with photoshop/photoshopping… not only did they model for me, they could go anywhere, I could play with the backgrounds.
So without further adieu … my new working partners.
Standing by the sea on a Northern Gulf Island.
Mermaid Pin ~ Imagine
in my neighbourhood when we were in a thick fog for a week. It was quiet and mysterious, the fog horns called out for days on end.
Trusting Owl Pin
This is on the coast of Massachusetts
Sheep Pin
and it’s Snowing!
Owl ~ knit wise
Canada’s Ice Cap seen from a weather baloon
Arctic Icebergs breaking up 
Whale breathing holes
whale breathing hole enlarging
Chipped paint exposing Rust on the outside deck of BC Ferry Queen of Nanaimo
Textures and Text
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- White shell beach seen under water
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- wading
-
- sea weed marking sea shore water movement
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- water flow in sea weed
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- rocky shore
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- rocky shore
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- rocky shore
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- pictogram in sand stone, you can barely see it
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- pictogram in limestone of bird and her egg
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- sea weed
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- lichen
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- lichen
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- empty plastic white clay bag
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- Fall leaves
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- frogging ~ a knitter’s term meaning undoing stitches. Takes so long to knit, takes a second to frog.
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- Fall trees
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- Old Arbutus bark
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- Old Arbutus bark
Inspiration
I collected a few images from the web that inspired me. I don’t know how they will work their way into my ideas and creations but they spoke to me so I collected them. We see so much these days, we are inundated with imagery and it is our “Normal” now. I can hardly imagine what it might have been like not too long ago where folks didn’t see much in the way of new imagery past their little town. Maybe they saw things in a deeper way since our minds seem to want to be refreshed with something new to look at. Maybe they saw more nuance in nature and the ordinary, or not …
Early Halloween Observations
This week, in my travels I spotted several more, ahem, Brooms and I must say, not as carelessly left as the one in last weeks posting, but still their placement is a bit conspicuous I feel. Here it is again for those who might have missed it..
these below are a few well placed Brooms, shall I presume to say, incognito?
my friends, there are thousands out there! And personally, that gives me great comfort because these souls are working hard for Mother Earth. They get it.
So, on another note … but still singing of Halloween ….
I give you these
and a little humour.
can you see what this actually is? It was in the recording studio! If you don’t see a pumpkin face here, well then what can I say? And I leave you with this. A little more brashly said than I would have, but it has my sentiments.
Sorry to be a little early, it was beyond my powers to make Halloween fall on a Monday this year
Have Broom, Will Fly
Unusual means of Transportation
Here is Absolute Veritable PROOF that we do indeed have witches right here in River City! Look very carefully and you will see what I mean. Is that a good parking job? or a careless blunder?
and Talk about Parking Jobs!
almost invisible beauty
Gym Floors and Recording Studio Floors ~
the Order and the Chaos in this almost Invisible Beauty is so obvious and so taken for granted it is almost invisible to our consciousness ~
a little idea
I knit
and I make shawl pins made out of porcelain and copper. So I am part of an ENORMOUS Knitting community … and ….my goodness,
if every knitter got the same bee under under their bonnet, we could move the earth!
There is a great website where we all meet called Ravelry. Knitters from around the globe post their projects and join groups, share ideas and information, it’s really quite amazing. Over the years I have listed 21 projects, I just uploaded a few more today. It’s easy to procrastinate, and I’ll get to that. The idea is to photograph one’s project as it progresses and it helps to have a few images of the finished piece so other knitters can see what a particular pattern might look in a different yarn etc…. But I don’t like photographing myself in these knitted wear, so I crop the
photos of me them off at the neck, which I don’t really like either ….. what to do?? … What to do????
Well today I came up with a solution that pleases me greatly!
~ May I present Matilda ~
I made this mask as a stage piece in my stage/costume designing days for the
Why Not
I was out for a walk on one of the last beautiful sunny crisp days of summer and I was quickly approaching a fork in the road where I could see a sign in a curious shape nailed to a tree.
Before I was close enough to read the sign I had to make a decision whether to take the road through the shady cool woods or to take the open sunny road.
I chose the sunny route
Ya … Why Not
Visual Surprise
I was just walking down to my car after a lovely sunny ferry ride to my studio when I just happen to look down to see this. I can’t imagine the BC Ferries folks having the whimsy and sense of play to be the authors of this. Who ever painted this, it’s a gem!
It’s a positive sign that says- Smoke Here, or maybe …it could be read as … ‘Drop your lit cigarettes here’
A Few Things that Caught my Eye
These are some things that caught my eye this week while I was out and about..
Fall colors are coming! I was out on a walk near the shore with my friend and we came upon this little opening in the woods. All the colours were So Vivid but this green on this moss was just off the charts!
And who isn’t completely charmed when you encounter a little leaf just hovering in mid air, like magic … Can you see it? It’s that very green leaf in the middle of the rust coloured cedar foliage, It is really just dangling right in front of me, swaying in the breeze. Sure, we know the mechanics of it, that it has been caught on a fine spider strand but the chances of that strand catching that little leaf as it floated by ….. Pretty slim I’d say. Pretty magic, even in the scientific department..
And then there are the endless circles around this city, all sizes and colours. They do catch my eye and I think they are just so … Neat! This blue one reminded me of the Chinese IChing hexagram: In tai chi, we refer to it as Peng meaning Ward Off. It is one of the most basic energies, many others follow from Peng.
And for something completely different ~ As my daughter and I were knitting at a picnic table, she looked down and saw this Dragon at our feet!
See? You just never know what you’ll encounter around the next corner.
A little Hall Table fun
Last Fall we had this little visual conversation going on our front hall table. Each one of us would add, move or remove something on a whim, It lasted about a month, here is a little taste of our Hall Table Conversation
Maple Wings
All these maple wings were standing upright in the grass beneath a maple tree. Just seeing them as they were was visually splendid enough, but I could imagine a lovely geometric mandala here. I made this on top of a low stone wall. I don’t think anyone will see it but no matter, it’s there.
Beautiful junk
Cat Prints
Cat Prints are not that common to see.
Nancy Walker Studio 