Let's keep hopping upstream!

  

Flowing along with our Hydration theme, we last convened on one of the early 19^th-century footbridges over Brewery Creek—not in wintertime, granted, but this snow scene was welcome during the past week's super-hot weather.

 

Now we're headed south to the higher elevation from which Brewery Creek flowed.  The route is by no means a straight line as you can see on the map.  Usually a click on the picture will enlarge it, and I've added a wide circle and another red arrow to indicate roughly the borders of our next destination, Tea Swamp.

 

Those who prefer coffee might make bad jokes about the liquid contents of Tea Swamp, but it's called that for a good reason.  Labrador Tea is the common name for a wild shrub that grows across the cooler regions of North America, as one of three varieties in the rhododendron family.  Indigenous peoples used it variously to brew a liquid drink, often for medicinal purposes, or to flavour their cooking.

 

Just as Brewery Creek and its footbridges are lost in the mists of time, so too has Tea Swamp become just a memory.  Well, the memory lingers on in wonky streets and rollercoaster sidewalks.  I regularly walk this familiar route on East 19^th Street.  My camera couldn't quite capture the thrilling changes of elevation as tree roots and city utility lines have held their ground while the land continues to subside.

 

Our old house was a few blocks uphill and eastward from here.  When the first multi-storey building was built on the slope, we endured pile-driving for days on end – and more of the same just ten years ago, after moving another six blocks away, as this intersection was further developed.  (If you've become hooked on this fascinating!!! story, take a browse in this local journalist's account.)

 

It was here, just beyond the new building in the upper right, that I once chatted with a construction worker at a vacant lot being fenced off for development.  He recalled early school days when field trips would bring his class here to see the vanishing remains of Tea Swamp.  And that brings us back to Summer Camp 2025, and a semi-abstract hint of what Tea Swamp might once have been.

 

Mixed-media is the way to go, and I began with a favourite "loosening up" technique – applying plastic wrap to a still-wet painted surface and lifting it when the paint is almost dry.

 

 

Using acrylic gel, I attached some old found bits of hardware and a stream of threads from worn rags.  Next I used a couple of printmaking has-beens to stamp some darker colours. 

 

 

Then, as I was preserving Tea Swamp for all time, why not preserve crumbs from the most beautiful leaf I found last fall?  It was otherwise destined for the green organic waste bin.

 

Here's the finale, "Tea Swamp Unearthed – Hydration Series" copyright 2025.

 

We've travelled from the footbridge at what is today East 7^th Ave to Tea Swamp at East 19^th.  If we continued our ascent (spoiler alert -- that's not on our itinerary), the source of Brewery Creek would be near this intersection at East 31^st.  I took this photo, looking downhill towards the old environs of Tea Swamp, after having an eye exam.  I hadn't quite realized how indistinct it would appear, but maybe in the distance, those are "the mists of time."

 

Right under our feet!

 

 

I was walking from the bus stop to the dentist one fine day in June, not long after the "Hydration" theme had occurred to me. 

 

 

I knew from previous trips that something watery happened at this intersection.  This time, I stopped to pay attention to the interpretive marker.

 

Wow!  Lots of tidbits here for a research expedition.  I later found that whole websites and history organizations (yes, small ones) are devoted to Brewery Creek and its special claim on an era in Vancouver history.  Let's start with a map from 118 years ago this month.

 

Giving credits where due, I'll say that this map makes no sense at all until you come to realize that compass North is on the right.  Then, in association with this battered photo image on the marker, you can almost feel the water flowing around you. 

 

So here we are, standing on a footbridge.  One of those websites informed me that Vancouver's two major industries in that era were sawmills and – yes, breweries.  For the big picture, let's move to a bigger picture of all the old-time streams flowing down northward to sea level (eventually) from the height of Vancouver's east-west spine.  

 

 

This will be our blueprint of sorts for Summer Camp's "Hydration Series."  If you squint, you might just see a small red arrow (my addition) that points to our current Brewery Creek location.

 

Meanwhile, what about abstract art, the designated vehicle for this series?  Even more than usual, I've recently been mulling about art in general.  On a later day, I went back to the triangular coffee shop located at that intersection, just about in the old footbridge location. 

 

Climbing over a few stools, I parked myself and my coffee at the very point of the shop – and found myself thinking of …Cezanne?  How did he get in here? 

 

A Cezanne viaduct.  Okay.  And there aren't many artists past or present who have given as much thought to what art is.  I remembered almost verbatim his observation, which is more specifically illustrated here:

"Everything in Nature is modeled like spheres, cones and cylinders. We must learn to paint based on these simple forms and only then will we be able to do everything we want."

Was all this becoming too much like Summer School rather than Summer Camp?  Not at all.  Maybe it was the cinnamon bun with the caffeine rush that gave me the perfect blend of Brewery Creek and abstract art.  I had my title.  I would just have to follow through: 

"A cylinder, a sphere, and a cone walked into a bar…"

Back in the studio, I assembled a few small paper supports and also my old collection of gouache paints.  It was a bit tricky with a very small brush on about 3x5" paper.  The first version was simply white on black.

 

Next up, the same image using just a few colours.

 

And at this point, a funny thing happened.  My memory bank was surfacing an abstract painter who worked similarly with thickened directional lines and basic geographic elements.  Haha – notice how I've put myself in the same league!  Let's see.  His name started with an "M."  YES! – Malevich.   Don't you think we could hang on the same wall together?  This painting of his is titled "Wide Walls" so there's certainly room enough.

 

I was quite chuffed, as the Brits would say.  I made one last version, this one with the same shapes but different configuration – and thought of it as a Summer Camp Medal.

 

Now, you might wonder as I did, "Can abstract art be viewed upside-down?" 

 

Well, that's another whole field of research – for another camper. You might, however, like to see some famous art pieces that were hung upside-down – until someone noticed.

 

Grand finale:  I decided to give my three versions The Full Malevich – enlarging them for a museum display on a Wide Wall!  A small figure from an old sketchbook slipped in on the sidelines to give a sense of scale.

 

Then on we go to our next Hydration stop – splashing through the reeds along the way.  I just read somewhere that Marcel Duchamp had the wit to say, "Don't make art, make mischief." 

 

Heading upstream to the back of beyond

 

Serendipitously, I'd already booked my 4-hour bus tour of the Capilano Watershed when my summer camp "Hydration" theme came to me.  These tours are free but carefully controlled and managed as is Vancouver's water supply itself.  I'd taken the tour most recently in 2023 and was very excited to travel back again into this protected zone.  After that earlier trip, I'd used this scene at Palisade Creek as subject for a summer camp painting in the manner of Adirondack artist Levi Wells Prentice. 

 

In the adventurous spirit of Summer Camp 2025, I'd also decided by this time to go out on a limb, like these watershed eagles.

 

The plan:  While I continue to check out Hydration Locations, I'm going to investigate the unfamiliar territory of abstract art.  Okay – I started with a deep browse into famed artist Gerhard Richter, still going strong at age 93, and getting a lot of publicity for recent exhibits.  I must say I greatly prefer his "photo-realist" works, like "Reading" to his abstract with a capital "A"." 

 

But it was very interesting to see this painting of his:

 

…and note its suggestion of woods and water, and similarity to the quick sketch I made as the watershed bus bumped along, with rocky streams visible through the roadside trees.

 

 

The very next week, sitting in the waiting room at my eye doctor's office, I appreciated, as always, the original works of art on the wall.  (This seemed quite an innovative practice in the late 1970s, when I first saw the current doctor's predecessor-father). And as things were sliding along smoothly with my "Rough and Tumble" collage, I wasn't too surprised to see here another abstract painting that suggested flowing water and forest trees.

 

Onward now with the inspiration of the watershed!  What most stayed with me from that trip was the concept of great cycles – and the many practical cycles that have been developed in the name of conservation.  There's the reclaiming of wastewater – and the incredible "Track and Truck" program by which thousands of salmon are captured at the base of the impassable dam and transported to spawning grounds where eventually the small fry are transported back… Oh, but this is subject matter for someone else's blogs.  Take a look at this YouTube mini-tour and you'll see some of the game-plan in action—as our tour group saw the cylindrical traps and specially rigged trucks by the side of the road.

 

Thinking about cycles didn't help me at all in the early stages of my painting.

 

 

 

But what did help was a memory that astonished me.  For decades, I hadn't thought of it -- a passage I'd found in a book by Canadian author Timothy Findley.  He cited it as a "hymn" from a work by Euripedes.  It had been deeply meaningful to him as it was to me for the many years when we spent weekends and all our available time at a cabin in a mountain valley north of Vancouver.  With the thought, I immediately recalled the whole piece from memory (although I've never found its exact source).

 

Earth the most great, and Heaven on high,

Father is he to man and god,

And she, who taketh to her sod

The cloud-flung rivers of the sky,

And beareth offspring –

Men and grass and beasts of all their kind,

Indeed, Mother of all and every seed.

 

Earth-gendered back to earth shall pass

And back to heaven the seeds of sky;

Seeing how all into all doth range,

And sundering, show new shapes of change,

And never that which is shall die.

 

With that, I plunged right in – covering up and then drawing out again, "Shapes of Change (Hydration Series)", copyright 2025.

 

My friend L (and luckily, I have a few of those – so don't point any fingers) said once, "I don't know much about art, but my real test is, 'Would I want to see this on my living room wall?'"  Or maybe even, in full wall-size in the lobby of your nearest 5-star hotel?

 

 

Lazy hazy crazy days of summer

 

 

Is this a clown wagon, come to pick us up and sweep us off to summer camp?  No such luck.  It's colourful all right, but it's a moving van come to take my good neighbours' stuff away, ready for the new chapter in their lives.  And mine.  So be it.

 

Summer camp will be a welcome break, and if there's any chance that you think this is just one of my personal quirks, there's a long cultural history here.  Take a read as you keep yourself hydrated.

 

Of course, water is serious business any time of year.  Here in Vancouver, surrounded by water habitats of all kinds, school kids learn about the once abundant salmon streams.  Many of these run under our streets, but thanks to ongoing efforts, some are now being "daylighted". 

 

My game plan for summer camp began to evolve with my late May excursion to Capilano Suspension Bridge  – plenty of water there, and once-rich salmon spawning grounds as the altitude drops and the river nears the sea.  Whether or not it's busy with tourists, this canyon and its forest edges fascinate me – recalling old days of mountainside treks.

 

I found a new fascination, too, on my recent trip – the weathered metal (copper?) cleats that work in tandem with spiffy new hardware to hold wooden stairs and decks in place.

 

By the time I returned back home that day, I'd decided on some basics for Summer Camp 2025:-- (1) Hydration was my background setting.  I'd follow the water to as many settings as I had time for.  (2) My first piece would recall an earlier People's Choice – "Partial Eclipse" which was assembled around a gorgeous piece of rusted metal.

 

And I just happened to have another rusty foundling, about 8" long, waiting for suitable companions – of which I have many,

 

At first, I thought I'd create a kind of tower as a base, using two wonderful cardboard packing pieces.

 

Nah…  Just one of these would be plenty, and I laid it flat to receive a glue job.

Here's a partial close-up in final format.

 

As a grand finale, I held an exclusive private viewing, outdoors at 8 a.m. one cool summer morning.

 

Here it is – "Rough and Tumble (Hydration Series)" copyright 2025.

 

Okay.  So I'll be checking out other hydration locations this summer, and we'll see what comes of my expeditions.  But we don't really need Summer Camp to do dotty things, do we?  It's safe to say, we now have lift-off.