Watch this spot

I've related before my failed attempt to become a sculptor, having produced only an incomplete 2-foot high carving -- "A Bird in the Hand" --that's now aging in place in our back yard.

Carving the small band of sample shapes pictured at the top had been easy. Trying to make a dent in a hefty yellow cedar log was not.

In retrospect, there were other signs that sculpture was just not in the cards for me. I once signed up for an evening course and after a promising start on an introductory relief sculpture, our class arrived one night to find all our stuff had been thrown out. The daytime instructor had more clout than the evening instructor and declared that we always left a mess he had to clean up in the morning. Class cancelled.

But some years back, I thought I'd make one more attempt at sculpture, this time in clay, before I decided to pack it in. To "the summer studio", as we optimistically called an old stable on our cabin property, I brought five pounds of professional-grade clay, moistly packaged in plastic. From among my life class drawings, I chose a simple classic pose -- seated female nude with arms stretched to clasp bent knees. And mostly because of those outstretched arms, I decided to use the traditional method of making an armature first, to support the weight of the clay.

You could think of an armature as a simplified skeleton. In big sculptures, it might be made of lengths of metal pipe bolted together. For my small summer studio version, I used small branches secured with twist-ties. For Show & Tell, I've created this simplified version as an example:

I had to get used to working with the moist sticky clay, but I got off to a good start building up the figure on the armature. Then it was time for us to return to Vancouver for the workweek. "Between working sessions, keep the clay moist and workable with wet cloths and plastic," said my reference book.

...which somehow was not enough. When I unveiled my work the following weekend, expecting to begin to refine the figure, I found that the clay had outweighed the armature. My promising little figure had relaxed into a pose that reclined more than it sat -- with a very flat bottom! -- with too-long arms, knees still upright with legs looking out of proportion, and feet suggesting swimmer's flippers.

The tilted head that was always part of the pose took on a mournful aspect. The clay had dried too much to alter the basic structure so I left it to dry completely and eventually installed the figure as a presiding genie in my home studio.

I later used it in my painting "The Artist's Hand, the Artist's Eye."

When I packed up my old studio for our 2012 move I found that over time, the figure had developed cracks, and I came very close to trashing it. Packrat alert! Packrat alert! ("Never throw out something that you can keep.") Flawed as it was, the little elongated figure was an irreplaceable remnant of an irreplaceable time in our lives -- so along it came to the studio in The Yellow House.

Recently I had quite an adventurous idea for how to use it in a new painting that's now nearing completion. Watch this spot.

Warts and all: "Rogue Cucurbits"

The Halloween candy is long gone, the frost is on the pumpkins, and the seasonal cucurbit celebration is at hand -- just in time for American Thanksgiving. What's more, this post will answer the burning questions surrounding the mysterious cucurbits  that arose spontaneously from vintage compost in our summer 2014 garden, the ones with the quirky shape shown here:

When I decided the output was ready for harvest, the stripes had faded to uniform dark green, the distinct ribs were rounding out, and the tops were almost as flat as in their "babyhood." Here's the harvest in company with a small round stripey version -- the sole product of the separate gourd plant I grew from last year's seed.

Searching and searching the internet, I learned the following: (1) Mysteries like this (what is it and is it edible?) have stumped other people who, for example, received a bunch of seedlings from a neighbour and then misplaced the labels; (2) It's not a great idea to plant seed saved from the previous year because often the original plants are hybrids with seeds that might produce "distorted and unpleasant" (!) shapes; (3) The cucurbit family readily cross-pollinates so gourds like my one green stripey one might screw up any nearby squash plants; (4) Gourds are not poison but they're likely to be hard and yucky tasting.

Well, we never shirk from solving a garden mystery, and there was only one thing to do: Bake up the choicest one to see how it would taste. I decided on the simplest approach: Cut in half, scoop out seeds, add butter to each half and water to the pan, and bake for an hour. It took me almost an hour -- well, almost a quarter of an hour -- to cut the darn thing in half. Both the skin and the flesh were rock-hard. Not a good sign.

After an hour, I took the pan from the oven, poked the "squash" with a fork, and found it was still verrrrry hard. I lifted the fork for a taste and.........AWFUL. Bitter, astringent, and not for supper tonight or any other night. Well, la-di-dah. The plant itself was astonishing and the golden flowers were glorious so I've saved some seed to grow it again next year.

Did I hear someone in the back say this was a poor excuse for a food blog? Don't be silly. If you want delectable recipes, you should know where to head by now. Due to inevitable circumstances, the linked post features cucurbit recipes.

Our own dark beauties, such as they were, were destined to continue the tradition set in motion last year with "Danse Macabre": 

As the mysterious 'bits were ripening in September, I happened to see this photo in a dance brochure at the library and knew it would be a magic ingredient for 2014's C-bit painting:--

Yes!  A lively match that produced "Rogue Cucurbits" (copyright 2014).

And now, back to major Cucurbit Lore. Listen up. What follows is remarkable.

In another kitchen musing of mine, I lifted the lid from a pot of steamed prunes and wondered: What steps are missing that would transform this into plum brandy? My morning teatime conversation with JT shifted to how condensation and distillation work, and he reached for his trusty College Standard dictionary (circa 1960). He turned first to "still" and what to our wondering eyes should appear but a cucurbit!

What's going on here? Quick -- let's look up "cucurbit."

Cucurbit, first definition:-- "the body of an alembic - originally gourd-shaped"

And look at these other useful words nearby: "cucumiform", "cucurbitaceous." You can never have enough of this stuff, once you're hooked. And to culminate the celebration of Cucurbits 2014, let's enjoy my two "store-bought" beauties. Could we rig an alembic out of the over-sized gourd? and a "head of still" out of the Tiger Pumpkin? Will 2015's cucurbit extravaganza feature moon-lit skeletons brewing moonshine?

And now...let's sit back and relax

DONE -- times three! There were moments (hours) when it seemed a happy ending would never be reached, but the Blue & White Triptych at last came to completion the day after Canadian Thanksgiving. Let us give thanks.

So let's relax with kindred spirits and our beverages of choice and see how it all unfolded. The inspiration for the series was described when I posted the first (left-hand) panel of the threesome, "Fishing with the Blue and White Girls." 

Some months later, with a sigh of relief that I'd overcome (more or less) a lot of obstacles, I celebrated the literal midpoint -- "Celebrating with the Blue and White Girls." 

Since then, it's sometimes seemed that the celebrating was premature, but now many months later, "Relaxing with the Blue and White Girls" falls into place as the third and final (right-hand) panel. You can follow its evolution -- and those many What was I thinking?  moments -- here.

Here's the best I could do shooting the three panels together -- meanwhile proving that no matter how amazing 21st-century cameras have become, there will always be amateur photographers. (Is there something you're supposed to do to eliminate the wavy distortion? ...like hire a photographer?)

Despite the occasional teeth-grinding, I made the final painting with a warmth of thoughts as I considered who might drop in for this relaxing tea party. (But what would we all drink, with our different preferences and only one mug and two tea cups? Maybe it would be like a chapter from Mary Poppins , where there would be more than enough cups and mugs, and the beverage poured from the small bottomless teapot would turn out to be the drink that each person liked best.)

First in the door would of course be the Original Blue & White Girl who would surely bring us something delectable to eat. Right behind her -- the first to chime in when the series was announced, "I'm a blue and white girl, too!" -- my photo artist friend whose magic camera might somehow capture the surreal multiplication of cups and mugs. And it would be so lovely once again to have a coffee date with my "Summer's Best Blend"  friend, arriving with a whiff of Galiano Dark Raven Roast  even though she can't enjoy it herself. And maybe my friend Durdlin would hop back from Brisbane -- she who understood my hazelnut addiction and truly knew how to take a coffee break from workday chaos.

Positioned close to the tea would be my last/best boss -- ah, memories of many compatible thoughts -- and the golden teapot. "With milk, please, but NO (shudder) lemon." And maybe her teenaged daughter -- who, at age 8, taught me how to fan napkins -- might whiz in for a quick London Fog.

While I'm savouring the spirits of this small corner just off Memory Lane, my mom's spirit would be there, too. She loved the hydrangeas of her native Charleston and was astonished to see them blooming here in Vancouver.

The blue hydrangea flowers have faded now and turned to pink, but this whole excursion has been a great adventure -- a real trip.

Due to inevitable circumstances...

Handwritten sign spotted in the window of a small nearby sushi restaurant:

"Due to inevitable circumstances we will no longer be here after August. Thank you for enjoying our sushi these many happy years! We hope to be back some day."

"Inevitable circumstances." The phrase fascinates me as it jingles along in my head, jostling with the more predictable "unavoidable circumstances". In one part of the space-time continuum, I suppose circumstances are "inevitable" -- and rarely "avoidable."

In any case, due to my own inevitable circumstances, this is the first month (I think -- except for when we moved) of many happy years (thanks for that) of To Capture the Eye that I will miss posting an original production of some kind or another.

I've been working away -- sometimes plodding, sometimes grinding...neither a good sign -- trying to finish the Blue and White triptych.  Until this week, it's been very slow going indeed. And the circumstances were inevitable -- inevitable that working on the third panel would present big challenges in making a "seam" with the second panel, matching colours shared between panels #2 and #3, and keeping the whole flow of the triptych going. I thought I'd finish by the end of September but it's not gonna happen.

Still -- inevitable circumstances sometimes have their up-sides. Consider these other recent circumstances.

It was perhaps inevitable that our friendly neighbour Anita would not have two years in a row of a bumper crop of "Anita's squash" -- the mysterious prickly pear-shaped squash that turned out to be something called "chayote" by non-Chinese speakers. Last year her small front yard was packed with an ever-expanding trellis laden with these squash; this year, the trellis is a quarter the size.

The up-side: She remembered how much we enjoyed her bounty last summer and brought us some of her sister's harvest, giving us all another opportunity to enjoy each other's neighbourliness.

Circumstance #2: Our Crow Haven neighbours gave us some cosmos seedlings after I'd raved about the special variegated variety that flanked their walk last summer. Inevitably it seems, the seeds ran true to their original type, and our plants yielded mostly white flowers. The up-side? The white cosmos have become the lovely fresh stars of our late summer garden, and I wouldn't trade them for the once desired pink-and-white variegations.

Circumstance #3: Well, of course, it's inevitable that I'd be unable to do all the garden rearrangement that I'd planned for Summer 2014. The up-side? A great treasure sprang up from the vintage compost that I spread on my work-in-progress garden plot next to the back gate. The compost dated back to the previous owners here, and we've never seen anything like this amazing volunteer, except to recognize that it's one of the Cucurbitaceae (that's for all those who love that funny word "cucurbit" as I do). It has now produced about 40 feet of trailing vines,and dozens of golden yellow trumpet flowers that bloom in twos and threes, each lasting just a day.

AND there are so far nine quirky flat-ended squash/gourds(?) awaiting our pleasure:

(If you can put a name to this, please reply soonest)

And so.......while it's inevitable that I haven't yet completed the B & W triptych, it's gradually coming together and just might exceed all expectations. Would it be an inevitable coincidence...or maybe an enviable coincidence...or certainly an incredible circumstance...if I were to finish it the first week in October, just in time for the birthday milestone of the original Blue & White Girl?

Waiting for Mary Poppins

With September's lengthening shadows, there will soon be a week or so in which our backyard trellis will duplicate itself in Shadowland on the back wall of the building across our laneway. This phenomenon always puts me in mind of Mary Poppins in my very favorite childhood books (and for goodness sakes, she neither looked nor behaved anything like Julie Andrews).

In one book of the series, Mary Poppins Walks Out the Door, the story ends with Mary P putting the Banks children to bed and then walking out of...the door that's reflected in the window of the nursery!  It was a long wait for me till the next Christmas when my aunt, to whom I owe my Mary Poppins enchantment, reliably produced the next in the series, Mary Poppins Comes Back' in which without ceremony, Mary and her trusty umbrella blew back into the Banks' lives on a March wind.

If Mary Poppins someday walks into our back yard through the shadow of the trellis, she'll find herself right at home in The Yellow House. For several reasons, our "new" home invites odd shadows and mystifying reflections that we still exclaim about. For one thing, the small window panes in our front door have bevelled edges, which produce oddities in themselves when viewed from an angle:

 When the sun is low, or the nearby street lamp is lit, the light will enter, reflect off the mirror on our antique wardrobe on the opposite wall, and bounce a multi-faceted reflection back onto the wall the door is set in...quite creepy when we first noticed it.

We had so much less light at our old house, with its smaller windows and abundantly treed street. Here, we have a delightful picture window, with no tall trees opposite, and the light streams in, to the great pleasure of the cats.

Sometimes the sun reflects off objects on our table and give us weird views on the ceiling like this one:

It was truly spooky the day after we'd been reading about the Flying Snakes of Indonesia when this image flew up to our ceiling:

Other mystifying effects result through the combination of the picture window and the placement of our main floor twelve steps above ground level (a not uncommon design feature of the old houses in this Vancouver neighbourhood). Sunlight will bounce off cars parked in the street below, casting weird shadowed reflections as far back as the chimney wall more than halfway into the depth of the house. Our faithful wooden camel and a table lamp starred in this one:

And the amateur photographer stars in this one, as I try to capture the mystery of it all:

The most puzzling and sometimes eerie reflections of all appear in the double-paned glass of the front window -- true Mary Poppins country -- but they're best seen when a single kitchen light shines in the darkness, elusive to the camera.

The Yellow House has its charms, but ...have I said this before?...we miss our old place. The old one had just one fascinating shadow, one we never tired of seeing: one cat or another sitting in a morning window above the staircase landing. For this, I'll borrow the title of Jung's autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

Sunspot

Summer! This year I really doubted it would come, but it's been honest-to-goodness hot, dry summertime since the last week of July. Even as June teased us with a few clear days, I started to get into summer camp mode. At this time of year, I'm more likely to spend my studio time puttering than producing.

Still, it's all in a good cause, and the studio or summer camp that doesn't allow for a lot of puttering can't be very inspirational. Furthermore, I haven't been completely non-productive. For months, I'd had a plan for some summer action, as soon as the black-eyed Susans bloomed. Our first summer here, a wonderful friend gave us a housewarming gift of two lovely dark-brown pottery mugs and the best-ever coffee to fill them. She can't say I didn't warn her at the time...that some day one of these mugs would find itself paired in a painting with black-eyed Susans.

In my puttering clean-up, I found some Gently Used artist's paper that I've cut to different sizes, planning to paint over my previous efforts with a "splash" -- that's what I've usually called an impulsive and often experimental painting that's pulled off with not much planning and lots of speed. This little one, though, I'll consider a sunspot!

It was fun to do, fun to think of my friend and all her big doings this summer, fun to try to think of a title -- "Summer's Best Blend" ? -- as I put the mug back in the kitchen where it belongs and the fading black-eyed Susan into the compost where at least it will have more head room than my recycled paper allowed.

Trying to get a grip

Celebrating two years in The Yellow House, we're determined to get a grip on all these unpacked book boxes that still surround us. First step: Assemble an el-cheapo bookcase that has also been living in a box. It's the kind of task that would have taken JT about fifteen minutes in the old days when his hands were predictable. But now, for such a task, he needs an apprentice to carry out instructions -- ideally, one who's handy with tools, but you just can't get good help these days.

Yes, I'm the apprentice who is...let's not say klutzy; let's just say inexperienced. My apprentice sessions in the six years since JT came home from the hospital have taught me, among other things: (1) Pounding a nail with a hammer is not as easy as it looks. (2) Holding a pair of pliers requires more than a pair of hands. (3) At first, it's intimidating to use what's called a vise grip -- pictured above -- but with courage and fortitude, you can learn it's the nifty tool it was designed to be.

Using the vise grip again in the past week took me back to some old sketchbooks.

In my first day in Vise Grip 101 in 2009, the little gizmo snapped unpredictably, pinched my fingers, and wouldn't let go of things when I wanted it to. It was almost scary and afterwards, I had to unwind by making a therapeutic drawing:--

Even more therapeutic were the following day's sketchy "morph drawings". I'd read about this fun project in a drawing book--: Draw something "real." Then morph its shape into something else. Here's the vise grip in three quick reincarnations as a crow, a circus performer, and a dog sled:

I was cheating a bit...being so stressed and all...because you're supposed to morph the original drawing in stages, as I'd done some years before, starting with my sewing scissors:

....which, in a few steps, morphed into a hummingbird:

A year or so later, I happened to re-read the instructions and saw I'd also cheated a bit with "Scissors into Hummingbird". You're supposed to draw the changes step-by-step to show specifically how the shapes would have to change -- as if you were engineering the project in some kind of alternate universe.

Okay. So my third attempt was to morph our pepper mill into a pair of glasses. Here's the starting point:

Then, Steps 1-3, as shown below: Move the centre screw to the edge; flatten the screw and the handle grip and reorient the turning mechanism to face down; collapse the bottom of the mill into flat discs.

Next, in Steps 4-6, collapse the discs further into three sections, shrink the middle disc, and open the three discs in a flat plane as shown here:

Then, in Steps 7-9, push the left disc open and pull up the inner circle of the right disc; elongate the lifted "circle" to match the left side; and finally...ta tum!...add prescription lenses.

Why, it's a Lens Grinder!

Did you find this stress-relieving or stress-inducing?  Maybe you wondered if "vise" was spelled correctly?  www.askoxford.com confirmed my choice for "S" -- at least for my 'murican readers.  Or maybe it was stressful to contemplate the point of this whole morph exercise.  I think it has to do with (1) Visualizing shapes and their interaction; and (2) Having fun doodling with a pencil.

In any case, for an ultimate stress reliever, let's see what this handy implement might morph into:--