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?