Polish opera singer, Ganna Walska’s California garden.
Gee’s Bend quilter, Annie Mae Young.
Bianca Pintan’s primary colours.
Ravneet Gill’s chocolate and vanilla marble cake.
Tulips, photo by Max Baur, 1930s.
Beauty
valley girl
May 19, 2022
It’s the Queen’s favourite flower. And it’s my Mum’s favourite flower, as well. I know she had hoped for Lily of the valley on her wedding day, but it was June so she opted for a bunch of Agapanthus instead. Agapanthus are also beautiful. Agapanthus comes from the Greek word for ‘Love.” Some species of Agapanthus are known as lily of the Nile. Back to the valley though. It’s little white bells look like they’re made of fondant. I read today that “Lily of the valley can take a while to establish, and it can be fussy. But when it takes hold, it is one of the hardiest, easiest ground-cover plants, producing a delightful show of May flowers that scent the air.” I felt an immediate kinship; “takes a while to establish… can be fussy. But when it takes hold.”
from a distance
May 16, 2022
Before the high tech drones that are used today, photographers strapped their cameras to balloons, rockets and even pigeons to achieve their aerial shots. Bernhard Lang takes his photographs from the open doors of helicopters and other small air crafts. From Baltic lagoons and fish farms in Greece, Lang’s aerial perspective is an exercise in pattern, colour and structure, and also provides an eye-popping view of the human impact on nature and the environment. His tulips fields could be area rugs and it’s hard to imagine that all those planes in Boneyard are real. His images are beautiful and arresting.
around and around
May 13, 2022
shape of things
May 11, 2022
Shane Drinkwater (great name) covers his canvases in lines, dots, stars, and concentric circles that form a kind of mystical code reminiscent of ones left on blackboards, scraps of paper and cave walls. A fascination with maps, medieval illuminated manuscripts and astrological charts inform his practice. The work is visually intense with so much beautiful detail to absorb. It invites us to focus, hone in on those details, and crack the code as we see it.
sakura pink
May 9, 2022
When the Cherry Blossoms at Robarts Library are in full bloom I know that winter is well and truly over. They always seem to catch me by surprise, even though I’ve been willing them to open for weeks. This year, droves of people (and their cats and dogs) have come to admire the trees in all their glory, despite the surrounding construction. Oddly, I’ve never seen so many people before. Is it that everyone is embracing Spring with a more open heart? Are there more weddings in the works –– hence all the engagement photos –– after Covid stuck a wrench in people’s plans? That, too. Are people just looking for shit to add to their snapchat stories? Tik, tok, tik. My children have all mastered the art of surreptitiously cutting blossoming branches from trees to bring home to their Mum; goodness knows where they picked up that habit. I’ve been to see the trees a few times; if I squint my eyes and look up, I may as well be on Mount Yoshino.
around and around
May 6, 2022
icing on the cake
May 5, 2022
I always think glazing takes less time than it actually does. Come to think of it, I think most things take less time than they actually do. I’m working on that. You know, slowing down, taking on less. Clay can’t be rushed, and the glazing stage is no exception. It’s such a shame when days of work end up in the bin because the glaze was slapped on in a hurry. I paint on my glazes which is finicky and laborious. There are other techniques –– easier and more efficient ones –– but I’m stubborn, and that’s what I’m used to. Don’t expect to see a change if you don’t make one. Yada, yada, yada. Another thing to add to the list. Glazing is my least favourite stage, but it’s a stage that can make or break your piece. The icing on the cake, if you will. These porcelain cake sculptures are by Jacqueline Tse. Sweets and skulls –– enjoy!
new normal
May 4, 2022
Born in Morocco and raised in Belgium, Mous Lamrabat‘s photographs are an eye-popping fusion of his Arab heritage and the Western symbols he grew up with. Think models dressed in Gucci djellabas and superhero burkas. “As a child of first generation immigrants, there is always a point in your life where you feel like you don’t fit in anywhere; not in the country you were born in nor in the country you were raised in,” says Lamrabat. “I felt like I was too Moroccan to fit in as a Belgian and too European to fit in as a Moroccan, and this is something that almost every immigrant has to deal with.” Through his photographs, Lamrabat is honing a visual language that captures both the universality and uniqueness of this experience, while dismantling stereotypes and cultural norms and paving the way for something new and more flexible. “As a kid, I loved wearing djellabas and rocking them with my Jordan sneakers. It felt “cool” at that time because that’s who I was: a mixture of identities. Doesn’t it make sense that your “idea-basket” gets larger when you live in different cultures or you live in multiple places in the world?” The eyes, and often the whole face, are covered in Lamrabat’s images, which interestingly, makes his subjects even more accessible. It’s the experience that we’re connecting with rather than the individual. “I love creating from a perspective that it’s not about one person,” he says. “The face takes so much information away and doesn’t leave that much to the imagination…. I feel when the face doesn’t show, the person who is looking at the image puts their own face in there.”
circle line
May 2, 2022
Dutch artist, Marian Bijlenga works with unusual material such as horse hair, fish scales and porcupine quills. Her textile wall reliefs are an homage to lines and dots. Patterns are repeated, but as in nature, it’s the irregularities that make her designs interesting. Pockets of white space create a dialogue between the work and the wall it hangs on. “By leaving some space between the structure and the wall the object is freed from its background and interacts with the white wall,” says Bijlenga. “It becomes what I call a ‘Spatial Drawing.'” I love her work with fish scales, particularly this collection of them on Bijlenga’s studio wall. Loose and structured, geometric and organic, black and white and vividly colourful, the possibilities are endless.
