The Latest Love Affair

Coffee cups.... I now rummage through garbage pails looking for coffee cups. I ask J. to do the same. I find myself drawing circles in the studio, hunting down charcoal and my favourite pencils, powdered graphite. I love the circles at the bottom of the cups, Then I notice the ellipse made by the light and shadow. The seam line offsets the curves of the circle. Such simple things to explore and how utterly satisfying.

I hope the drawings are going in this direction, but I fear they are going to be very dark

Photos of the cups, or as they say source material.

Nathalie Bandulet / Feu et foudre [Fire and Lightning]

There is a wonderful exhibition on at Arts Sutton [Link here for hours and directions] of recent work of Nathalie Bandulet. As you enter, the work Barricade (Homage to Jackie Windsor), 2010. stands defensively against the wall of the gallery.
barricade: noun 1. a defensive barrier hastily constructed, as in a street, to stop an enemy. 2. any barrier that obstructs passage.

Barricade, 2010,  Nathalie Bandulet

Detail, Barricade, Tree branches, cotton, plaster and acrylic

162 x 162 x 10 cm,  Nathalie Bandulet

 Turning into the main space of the gallery is a large installation of vines, really almost trunks of vines suspended into the space and leaving shadow drawings of line on the walls around it. Every time you move the lines  and shadows are redrawn. I love this piece.

Coup de foudre (Love at first sight / Struck by lightning), 2012,  Nathalie Bandulet

Natural vines, charcoal and acrylic, Approx. 6 x 3,5 meters,  Nathalie Bandulet

Another work is Embûches (Ambushes, hazards and traps), Nathalie very kindly translated all the titles and descriptions for me.

 Embûches, 2010,  Nathalie Bandulet

Detail, showing the carving, Embûches, 2010,  Nathalie Bandulet

The last work I took photos of is fascinating. It looks like a rubbing from the trunk of a tree, then she has used red thread  to delineated the negative spaces. This is what Nathalie says "For this piece, the bark of a huge dead tree was printed on a large cotton cloth and later the texture (scars and wounds) was repaired with surgical stitches in a healing process. If we observe a split on a tree bark, we can see that the tissues grow back to seal the injury like a scar on our skin. Relics of a past of suffering, but also a testimony of our capacity to heal ourselves."

Cicatrices (Scars), 2008-2010,  Nathalie Bandulet

Detail, Cicatrices (Scars), 2008-2010,  Nathalie Bandulet

N.B. I noticed that the invitation for Nathalie's show lists the opening hours as Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm, not Thursday as listed on their web site. To see more of Nathalie's work please visit her web site. [Link here]

Walking Underground

I hate carrying my camera around so it sits on the kitchen table where it is easy to grab. And in my purse is a tiny and very light point and shoot, whose battery never seem to last more than 10 minutes. So while I was in Montreal a few weeks ago I had to buy a throw a way to take these shots. It was a mysterious place, miles of corridors [only a slight exaggeration] with all the windows covered over with paper and tape, back lit by the sun, tears in some of the paper and repaired with more paper and tape. Doors with numbers, circles and rectangles on them. A peculiar language. I am still trying to decipher it.

a peculiar language

A strange and mysterious place

Found

Unloading the car the other day I came across an empty coffee cup, unusual in our car as neither one of us can ever manage to drive and drink coffee at the same time. We always end up wearing the coffee. About to put it in the recycling I noticed the lines and shapes. So beautiful, so simple; the basic circle, and a line.

Reclaiming the Garden

Life is turning to a new normal after almost a month away. J's new hip is healing well, he is back in the studio reclaiming the work he left and I am working hard in the garden, realizing there has to be some changes made. Trying to keep up with everything didn't work out. There simply isn't enough time or energy. And nature never takes a holiday. So I walk about trying to see with my minds eye what is superfluous, where I can cut back, how to make this place I love so much become less maintenance intensive. The gardens around the pond were a jungle so it was extremely therapeutic to get out the big whipper sniper and go for it.

this morning at the pond

path over the dam and through the sumacs

sumac fruit

Asters blooming at the waters edge

Looking through the gate to the woods, back to where we sit. Piles of clippings to clean up!