New Monograms

I've been making more monograms with the aim of producing a set of soft blocks with every letter of the alphabet included. In the meanwhile, I'm printing on a variety of papers of different colours, textures and patterns.

British Columbia & Happy Thanksgiving

The symbols of British Columbia, its provincial flower, the Pacific dogwood (Cornus nuttalli) and its animal, the Spirit Bear (also known as the Kermode bear, a white morph of the American Black Bear, Ursus americanus kermodei) cover the hand-carved map of BC in this linocut. The block was inked 'à la poupée' (with different colours, green and gold, in different areas) and printed by hand on lovely Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper. Each print is 23.5 cm by 31.8 cm (9.25" by 12.5"). The print is one of an edition of eight.

The lovely dogwood flowers thrive along the west coast, and can even be found aas far north as Haida Gwaii. The Pacific dogwood has been a symbol of British Columbia since 1956. Once protected it is now considered secure and not at risk of extinction. The same fate is hoped for the newest symbol of the province, the Spirit Bear. This colour morph of the Black Bear is due to recessive alleles common in the population. Genetically, this means they are more like human redheads than albinos. National Geographic estimates the spirit bear population at 400-1000 individuals. Because of their ghost-like appearance, "spirit bears" hold a prominent place in the oral stories of the First Nations people of BC. They were named after the Kermode Bear after Francis Kermode, former director of the Royal B.C. Museum, who researched the subspecies.

I was never lucky enough to spy a spirit bear in the temperate rainforest of Canada's west coast, but saw many dogwood. I was a bit torn when designing this linocut. The provincial bird is the Stellar's Jay, which was very common and a bird I saw quite regularly when I lived on Vancouver Island. In the end though, there is something magical about the Spirit Bear and it was on my 'to do' list of animals to depict in linocuts.

I hope everyone celebrating had a great Thanksgiving long weekend! I know Minouette loves any holiday which involves turkey. This is a photo RJH took two years ago. He titled it "Turkey Dazed". I hope this is how you are feeling, but not too much.

Trip photos: New Brunswick - The Camp

We stayed at the cottage for a few days, which was a nice escape. In New Brunswick, as in Northern Ontario, they call it the camp, not the cottage. We couldn't even get cell service there (which was, frankly, a treat grumble, grumble, newspapers which call or email journalists at all hours grumble), though we did have a weird assortment of satellite TV, when it was too cold in the evenings, even by a campfire. There was a channel which appeared to play strictly reruns of The Littlest Hobo, complete with vintage ads, for instance.* We went canoeing and took photos on the lake. Let me tell you that trying to position a canoe for a photographer who insists on sitting in the stern and stalking loons is no mean feat. RJH sorted through his old things (photographic equipment, archery supplies and old photos) while I followed a frog around taking his photo.



We went out of a hike in the woods to a place where RJH had found a waterfall. We pulled down an abandoned logging road and - in a very successful instance of animal spotting and identifying - I said, "Bear!" A full grown black bear was in the middle of the road, less than 10 m ahead. RJH stopped the car and said, "Don't get out." It was my turn to think he was crazy. "Of course not. Do you think I'm crazy?" I said, as he got out the drivers' side so he could grab the appropriate camera and lens from the back seat. The bear did not like the looks of this and reluctantly sauntered off before RJH could get a photo. We waited a bit and pulled forward. RJH found the vole that the bear had been eating (and the apparent reason for his reluctance to leave). He asked (RJH, not the bear or dead vole) whether it was such a good idea to go for a hike, since we saw the bear. I said I thought it was fine. Bears don't like people and he knew we were there. Plus he went right and we were headed to the left. So we entered the woods, making sure we weren't too quiet. I shot more photos of frogs, while RJH took long exposures of the small waterfall.

 

When we repeated the story about the bear, everyone seemed surprised I agreed to go in the woods. I think they suspected a city girl would be afraid of a bear. But, it was a black bear, which are pretty common in Ontario - it's not like it was a brown bear (Ursus arctos horribilis, the Grizzly bear) or a polar bear, neither of which I would like to meet in the wild**. I mean, I wouldn't like to get within a couple of metres of a black bear, or find one in my home, but when I was a kid, we used to go to the dump, in cottage country, simply to go watch the bears. It's not like it was a moose, I joked to RJH. We had dinner at his sister's place, which is basically in the woods. On our way home, in the dark, we saw five deer, a fox and of course, a moose. I was pretty good with the animal spotting. I said, "Deer!" and "Fox!" on cue (and, for that matter, "Cat!"), but mostly I said, "There!" and pointed. We we ended up on a narrow gravel road and came across the moose, what I actually said was "Whoa, whoa!" which was pretty inarticulate, but RJH saw it as soon as I did and we weren't driving very fast. The moose was pretty surprised to see us, in the middle of nowhere, after dark. She looked over her shoulder incredulously and took off. We told his family how we had seen the bear, the moose, five deer, the fox and four frogs, all in one day. RJH seemed to think it was hilarious I included the frogs on this list. I don't know why. Small amphibians are animals too. Though, I suppose I didn't list all the birds. Like ducks and woodpeckers are a given.

 *For non-Canadian readers, this was a show of my youth, about a stray German Shepherd who wandered around saving lives and solving problems (low-risk 80's TV show type problems). I'm not even kidding. "Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down... until tomorrow, I'll just keep going on..."

 **Yes, I do know that the chances of meeting either in New Brunswick are essentially nil.

Panda Family

This is my linocut portrait of a harried mama giant panda and two unruly cubs. They are magnificent, if funny, creatures, whose expressions make them easy to personify. They remind me of people I know. This print is made in black block printing ink, on white Japanese kozo (or mulberry) paper, 10.5 inches by 12.5 inches (27 cm by cm by 31.8 cm), in an edition of six.



I looked at a lot of photos of pandas, and I must say, they are most improbable. Sort of riddiculously cute, and by appearance at least, lazy. Most photos show them semi-prone, munching. Apparently their heads are so round because of their bamboo-diet. But they actually do have much more of a 'teddy bear' shape anatomy than any of the North American bears I know. Perhaps that, and their colouring, explains their popularity.

Roaming Victoria

This is my favorite store. That's it. The entire store was once a windowfront. It isn't very deep, but it is high and they are very agile with hooks and poles to reach clothing displayed 10 ft off the ground.





This building has great bones. I cannot understand why it isn't renovated yet. It has been like this for years and it's on the water, for heaven's sake. Great location.


The flowers are everywhere.


Capital Iron parking lot. I love Capital Iron. Apparently, it's genetic. My grandmother (who died when I was only three) loved Capital Iron.





This is the view from Dallas Rd. The dark shadow behind the Straight of Georgia is the Olympic mountains in Washington state.


This is a crow on the beach at Cadboro Bay. I did not see the Cadborosaurus.

I is for iguana, and insect, and indigo

This is the latest panel in my alphabet quilt-in-progress. It is a hand-block printed iguana in green ink on an old (though high thread count) cotton shirt in gray. The 'I' is printed with a vintage letterpress block. The insects were screenprinted by Smoking Lily - they sell scraps of fabric with prints they don't use in their clothing line. The insects in blue (on tee shirt material) are reverse appliqued onto the black fabric with one white fly.

What do you think? Maybe 2009 will be the year and I will actually finish this quilt.

I need to finish the 'N' and 'O' panels, which are in progress. I have to start 'Q', 'U', 'V', 'X', 'Y' and 'Z'. Then the actual quilting process can begin.