“Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation.' Creative viewing.”
― William S. Burroughs, Ports of Entry: William S. Burroughs and the Arts

Every so often I reread this quotation and try to give it a fair chance it but I have finally concluded that I disagree with Burroughs.  It’s a bit too close or my comfort to cogito ergo sum or that tree falling silently in that forest;  an artist usually paints some element of the world that simply refuses to be denied.

We don’t create beauty by observing it;  an artist usually paints some element of the world that simply refuses to be denied.  Beauty shapes us.
​
Which another way of saying that the spring is the greatest show on earth.  The explosion of those new greens - Winsor  Newton’s “sap green” - unhinges me like a long-awaited opening.   The oriole is belting out show tunes in the back garden, the red-bellied  woodpeckers handle the percussion in the front and The Missus is sitting on Brood #2 in the balcony.  And everybody green wants to perform — the scylla and the blue violets have exited stage right, just as  the sweet-faced anemones and  the elegant Great Solomon’s Seal have captured the proscenium arch.   Off stage, the unchallenged stars of the show - the rhodos — are swelling in anticipation of  their grand entrance later this week.   Already, pink hearts are a-flutter.



​
There is simply no show more exciting than our shady garden.  Camera in hand, I  take promos which range from  a “might paint” to a “probably paint” to a “MUST PAINT!”   These shots will be a great comfort in the winter, when I actually have some spare time.   They are the artistic equivalent of “money in the bank”   or a great souvenir program.

Our well-established garden is no longer amateur night in the barrens;  the soil is crumbling and rich now after years of care and has become our own secret garden with invited guests.  On the other hand,  failure to weed at this point would exact a heavy price later, so for the last decade this lowly stagehand has spent May on my hands and knees, where I function as the cleanup crew. ;  Theodore is content to direct the whole event from the stone patio beside the ravine, sitting  in a chair like the maestro he is and taking frequent naps to refresh his genius.

High Spring — the only “performance art” worth the ticket!

This morning, probably the last cool day of spring, I pulled on a new pair of leggings and jikes! -- weren’t the ridiculous things at least six inches too long.  Again.  Now, before you decide that I am shrinking at a rapid rate, I’m actually not.  Yes, I have settled half an inch like our house but that’s not the issue. 

Girls are getting longer or at least Costco thinks they are.  Most of the food on its shelves would argue for an increase in width but these legging, like jeans, are both skinny (fine) and long long long (less than fine).  I feel a bit like Macbeth, who began to look like a dwarf in a giant's robe.  Unfortunately I was raised not to waste things, so this unexpected bonanza of banded fleece and spandex demands to be put to use  — a cash holder which a mugger wouldn’t find? a hammock for a pet chipmunk who needed a snooze?  a stash for Lindt chocolate?

I guess I will have to settle for warmer ankles but it did make me think about line length again.

Long limbs are enchanting in themselves - witness a baby fawn wobbling on those impossible stilts.   Having had no luck at all seeing a fawn this spring I have several alternatives in mind, both of which centre on curvilineal elements.  I’m still toying with Cathedral Grove’s skyscraper ancients wrapped in curling mosses, but perhaps there is also a portrait gestating.

Aisha, my young sweet-tempered neighbour, sat for me this week.  We had good light and I did a series of  head shots beside different windows inside.  (Once the canopy opens, it is difficult to avoid dappled shade outside, even if you don’t notice it at first)   The results were okay but lacked a relaxed feel.   Finally, we went in the studio and while I was changing cameras, Aisha, who is wonderful with children and dogs, hauled Theodore up onto the love seat, where she whispered sweet nothings into his enormous ears and stroked him gently.  Theodore is all boy and so at first he put up a token resistance, facing away and pretending to ignore her.


Then voila!  As Aisha leaned forward to stroke him behind his Dumbo ears, he melted, slumping into a stupefied mid-distance gaze.  The late-afternoon light warmed both of them and the graceful line I’d been seeking established itself.   And that, I think,  is what I shall paint. 

​In the meantime, here is Himself alone.  Skye terriers are all about the lines.

Note:  while looking IN VAIN for yet another post which I wrote but cannot find !!!, this one surfaced.  It was written last fall and I offer it to you on this Monday while I continue to search.

            "Wind"
​
              it’s true sometimes I cannot
stop myself from spilling
              the recycling
 
unpetalling apple blossoms raiding
a picnic
making off with napkins I’m nothing
              until I happen
flipping an umbrella outside-in
                      throwing its owner
              into a fumble
pelting the avenue with sleet or dust
 
at times downtown
              riding over galleries of air
so full of high excitement howling
I borrow an old woman’s hat
              and fling it into the road
 
arriving with news of the larkspur
              and the bumblebee
at times embracing you so lightly
in ways you don’t even register
              as touch


This delightful poem by James Arthur was written in Al Purdy’s old A-frame in Ontario.  It caught my attention today because the wind Jon and I met yesterday was a bit more than mildly mischievous.  I’ll let you decide.

Yes, the wind was “riding over galleries of air/
so full of high excitement howling”  when we drove in.  Both of us kind of like storms.  But it was the unearthly rumble that caught our attention:  in retrospect, we should have run but we didn’t, just standing there agape in horror as the elderly butternut next door groaned before depositing a third of itself onto our garage ten feet away.  Somehow it missed the Prius, concentrating its aim at the garage where it poked a bony finger through the roof.  The whitewater canoe may or may not be totalled; we can’t get close enough to ask it. 

​So, yes, we definitely registered this wind as a "touch."

Granted,  the neighbourhood is somewhat inured to watching the post-mature black locusts out near the street topple forward but the impending loss of any precious old butternut is discouraging after all the work we went to this summer to preserve its siblings.   Good grief, only hours earlier Jon and I were dutifully rebanding our trees in anticipation of the fall cankerworm season.

Even so, to tell you the truth,  we do still like windstorms.  But not quite as much.  And best observed from a treeless field.

Je m’excuse. It’s been quite a week around here and I have given up looking for the blog which I wrote last week, intending to post it on Monday as per our deal. As you may have noticed, it did not appear. Nor have I had any luck at all in finding in in the jungle which passes for my computer “desktop.” It seems to have returned to the sky-web, where it floats, plaintively calling out for me. Oh, well. Let’s try again.

I wrote about being preoccupied with two things a week ago. One was the 120 k windstorm which lashed us for hours on Friday. As before (barely a month ago), we were largely spared by the gusts which took down trees all around us. One set of neighbours lost four old trees - one a blue spruce which snapped off six feet up. The whole city is strewn with branches and the street has vibrated with chain saws for days. The only victim at our house was a Manitoba maple which had already been consigned to the “benign neglect” category for banding, as it is considered an unwelcome invasive species. My prairie nose is a bit out of joint but I’m managing.

The two concerns collided when at the height of the storm I watched a large red-tail battle its way over our house, being almost buffeted into the upstairs window ledge. I raced upstairs but the little dove family was fine, barely feeling a breeze (proving that choosing the right home is critical to successfully raising a family. As they say, “Location, Location, Location!). The hawk was probably preoccupied with returning home to feed its own babes.

​At five days old, the chicks were growing by leaps and bounds - systematically working on their pin feathers and stopping only to stick their heads down their parent’s beak to glug regurgitated “pigeon milk.” Now it makes sense to me that doves have only one or two chicks at a time. There is barely enough space (beak-wise) for two! I would happily post the little video but can't manage it. Help always welcome.

All in all, The Big Bad Wolf did his best to blow our house down. The Little Red Hen was right but this little piggy thinks we all ducked a disaster. Poor Theodore got the worst of it. Refusing to venture out the front door, he had to hold it for about five hours. Later that night I found a note under the pillow, asking for indoor facilities. I didn't dignify that with a response. Everyone knows he's too short to flush.

Note to self: paint another version of “On the Ledge” 2, this time smoothing the parent with a fan brush and reserving texture for the nest and those spiky punk chicks.

It’s a new show every day around here.