The last year of my mother's life began with a series of heart attacks;  I flew home immediately to be with her.  It was November and cold but neither of us minded that.  Most days I walked to the hospital and climbed onto the bed with her where we read together and reminisced.  Sometimes we wandered down to the cafeteria for a coffee.  The days were slow, peaceful, and loving.  To a person, the staff was outstandingly kind to us.   

 I usually walked back to her apartment for supper and, as per Mom's request,  planned to stay put in the evenings because without a car it was too dangerous to be walking at night.  But I am blessed to have good friends and Irene is one of them.  She often came to pick me up to take me for a walk in the city park at dusk.  The elms stood in stark relief against the sunsets, and the snow wore a royal mantle of purple.  Surrounded by this loveliness, we talked about everything -- aging parents, our own health, films and books, and mutual friends.  Irene's wise counsel gave me the perspective to understand and accept what was going on.  Other old friends - Ron and Dawn, Patti and Rik, Ruth and Bob,  Melanie and John -- invited me for suppers and quiet evenings. I never felt alone.

When the hospital wanted to release Mom to a nursing home,  I knew that she had to be near us. That wonderful medical team helped me negotiate the paperwork needed to bring her here.  I packed up the apartment, disbursed belongings and bought plane tickets.  It was a long day, but Ron got us to the plane, oxygen tank and all,  and Myrna and Mani were there at the other end with Jon to meet us.  Mom lived another nine months.  Today is the anniversary of her death, eight years ago.  As always, I will spend the day with her, looking at old pictures, listening to her voice tapes and looking at her paintings and embroidery.  Not that there is any need to remember my mother;  she is everywhere I look in our home.

This painting in particular conjures both loss and riches and my heart feels full.

For those of you who have had the pluck to hang in as I have worked my way from right to left, this is the last post.  I am determined to finish her tomorrow and post on the website itself as soon as the sheen dies down a touch.  
Today the title literally surfaced in front of  me in the form of an ancient memory.    Whitman's poem, "Leaves of Grass," begins with "Into the cradle endlessly rocking" and goes on to celebrate the bittersweet issues of love and life by means of its lush natural imagery;  like Whitman (and Emerson),   Jon and I were submerged  in the glory of sensuous creation.  I am so grateful for these transcendent experiences.

I've been musing about the relationship between shadows and reflections. They share many properties and both sing when they are full of colour. This painting in progress contains both, but the shadows are so deep as to be nothing but colour: their black transparent depths can be achieved only by multiple layers of the primaries. This time, however, it's the reflections that delight me.



On the right, the calm water captures the face of the land and shimmers in delight. Nothing is distinct. This restful scene is where I want the eye to begin. Then the current begins to pick up on the lower right and then moves purposefully on the diagonal rising to the left. Strokes of paint convey the angle and forceful direction. That strong current traces the deep channel, which swings back around, up and towards the right. This focal area is where I've placed the hardest edges, the greatest detail and the highest contrast.



Once the river rounds the bend and disappears mid-top, I hope the viewer's eye will naturally complete the ellipse and return to the peaceful opening act..



At least........that's the plan! In the meantime, you will note that I have unconsciously echoed that progression in my work (which normally proceeds left to right). It's been a busy week and I'm longing to get to that side of the canvas but life does intervene, doesn't it.

I frittered my life (and chores) away again today dabbling with paint.  Exploring this image is however proving a happy experience.

My painting mood often mirrors that of the moment when I took the reference shot.  As Toad would say, "There's nothing better than messing around in boats!"  I would add only the caveat of "in good weather."  This particular day was idyllic.  There was lots of water in the river, a situation which dramatically lowers the likelihood of dealing with rocks.  While we  own five canoes and a kayak  (a situation I would never had predicted, but there you have it), they are all getting a bit long in the tooth so water volume matters.  The second ingredient is good weather and this particular day fit the bill.  I think we were paddling Durham to Hanover here;  certainly we were on The Saugeen.  I remember putting my paddle down frequently to take dozens of shots from the bow while Jon amiably aimed us toward the deepest channel. The river had a dream-like quality.  We floated above a high-key semi-abstract painting.

Now as I work on the painting, the depths of the river are slowly revealing themselves to me below that glowing surface.  I can see that Jon is guiding us towards the deeper water against the left bank. I can see the current picking up but no back ferrying will be needed on this calm August waterway.  The huge walnut trees are casting huge deep shadows but sunshine sneaks through often enough to dapple the banks with memories of spring greens.  There are signs of autumn here and there.

It's a complicated scene and I primed this large canvas several months ago in preparation for tackling it on a large canvas.  Taking the first stroke didn't happen until last weekend.  Winston Churchill was a Sunday painter who stood one day paralyzed before the pure white sheet of watercolour paper ;  his painting companion apparently reached over and made a swipe with his own loaded brush, announcing "The enemy is vanquished!"  

So have I stood all summer in front of my own empty canvas.  And then suddenly, the time was right.  I have gradually learned to accept this invitation to the dance more gracefully;  it was Hamlet  who taught me.  I have always believed that the play is not so much about indecision but rather, the process of becoming ready.  At the end of Act IV when he explains to Horatio that "Readiness is all,"  Hamlet signals his sense of clarity,  and the play's action hurls itself towards the final tragedy.  

Now while I do hope that is not quite what is happening to my canvas, I do agree with Shakespeare that it may be necessary to wait until the time is right.  Most importantly,  only you know when that moment has arrived but when it does, the command to begin is unmistakeable.  

I'm deep into two new books , both of which are fascinating:  The Grapes of Math and How Not to be Wrong.  I began the latter first but made the mistake of reading tidbits to Jon;  before I knew it, he was reading over my shoulder and then holding the book. Hmmm.  Never mind.  Both books hop, skip and jump through the major discoveries of mathematics, every one of which represented a quantum leap in human understanding.  I particularly loved the description of Thales around 600 BCE realizing that he could calculate the height of the Great Pyramid simply by measuring the height of his staff, the length of the shadow it cast, and the angle from the ground to the pyramid's apex.  And with that, he invented trigonometry!

My squirrelly brain immediately jumped to the issue of shadows and how much other information they contain. Outdoor shadows on white -whether snow or dress shirts, for example- reflect a myriad of blues whenever the sun is shining. Because shadows contain elements of both the object and the surface on which they fall, when that surface is already coloured life gets interesting. Painters sweat this issue and our most successful paintings often feature a great shadow. Now I shall go hunting for a decent example. Watch this space...    Got one!

Now that I'm committing musings and memories to the "page,"  when I'm actually talking with one of you I find myself stopping, mid- conversation, unsure of whether to continue with a line of thought.  The worry is that I've already worked it through or drawn on an old experience at some point in this blog and that you are familiar with it already.   I was raised not to repeat myself so, daunted by the prospect of boring you to death in person (which is somehow worse than doing it in print), I've started to preface a thought by mumbling something about having blogged about it --  in the hope that you will shut me down when appropriate.  Checking up on your reading habits was never my intent.

Major backfire.  Without fail, you apologize for not having read said blog, reporting shamefacedly that life has been busy.  No kidding.  GOOD GRIEF.  Please forgive ME.  Somehow I seem to have transformed this convenient medium into a guilt machine.  

Let me be absolutely clear:  I write, as I paint, for its own sake and I'm thrilled if you have a moment to share.  All of you are as busy if not busier than I am.  Remember "dates" vs "marriages" in the choosing of recreational fiction?  This blog barely qualifies as a date.  Think of it more as a quick chat over the back fence or a chance meeting over coffee!  I'm delighted and grateful if you find the time to drop by.  The only emotions allowed are pleasure or interest.  Deal?  I'm holding you to it.

And if you're still here, this is what I'm presently working on;  the daily work is posted on the website.    As you can see, I'm working right to left (channeling some ancient Chinese ancestor).  The right is considerably more advanced, although I do not think that is true politically.  The shot was taken from the canoe on long paddle down the Saugeen.  The sky was a truly great colour and, of course, the river was shiny with bright reflections.  How could I say no.

This week we had a terrific thunderstorm.  It took its time approaching, growling out its progress, but by suppertime we were inundated.  There had been ample time to put away tools and cushions and all there was left to do was to enjoy.

It's hard for me to pinpoint why I so love storms.  Perhaps it is genetic for my father stayed tuned to the weather channel year-round.  It could also be the effect of those millions of feel-good negative ions which are released when raindrops land.  

And don't forget that rain polishes everything to a high gloss.  Jon calls me a magpie because I love shiny things.  

Whatever the reason, I am always buoyed by the raw drama of a storm and sorry when it is over.  Even in the middle of the night, Jewell and I would get up and head for the living room for the best view of the proceedings.  (No sissy, our girl would attend fireworks displays with us although she did have a habit of falling asleep, nose tucked contentedly under her tail.)

This large painting took over a year to complete.  I had taken the original shot in the late afternoon of a dark fall day.  While it had rained earlier, the road had dried.  When I finished the canvas shortly after, I was happy with the tree canopy but not with the street itself.  Over the next year a school bus came and went; cars appeared and disappeared or changed models.  Still not right.

Only when I drove that same street again the following autumn did I find what I had been instinctively looking for:  a dark and shiny road!  Despite the pouring rain I parked the car, marched to the centre of the road and took my shot before scampering back to safety. 

We once bought a very funny book which purported to be a field guide to road-kill.  I suppose I should count myself lucky that Flattened Fauna doesn't have a new edition which include paintress magpieiae. 

To our delight, the wild honeybee hive in one of the ancient cedars is again alive with busy-ness (back in business?  dizzy with buzzyness?).  Last spring the cavity had stood dark and quiet after years of continuous use.  By July, we had given up hope.  Whether the hive had collapsed because of the severe winter or the effect of neonicotinoid insecticides that have wiped out so many of the local hives, we did not know;  we simply missed the girls and worried both for them and for our food supply.

This weekend, at the end of summer, we saw life resumed.  Perhaps the new queen had even been born in our cedar and, having successfully established a new colony, had brought her daughters back to a location she remembered.  Or perhaps, to a passing swarm, it simply looked like a great home site, conveniently vacant.  After Jon gave me the happy news, I tried unsuccessfuly to photograph the industrious sisters but our old cedar was once again in the honey business and no one had time to sit for a portrait.  The workers poured in and out, dropping through the air from the treetops and leaping back out seconds later.   

I like to think that the meadow is still making golden sweetness even now as it winds down.  Certainly fruit trees and grape vines have flourished this wet summer and enough bees survived to pollinate them.  Fall in Canada is garbed in the purples of asters, wild grapes, knapweed and chickory, and the cadmium yellows of goldenrod and rudbeckia;  it is indeed the "(s)eason of mists and mellow fruitfulness," as the dying and homesick John Keats described it in Italy. We are so lucky to live in this temperate clime and to enjoy the bounty that is autumn.  I think that I shall go to eat a grape or two, while trying to remain mindful of whom to thank.