Apparently Canadian and Americans have somewhat different definitions of "packing";  we think of suitcases and they think of guns.    So too while the title of this post might suggest that I'd heading for the open road, nothing could be  further from the truth --  I am simply in love with autumn...right here at home.

Our roadsides around here are verged with piles of fallen leaves ready for pickup;  composted by the city, they obligingly break down into black earth by spring.   I remember walking with Jon down by the river one winter and noticing white spume rising from a brush pile beside the path. Neither of us could plunge our hands into it, so intense was the heat.  This kind of miracle knocks me dead.   Pretty impressive, Mother Nature!  What finally completed my conversion from leaf appreciator into a full-blown leaf hoarder, however, was an article in The Star written, I think, by Sonia Day in which she describes having built rich earth in her garden by the addition of fallen leaves.   Now the leafy bounty which threatens to bury us each fall is regarded correctly as a blessing rather than a curse.  Nobody but nobody gets my leaves.

Unfortunately, our tree species seem to have completely different internal clocks.  The maple leaves dropped weeks ago and the naturalized garden on the ravine edge has been liberally anointed with them,  but both the locust and the mulberry leaves cling like death until they are absolutely convinced of the necessity of self-sacrifice. It is, after all, their decision, and once that state of mind is achieved, no time is wasted.   Like kids off a sand cliff,  the mulberry leaves in particular seem to hold hands and jump together:  on Tuesday this week they were chatting away up there, all present and accounted for;   overnight, however,  their collective unconsciousness decided that enough was enough and the next morning found them all on the ground flash-frozen into brilliant green hills.  

Jewell too adored fallen leaves. She, however, would solemnly immerse herself in a pile, where she thoughtfully sniffed and stared into space;  we never hurried her, just assuming that she was re-reading old love letters.

This morning the sight of a yellowed ginkgo leaf on a path at Riverwood gave me a pleasurable start.  I hadn’t noticed such a tree but there it had evidently been growing!

It got me thinking about botany (so many things do) and what a part in that latitude plays.  Seeing that we share a common latitude, it shouldn’t be surprising that China’s field botany is much like our own, because plants establish themselves and colonize areas that suit them, just as people do.  Chinese and Canadian native plants thrive in similarly temperate climates, a fact that might give both countries pause regarding climate change.  Predictably, then,  gingko biloba (i.e. “two-lobed”), while long cultivated in China, also does well in Canadian cities, where it also withstands urban conditions admirably.  But what makes it so   exciting is its pedigree;  ginkgo’s fossil record dates it back 270 million years;  apparently its genetic flexibility allowed it to adjust without undergoing much speciation -   ginkgo could be said to demonstrate extreme ecologial conservatism, restricting its environment to disturbed streamsides for hundreds of millions of years.  Good grief.  Jon and I think living in the same house for thirty-five years counts for something.  Ginkgos sure know how to play the long game.  So to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, a ginkgo leaf is a ginkgo leaf is a gingko leaf, whether this year’s or in its stone incarnation. 


That must be why we can talk about giving some people “latitude” but you never hear an argument for  “longitude.”    Limited variation is easier.  So, while "Eastern" versus "Western" might involve different continents, one can also expect profound natural similarities, those driven by sharing Earth's tilt; "Northernly" versus "Southernly," on the other hand, presages deep-seated differences, whether in temperature ranges or in characteristic weather patterns. That’s not to say that I wasn’t thrilled to find a rare (at least around here) Carolinian species  - sassafras -  in the ravine edging our back garden;  I did, however, recognize it as bit of a natural stretch, a southern denizen, who verged on an anomaly. 

Might this begin to explain a recent election on our vertically-organized continent?  A bit too much longitude.

While my digital for “The Floating World” 6 may not have needed gilding, I hope I was clear in the last post that the vast majority of images could do with polish whether a little or a lot.  Several of my favourite paintings came from really dodgy reference shots.  In some cases the original image was so terrible that I seem to have have expunged it from my photo library.  You know I have kept over 20,000 jpegs:  that would give you some idea of how little there was to work with in those missing in action.  

However, here’s an example for which I do have the original reference:  a portrait within the “Reading the River” series.  The original shot was taken outside a nondescript cement block building and, while it had promise, needed some radical surgery first.  I sat on it for over a year, mulling over the problem (wrong shirt, hopeless background);  on the other hand, it had the makings of a good portrait with the added plus of superb gear.  I am frequently reminded by the resident fly fisher that gear trumps all else;  while I remain skeptical of that world view, I will acknowledge its truth in this particular photo.

The  solution when it finally arrived involved severe cropping.  I finally realized that the heart of the portrait was a skinny vertical.  Next to go was the plaid shirt, which distracted the focal points of his eyes, his hand, and (you guessed it)  the gear.  What mattered was the play of light throughout.  And then it worked.  Yippees all around.

I’ve always been bothered by the willingness of perfectly nice people to take a shot at the city I grew up in. Even though I hadn’t been home since my mom died exactly a decade ago I still describe myself as a proud Winnipeger. After her death, I just didn’t have the heart to go back, but finally admitted that I was lonesome for the dear friends who are still there. Besides, a milestone alumni reunion was looming, so, even though Jon was working, I went alone.

Just what I feared happened: I fell back in love with Canada’s best city.

Are you aware of the number of super-smart Canadians who come from Winnipeg or even, if they are lucky, still live there? It’s a large number in fact. In my own limited circle I am aware of
a Nobel Prize short-lister,
a writer of very successful history books ,
a professional NHL goalie,
a multitude of rock stars,
a wildly successful entrepreneur now in Britain,
a pair of Stratford directors,
an accomplished commodities trader,
a career economist who has developed global agricultural policies,
a poet/novelist who was short-listed by Norton,
a director of a theatre troupe which develops its own productions around the issues of social justice,
a talented print journalist,
and a host of outstanding professors, teachers, social workers, nurses — to whom we owe our thanks for a thriving and beautiful city.

And I’m just getting warmed up.

So there’s never a shortage of accomplished people to spend time with, even at the beach - which is not much more than an hour away. To gild the lily a bit more, Victoria Beach (car-free and beautiful) has a world class waterfront of white sand cliffs. The dinner parties I attended there and in the city were just as I remembered — lively conversations that reflect that Winnipeg combination of intelligence, warmth, and good food. As a houseguest, I was treated like a princess. And although Eleanor, one of my favourite people, is struggling with advanced age, she too graciously invited me over for tea and “dainties” (which, in Winnipeg, means sweets, not underwear, don’t you know).

Lest you think that we all cowered inside so as to avoid the climate, let me hasten to assure you that no such thing occurs. For one thing, they had a far better summer than the humidified drought we endured in southern Ontario this year. During my visit the sun shone all day every day and the skies were a clear deep blue. It was perfect weather to tour the zoo, visit the sculpture garden, wander the gardens in Assiniboine Park or explore the Exchange District.

And I arrived to find the autumnal city bustling with energy and beautiful new buildings. Not that they can improve on the early ones. Did you know that in the 1890’s, when my grandfather and his brothers owned a fine-woodworking shop just down from Eaton’s, linear frontage on Donald was more expensive than its Chicago counterpart? The major buildings from that period were invariably built of Tyndall stone, which is creamy and cut in huge slabs; I spent my childhood reading the fossil record while waiting for the bus.

Lack of time this year meant that I couldn't fit in the symphony, the theatre, or the ballet -- all of which I attended regularly even as a teenager. Growing up in Winnipeg meant acquiring culture whether you wanted it or not. In fact, Winnipeg hosts what was and may still be the biggest music festival in the world. ALL of us sang, played piano, or were part of an orchestra - sometimes simultaneously. I grew up assuming that "going to the festival" was a fact of life everywhere, in the same category as death and taxes. One of my worst memories is of accompanying the school orchestra and missing a repeat; the various strings went one way and I went another....in a concert hall filled to overflowing, including one mother who was beet red.

Returning to happier thoughts, the best surprise of this visit was to realize that the famous Winnipeg elms had survived. When Dutch Elm Disease arrived forty-five years ago, Winnipegers rallied to save our miles of Gothic-arched boulevards; I believe it is the only city to have succeeded on that scale. In fact, the mental image that I carried with me for the last decade actually fell short of the real thing. So, having walked for hours to take hundreds of street shots, I am planning to paint a boulevard of elms if I ever get ten minutes. In the meantime I leave you with a large painting of a street in Lorne Park, near here. It’s nice but when you eventually see its prairie counterpart, you will say — “Wow! That’s so gorgeous, it's gotta be Winnipeg!!”

Once in a while an image presents itself fully realized. I’ve been working this week on such a  photo -- yet another waterlily.... 

 “The Floating World” series focuses not so much on water lily blossoms but on lily pads themselves — palmate, heavily veined and deeply coloured.  Often there is a certain amount of tweaking that I, as the painter, do to satisfy whatever arcane motivation drives me to render that particular image.  But this, Number VI, rendered me gob-struck;  it was love at first sight.  As the dubious owner of 20,000 digitals (because you never know what you might want to paint), probably far fewer than several dozen have passed muster and needed no touchup. This time I wouldn’t, daren’t,  change a thing.  Not this baby.  Cinderella arrived already dressed for the party.

Whoever found and cultivated this particular variety of lily deserves a medal.  The long reflecting pool in the sculpture garden in Assiniboine Park is always ornamented with waterlilies and whenever I'm in town I gawk and drool over their glossy palmately-veined pads.  But the leaves of this variety are blotched with deep colours, hallucinogenic pinks and purples veined with limes.  This particular plant was winding down and the wind had flipped two leaves over, where their jewel tones  ranged from turquoise to magenta and scaparelli pink.  Add to that not only an open flower in which the elegant stamens cast blue shadows but unopened buds and a few hickory leaves in autumn dress.  Here and there the sky smiled back at itself and sunken leaves and stems glimmered from below.  All I had to do was kneel down and reverently press the shutter.

She is almost done.  I’m waiting for the shine to dull down before I decide whether or not she is finished.  This is one lily I feel absolutely no need to gild!