Plan B

The snow has been swirling out my window on and off all day.  There is a dusting on the ground, wet and icy with the freezing rain that alternated with the bouts of snow.  It’s been dark and dreary looking.  My black furball of a dog is curled up under my chair giving off the odour of wet dog.  She will dry eventually.   (maybe)

I have a calendar that I was given for Christmas, it hangs next to my desk and reminds me that “Life is all about how you handle plan “B”.  Which seems very apt lately.  Gracing the month of January is a cartoon image of a wild looking redhead, her hair billowing around her head in wild shades of orange on a lime green backdrop.   Boldly printed alongside this wild looking woman it says  “ I learned long ago that shifting into Plan B takes more patience, skill, and humility than it ever took to figure out Plan A in the first place. (Discarding your preconceived ideas and then reexamining all the contingencies is not a job for sissies!) But thing rarely turn out exactly as we planned, and at that point, we have to decide whether or not to shift gears, embrace the change, and test out who we really are. “

Plan B.  The truest test of character.

Clearly there is a reason that people quote each other saying “even the best laid plans.....” 

 it’s true.

But at the end of the day... life wouldn’t be interesting if things always went according to plan.

.

Anyone who tells you portaging is fun is either a liar, or crazy, or maybe both

In August my family set out on a 7 night backcountry canoe journey.  It was a dream of my father’s to paddle a chain of lakes in BC’s interior.  And so 6 of us loaded up the canoes, and launched into the lakes to test ourselves against the weather.  There was spectacular clear lakes surrounded with rugged peaks,  stunning sunsets and torrential rain.  The flat calm water stirred itself into a rage and we huddled wet and cold on a sandbar to wait out the storm.  We paddled.  And camped, and paddled and got rained on and huddled around an old woodstove in a rustic trappers cabin with our wet gear hung out to dry... we woke to blazing sun and we paddled down the caribou river avoiding sweepers and dead heads…. – we hauled out and portaged overland between lakes before paddling onward through the cloud soaked mountains and seemingly deserted waters.

I look back fondly at the days we spent away from the world of plastics, and electricity, on lakes free from any motors, where there are no beer cans or bottle tops, no roads or ATV trails, no sounds of aircraft flying above, no power lines or humming generators.   A place where the mists rise and linger cloaking the forest and every thought is the present.  I never once thought about work, we never talked about our life back home in land of conveniences and solid walls.  Our life on those lakes was all about the here and now. 

In a fit of nostalgia I sat at my desk and began to paint.  This is the product of that moment... and yet my need to paint memories of that trip has not been slaked, as there sits on my desk yet another canvas from which a canoe is springing forth from the mists. 

Isaac Lake

 Original Watercolour

“I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy.”  ~Hamlin Garland, McClure's, February 1899

© RiverWalker Arts

Does anyone even know where Smithers is???

Another Shameless Plug for my Art

The News of the day is that  the Smithers Art Gallery is launching 'Christmas in the Gallery', a new endeavour which offers unique, one-of-a-kind works for sale.  From December 7^th to 24^th, the usual exhibit space will be transformed into a gift shop featuring a lovely selection of RiverWalker Artworks!.

That’s right folks… my Kayak print.. right there on the advertisement poster in full colour.   

So what do you think!  I’m pretty excited about this latest foray into the public eye.  Especially since the Gallery will be selling authentic RiverWalker Arts Original Watercolours, Matted Prints in three different sizes and everyone’s all time favourite:  Art Cards!

On the evening of Friday December 10^th, all are invited to drop by the gallery between 7pm and 9pm to share some Christmas cheer and enjoy some live music.

If you happen to be up in the area please do drop by.  

The 'Christmas in the Gallery' Gift Shop Tues. - Saturday 12 - 4pm

 Smithers Art Gallery

At the corner of Highway 16 & Main Street

Smithers, BC

(250) 847-3898

fighting back against the encroaching darkness

Ghost stories told around campfires begin with the words  " it was a dark and stormy night".  Everyone hears the words and settles down relaxes and opens themselves up for the things that go bump in the night.  but for me almost every night is a dark and stormy night.  The wind howls and drives the rain pelting against the world and obscuring the streetlamps into a diaphanous glow refracted off the tiny ripples that punctuate the sheets of water running down the windows. This morning is much the same.  Although technically sunrise was at 8:45, it is well past 9am and still dark, the forecast reads : Rain. Amount 25 mm. Wind southeast 80 to 100 km/h. Temperature steady near 6'C.

 the steady march towards the winter solstice when the earth's axial tilt is furthest away from the sun brings us shorter days and longer nights,  the continual cloud cover and constant rains enhance the claustrophobic feeling of perpetual darkness.  The depressive psychological effects of winter and damaged circadian rhythm begins taking its toll on individuals in the form of tiredness, coldness and malaise.

In some sort of an effort to fight back against the encroaching darkness we garland our homes in coloured lights, and host gatherings for friends and family. The other thing that occasional breaks up the winter darkness are the brightly lit halls of art, theatre and music. Drawn like moths to a flame, folk enter the glow of the lobby and shake off the wet, stamp feet and rub hands together. They put up their coats and enter an escape... a bit of magic.   I am going to participate in making some of that winter magic. 

 I've accepted an invitation to display my art at the Smithers art gallery. Just for December.  From December 7th to 24th, the Gallery will be transformed into a Winter display of unique possibilities, a juried exhibit and sale of fine art...

in anticipation I've put together a couple lovely miniature Christmas paintings:

plumes de neige

©RiverWalker Arts

Original Watercolour (4.5 x 6.5 inches)  $55

Les premiers flocons sont quelque chose de féerique.

He was made of snow
But the children know
How he came to life one day

O Tannenbaum

 ©RiverWalker Arts

Original Watercolour (4.5 x 8.5inches)  $55

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Thy candles shine out brightly!
Each bough doth hold its tiny light,
That makes each toy to sparkle bright

Important note:

I have also just printed 500 art cards.  37 different Prints to choose from including these two lovely new Christmas Images.

 If you are interested in purchasing any of my works as art cards please feel free to email me at bluecnidaria@hotmail.com  All cards are 5x7 inches and cost $5 plus shipping.  See http://riverwalkerarts.blogspot.com/p/my-art.html for image choices. 

<*)+++<
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:  it is the time for home.”  ~Edith Sitwell

facing a break from 20 years of tradition

The snow is falling.  The world is dusted in white.  The children squeal and run with mittens trailing from coat sleeves.  It is still November but the cold has brought about an early Christmas spirit despite the perpetual grumblings about weather.  If it is not too hot, or too rainy then it’s too cold and what is this white stuff anyway. 

I have decided to enjoy all weather.. although days of sleet on end can get a bit depressing.  This white stuff has got me thinking about my annual Christmas card.  A tradition I started in 1990 with a lopsided candle ringed with pine boughs and bits of holly.  Since then I have put out 20 different Christmas cards...  this year I’ve decided to go bold and paint a whimsical scene with watercolours, breaking off all tradition, as previously all my cards are based in black and white ink.  So card # 21 will grace the world this year is a splash of unprecedented colour... now if I can only get it printed in time!

Here are  the cards in my collection...

©RiverWalker Arts 1990

©RiverWalker Arts 1991

©RiverWalker Arts 1992

©RiverWalker Arts 1993

©RiverWalker Arts 1994

©RiverWalker Arts 1995

©RiverWalker Arts 1996

©RiverWalker Arts 1997

©RiverWalker Arts 1998

©RiverWalker Arts 1999

©RiverWalker Arts 2000

©RiverWalker Arts 2000

©RiverWalker Arts 2001

©RiverWalker Arts 2002

©RiverWalker Arts 2003

©RiverWalker Arts 2004

©RiverWalker Arts 2005

©RiverWalker Arts 2006

©RiverWalker Arts 2007

©RiverWalker Arts 2008

©RiverWalker Arts 2009

a place of words - difficult to spell and harder to pronounce.



Halloween is over. The Christmas season has not arrived… and so we find ourselves in a frigid November.  The sky is grey and dark, the temperatures are sub-zero…or maybe I’m just poorly adjusting to the weather after a fall vacation to Hawaii.  The Big Island to be specific. 



© RiverWalker Arts



The temperature was 28 degrees and didn’t vary from that except as we got higher in elevation heading towards the domain of Madame Pele, Hawaiian Volcano and Fire Goddess. Known as She Who Shapes the Land, Pele the expression and embodiment of divine creative power. She is the flame of passion and the fire of purpose, the energy of dynamic action and the glowing essence of eternal and profound love.  Pele has been making her home in Halemaumau, the fire pit of the Kilauea crater on the island of Hawaii. As we wound our way around the island slowly gaining elevation and making our way up Kilauea past the current eruption that has been oozing lava from the Pu’u‘Ō’ō vent like an unhealed wound which smothered the towns of Kalapana and Kaimū before it reached the sea. 

The air was lightly chilled and began to smell of sulphur as we walked through an ancient lava tube and set out for the lava fields along the chain of craters left in Pele’s wake.  The barren landscape was dotted by tiny shoots of green vegetation clinging against all odds to the sharp glassy black rock. 

Goddess Pele
painting by Arthur Johnsen

There was an eerie feeling to knowing that the very ground beneath my feet was younger than I, and an admiration at the tenacity of odd tree able to nourish itself in the rock.  As we approached the crater the smell of sulphur intensified and indeed Kilauea’s main crater has been busy spewing suffer dioxide since an explosion of dust and rock in 2008. 

But Madame Pele can be found in more places that the crater of Kilauea .. she appears sometimes as a tall beautiful woman and at other times as a frail old crone.  Of course I’m not sure if I actually was graced with the presence of the divine…. But the water felt like heaven… cool on the skin and yet warm enough to swim in all day.  And so I swam with the fishes and floated among the corals…I soaked in the humid air, revelled in the clear skies and the sun that shone down upon me all week. but all good things come to an end and so we returned from the lands of molten rock with it’s goddess possessing  the creative force to transform and rebuild the landscape and our lives.

Bushwackin' Blisters

I spent today in a pair of “corks”.

Wikipedia defines “corks” as follows:  “Caulk boots (pronounced "cork" and usually called "corks") are leather or rubber  nail-soled boots worn by lumberjacks in the timber-producing regions of the Pacific Northwest and Canada. “  (information gathered by thousands of unqualified people might not be the most accurate of sources but it serves my purposes most of the time… ) Aside from the  questionable accuracy of the wikipedia world.. the definition here is roughly correct.  (note that they are also marketed as chainsaw boots)



What is poorly described in any definition – including the websites that sell these frightful looking things is the male bias of the logging industry  …. corks don’t come in ladies sizes… so I’ve been sporting a pair of drastically over sized steel toed, rubber boots with steel spikes on the bottom that just about reach my knee… and weigh close to 5lbs each.  Oh yes.. you heard that right.  My poor little feet need 2 pairs of wool socks plus a pair of  quilted slippers called bama-boots just to keep these things from falling off my feet.



Despite the ill-fit and excessive weight of these gastly items walking through the slash of felled logs, root-wads and heaps of branches on a set of dangerous looking steel spikes sure come in handy.  Imagine a series of giant thumbtacks sticking out of the bottoms of your shoes...   The tracktion is great, sticking to slippery logs like velcro, and leaving the coolest looking footprints. That being said - The slimy rock in the creek …. Still deathly slippery…(thumbtacks remember.. Big ones..)  with the added bonus of the weight of these orange monsters and you’ve got a recipe for drowned rat on your hands.

photo off internet.... photo of me in the ORANGE beasts
I've been traipsing around in to follow at later date!

Today I spent the day in corks…. But after a full day tramping around in the bushes with my corks… I’ve got sore feet, blistered ankles… and I’m not exactly dry or mud free.  The upside however..  I wasn’t in the office.