Side effects may include...

This is a pregnancy post.  

RiverWalker at 8 Months

©RiverWalker Arts 

At eight months pregnant I look like I’ve swallowed a full sized watermelon whole.  When people in the community look at me I get knowing smiles, from folks with twitching hands, and even the men ask me when I’m due  -  “it must be any day now”  they say.  I don’t mind the stares, and most folks are good about keeping their hands in their own personal space and off of the domed surface of my t-shirt stretched taught over my burgeoning belly.   However what I don’t understand is what people want to hear when they ask how pregnancy is treating me??  

Pregnancy is a bodily function.  Like most bodily functions it is not really the type of thing that is fit for decent company let alone casual conversation with a stranger over the grocery cart.  I’m really not sure what they want to hear?

 Is this like asking someone “how are you?”  where you should answer “I’m fine”.  

-          - “how is pregnancy treating you?”

- 

I am convinced they don’t want a list of bodily symptoms.  I.e. “My pelvis is slowing separating, it hurts”  or  maybe  “Oh pregnancy is good to me, I’ve managed to get my retching mostly under control, my ankles are only moderately swollen, and my fingers are too fat to wear my rings but it’s really cool... like having my own personal parasitological experiment growing inside me”

Really... pregnancy comes will all sort of gastrointestinal delights and a series of discomforts the websites call “symptoms of pregnancy”  - many of the lists read like the nasty quickly hurried through side effects listed on television pharmaceutical advertisements - things like – "Ask your doctor if Pregnancy is right for you... Side effects may include: nausea, vomiting, water weight gain, lower back pain, hairloss, tight itchy chafing clothing, high blood pressure, blood clots, uneven tire wear, urinary incontinence, increased attention from your in-laws, mild to severe discomfort, constipation,  diabetes, cluttered drawers, low resale value on your home, anxiety, sleeplessness, poor gas mileage, tooth decay, split ends, chest pains, clogged drains, hemorrhoids, dry heaving, and baby brain .'

Or maybe the answer is:

-        -    “how is pregnancy treating you?”

-        -  “not too shabby – How is your GI tract these days? “

But all silliness aside... please clarify for me.. what on earth are these people after when they try to initiate small talk about my obvious “Condition” ???

If men were equally at risk from this condition - if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette, or even an aspirin, that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto commuter trains - then I am sure that pregnancy would be classified as a sexually transmitted disease.

  ~Barbara Ehrenreich

Well I started Panel one... of my mural project.  Four blank white sheets of 4 x8 foot sign board (kind of like shiny smooth white coated plywood) were stacked in an abandoned industrial storefront.   A grubby place that had once served as a supplier of  industrial provisions and equipment for mining, forestry, oil and gas, industrial, and community businesses.  The rambling place had a grubby little office with fake wood paneling complete with some sort of yellowed floral print, and orange carpet.   The door to the office cut in half led out to a huge warehouse like space with an uneven  dust covered concrete floor and an assortment of peg board, cement block and aluminum sheeting walls. The maze continued through a door into a large empty and windowless room long enough to install a bowling alley but without any lighting.  Through a gap in one wall I wandered next to an old fashioned half broken Coca-Cola machine and through a crumbling pegboard hallway where I found the bathroom... a cramped little white room in behind the water heater half a step up and wedged tightly behind the door I even found a light switch.  The well stained sink looked perfect for washing brushes...

So I moved the panels around trying to figure out the best configuration for the mural I had yet to plan out...  but lifting and relocating 4x 8 sheets of plywood at a meagre five feet tall and 7 months pregnant  is no small feat.   Finally I got the panels all propped up and was ready to sketch.  Which I did in pale blue paint. 

However the project got stalled as I took off to look for some sunshine... something that we in the rain soaked north haven’t seen yet this year.  But then not many places in the Province have...   Dh and I loaded up the Car, threw the dog in the back, packed about with camping gear and a cooler full of dead and frozen fish.  We set out... 7 hours later the rain went from constant to torrential and the road was no longer visible for the water  sheeting down.  By hour 9  (and four bathroom breaks later) we rolled into the parking lot outside my brother’s abode... complete with “FOR SALE” sign on the door.   But it wasn’t until the next day several hundred kilometres south we finally hit sunshine.

It was lovely to finally arrive at MIL & FIL’s place and just sit out on the deck in the sun, in the full comfort of a jersey knit sundress pulled taught against the basketball sized lump that is my middle. 

We dropped off the dead fish, and headed out to the lake.

We camped, we swam in the lake, we threw sticks for the dog... and we toured the wineries of the Okanagan Valley....  Which if you ever decide to do – and it’s fun I do recommend it.  I would advise you wait until such a time as you are not pregnant, so that you are able to take full advantage of the wine experience – rather than having to watch your husband swirl wine in his glass, and sip while you look on with an expression much like your black lab might have while watching  as you ate a juicy rare steak.

It was fabulous to see the sun, to feel it on my skin and to wake to warmth each morning.  Sadly it all does come to an end, and I am now back in a rain soaked world, in long pants, socks, and fleece sweaters waiting for the elusive sun to show it’s face.

On the positive side I am now able to get back to my mural. 

But wait... the panels were gone, my key no longer able to turn the lock on the door...

It appears that in my absence my panels were moved into the basement, a place even grubbier than the upstairs, with a barnlike door, leading into a windowless place where piles of pink insulation littered the cracked and broken concrete that ended in a dirt floor piled with broken bits of unidentifiables  along with a few ancient computer monitors, and some metal bits which looked to me like metal tops off oxy-acetylene tanks.  A bucket in one corner filled with glass sample jars, containing bits of soil, the back wall stacked with an assortment of white bathroom fixtures, a fibreglass tub, porcelain toilet, urinal etc.  Once again I hoisted the panels stacking them against walls and beams to the best of my abilities in an effort to maximize the available light.   I poured my paints, and found to my disappointment that despite the plethora of bathroom paraphernalia, there was no actual functioning toilet.  Although a single tap stuck out of the wall - right next to some electrical cords  - no drain in sight. So at least with buckets and I was able to wash out brushes and move forward some with my latest project. hopefully I will avoid electrocution .

First of 4 Panels.

                                                                                       

Weather is a great metaphor for life - sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and there's nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella.  ~Terri Guillemets

bonking fish and a fear of scaffolding

My Brother and the Quesnel Family came to visit last weekend.  This included the almost one year old hurricane Mango. Who is quite the cutie – a good thing too considering the unending patience needed to watch over him as he crawled up and down and up and down and up and down the stairs.  Although not yet able to walk, he certainly can get around crawling or with one hand attached to something solid.  He liked to push the dog dish around.  In fact he was quite taken by the dog… kind of a fascination for a large fuzzy quadruped  beast I suppose.  He would crawl up to her and stuff his head between her legs and push his face into her belly.  She tolerated it well, occasionally leaning down to snoofle him and lick his face.  I figure it’s slobber pay back… Brother was much more nervous than the rest of us who trusted my dog implicitly as she is a gentle and timid creature despite the 75 pounds of solid muscle and black fur.  The Boys spent the days on the ocean bonking fish on the head and coming home coated in fragrant slime – however their success was evidenced by a series of delicious fresh dinners presented nightly.  What wasn’t eaten was loaded into the car and drove out of town on Monday morning….

On a completely different note... my art show has been a success, from my perspective anyway.   At the opening  reception tea and white wine was served alongside  sushi appetizers to all who came to browse.  I managed to sell a number of original pieces. The Show will end this Sunday and I will take down what did not sell and stash them in my closet where art work spends most of its days. 

But while I will have art work languishing in my closet ignored and unloved. I have also been busy volunteering myself for all sorts of art related endeavours.  For instance in what must have been a rather weak moment… or maybe I was just tired and didn’t know what I was volunteering myself for…. I somehow have found myself committed to posing in all my very pregnant glory for a group of local artists.  I’m hoping they don’t actually credit the model in any of the works that make it out for public consumption.    However in a more sane although potentially more public venue I volunteered my time to paint a mural of sorts on one of the buildings in town.  The guy who own the building cringed at the very thought of seeing a pregnant lady on scaffolding, and so they purchased a number of large panels that will fit together and be mounted on the building.  My own stipulation is the use of water based paints, as I’ve no desire to fight with solvents ... they stink, they are messy.   So soon folks will get a chance to watch me painting through the window of a local industrial supplies building, and then my work... good, bad or ugly... will be displayed prominently on the building side overlooking the street... for all to pass judgement.

Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work...  Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it.  That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.  ~Jean Cocteau

An Exhibition of Colour and Light

OPA Sushi & RiverWalker Arts - Presents :
An exhibition of Colour and Light.
Opening reception on Sunday May 29th 2-5 pm At Opa Sushi in Cow Bay
Please come celebrate my  Newest Works inspired by our beautiful North Coast.

EVERYONE WELCOME.
Show runs until June 26th.

Art is your emotions flowing in a river of imagination.

It’s spring.  There are signs.  The rain remains unabated, a permanent feature of damp and cold.  While it is unlikely we will dip below freezing for the season it is not warm out. 

The girls usually take one weekend a year and head out to the ranch for a weekend on horseback.  A weekend of sleeping in a bunk house, sitting around a fire, eating, and riding through the high sub-alpine meadows in the stunning Driftwood Canyon looking out towards the Bulkley valley shadowed by the majestic Hudson Bay Mountain and it’s gleaming white Glacier . 

However for this year I had to give it a pass at over 6 months pregnant… horse back riding is apparently not recommended. So while I mourned the loss of a weekend in the saddle, I took the opportunity to do something else in life which I love….  ART!

Last weekend was the local Easel Weasel semi-annual art workshop.  This spring the artist we invited to teach was Nicole Best Rudderham. (http://nicolebestrudderham.com/).  Friday evening we met in the penthouse boardroom of a local hotel – the view from the wall of windows looking out over the harbour is inspiration in itself.  An uninterrupted view of the harbour, picturesque with the small islands across the way and the sleeping behemoths that are the anchored bulk carriers awaiting their cargo of grain, coal or logs all of which are exported across the pacific to Asian market.  After a lesson on Friday evening we touched paint to paper as the sun began to set in glorious colours.

With a full two days of painting following that auspicious beginning… I am once more inspired and have learned a few more techniques which I hope to continue to use.

Here is an unfinished look at one of the pieces I produced (although it still needs some refinement). 

Oona River Rock

©RiverWalker Arts

The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it. ~Author Unknown

Marking Spring by an Invasion of the RVs

It’s been between 8 and 11 degrees for the past two weeks.. and although the rain has let up and the day has proven to be warm and sunny, the forecast looking forward -  Monday through Friday does not vary... Rain. Low 8. High 11.  However... with Easter in the past and the May long weekend staring at us in the face... it seems that that spring is definitely here.  

Looking out the kitchen window, I see into the neighbouring cul-de-sac, where a  monstrous RV has been backed onto the lawn such that it became necessary to conduct significant pruning to the tree that once grew vigorously in the middle of the yard.  Parked on the curb in front of the fibreglass monstrosity is a jacked up chevy with an ATV balanced next to a large red fuel tank in the back,  completing the picture are the bush bar, winch and string of trendy “KC” flood lights mounted both on the grille guard, and roll bar.    

On the opposite side of the house, is my own sleepy cul-de sac.  Where my neighbour’s most recent guest has parked his “Toy Hauler”  which is basically a GIANT fifth wheels with a built in garage to hold anything from ATV’s, motorcycles, Jet Ski’s, etc.   I’m not sure what is being hauled around in the atrocity parked next to my driveway, but I’ve lived in houses that were smaller....

As if the RV’s were not enough, the fibreglass boats that have sprung up around town is a sure sign of spring.  

I have the fortune of living in a small isolated community located at the crossroads of two of this Province’s  best salmon producing rivers, the Nass River and the Skeena River...  despite over 100 local guides who charge upwards of $1000 per day, when spring comes (peak salmon season... but just as good for crab, prawns, halibut, rockfish etc.) the town swells under an influx of RV’s towing a whole variety of aluminum and fibreglass fishing boats... They come in droves for the fish that ply these waters. 

It is these boats that appear to be arriving, largely from out of province if the licence plates are any indication that marks the sure sign of spring.  

Spring has arrived... of that there is no doubt.... 

Now if only I could get the weather to cooperate....

I would love to get outside to paint!

 My biggest worry is that my wife (when I'm dead) will sell my fishing gear for what I said I paid for it.  ~Koos Brandt

Easter in a nutshell and an Art Opening

Easter is a strange time of year.  It is the celebration of spring and renewal, and while it is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year, this feast is marked by rabbits, newly hatched chicks, eggs, and chocolate.   The term Easter dates back well over a millennia wherein the Germanic "Ēostre month" (April), was named after the goddess Ēostre of Anglo-Saxon paganism.  Throw in a few lambs, a turkey dinner (possibly ham), a long weekend, sugar addled children and a touch of necromancy… and Voila! You have Easter in a nutshell.

But regardless of how one celebrates, or why – there is something about the post Easter world that is fresh and new and full of possibilities.  I think it might have something to do with the natural world and the beginnings of the buds on the bare tree branches,  the small green shoots pushing their way through the soil and embarking on their tentative journey toward the lushness of summer.  

As for myself… I’ve been again inspired, and this time… I’m Opening my own art show.  It will be at the local Sushi restaurant.  An exhibition of my newest works, and an exploration in colour and light.  On the 29^th of May between 1 and 5 I hope to host an opening that will showcase a collection of orginal art work.  I am excited about this opportunity.  I am not unknown in this town, but nor am I an accomplished artist here.

Please wish me the best.  And if you are willing, able, or live close enough, please come out to support me.