EASTEND SK

This is, at first blush, an unlikely place for an artist's residency.  It is at the east end of the Cypress Hills which straddle south-eastern Alberta and south-western Saskatchewan.  The surrounding area has a history of hardship, bloodshed, conflict between native populations and settlers from east of this area.  Less than a hundred and fifty years ago it was a land of buffalo, grizzly bears and cougars. Here is where the Northwest Mounted Police were established at Fort Walsh to squelch rum running and to protect the Medicine Line.

Eastend, now a picturesque, pleasant town has been immortalized in Wallace Stegner's book called Wolf Willow.  He peels back the layers of memory of his childhood spent here and reveals the essence of being a westerner and, as he puts it, a sticker.  Of course things have changed since Stegner was a youngster but believe me, the powerful pull of the land is still very much part of the psyche of the citizens.

I confess I am here at the Wallace Stegner House in part to explore the experience of being an artist in residence but more, I am exploring my own history through the lives of my paternal grand-parents who homesteaded in Aylesbury area, just a hundred or so kilometres north east of here.  Grandfather Ferguson left Ontario with a wanderlust that is a genetic trait I own.  He met his match in my adventurous Grandmother who came to the prairies, sight unseen to marry a man she would love for over fifty years, bearing him twelve children.

My task over the next three and a half weeks will be to create a book about these two relatives.  I am starting at the very beginning.  I will bind the book myself and illustrate the pages.  To honor my grandfather and my father who were both creative men, I will also write poetry to accompany the illustrations.

There.  Now I have made my committment and have shared it.

These are some photos of my studio.  I'm forever paring down, scaling back, refocussing - whatever!  It's a struggle that I suspect I share with many creative folks.  Writing right now has got me in its clutches but I will finish my monster painting!

Yellow Crane Tower, Wuhan, China 

Home Again!

It is wonderful to be back in clean, quiet Canada!  I am overwhelmed with the enormity of what I have experienced in the last seven weeks.  I understand now why people travel through Asia.  It can stand a westerner on her ear and turn her head around 360 degrees, if she is willing.  I am dreaming like a madwoman, awakening in the night wondering what country I'm in right now.  I suppose what is happening is that my beleaguered brain is beginning to sort out all the images, sounds, smells and feelings.

In Guangzhou, I purchased a set of Chinese calligraphy brushes that come to a fine point, and in Wuhan, a chop with my name in Mandarin.  I don't know if I will actually use the chop, but it gives me confidence and reminds me of where I've been.  I know I will use the brushes.  They make the most elegant strokes, expressing grace and clarity.

 I feel so strangely changed.   What will my writing, drawing and sculpture look like from now on?  It could never be the same as before because I am not the same.

China

It's been said that to truly know your own country, you must leave it for a while to get perspective.  We are heading for China, Vietnam and Cambodia in two weeks and will have an opportunity to test this saying.  I'm exhilarated, thrilled and just a wee bit terrified!  I have only been in a "big" city once (Chicago) and that was for four days.  I spent nearly all my waking hours in art galleries and just can't say that I became familiar with the American culture.  For nearly six weeks, we will be in several genuinely big cities.  We will be absorbing sounds, smells, sights and customs that are completely new to us, and yet old as Methuselah to the citizens of those countries.
So, during this trip I'm hoping to make time each day to record, through sketching and journaling, some of the effects all that stimulation will have on this old soul.   Our budget is small, and we will be traveling with friends who speak the language and know the culture and customs AND have the wherewithal to keep us out of the tourist traps set for the foreign devils!  I'm reciting to myself some basic rules of etiquette as laid out in various books aimed at people like us - don't point your chopsticks and don't stab food with them, don't pat children on the head  (it's a sacred part of their bodies), don't point the soles of your feet at anyone (rough on me because I'm short and always wiggling around in a chair, looking for a comfortable way to sit), don't make constant eye contact (also rough on me, having spent 16 years learning to make eye contact because we live in a small town now) and a few others which I'm sure I will be forgiven for if I commit.

Getting back down to It...

The very things that make us human and, therefore give us something to actually say or otherwise express, are often the things that prevent us from getting down to it.   I'm trying to roll with this epiphany.  The last month and a half have been full of living, and as I realize the richness of my life, I'm teaching myself to relax into it rather than agonize and agitate.

Last night on iPhoto I played a few pictures of my drawings and sculpture from over the years and up to the present, with some Djivan Gasparian as background music.  It put an entirely different slant on things for me.  What I realized is that I have some good work but not nearly enough to "fill out" a theme or an idea.  (My good friend, Sue, has pointed this out to me already, so this was merely a confirmation of what I know to be true.)  Still, two smacks upside the head are better than one, so with this on my mind, I'm once again pulling things back in, focussing and working towards digging deeper and deeper.